So in lat pull downs, seated rows, bent over rows… I feel as though I’m muscling the weight up with my arms rather than my lats. Like I can’t “activate” my back or something. What do I need to do?
Like a competing bodybuilder once told me, first, on an exercise like rows, you make sure your back is in the right position. I remember he specifically related it to those fitness chicks you see in the mags with their asses pushed out and their backs curved in. While you don’t want to make your workout pornographic (or maybe you do), the act is similar. Sit down, stick your ass out, keep your back straight.
Next, hold your arms out in front of you (without the weight for a second) and imagine you are holding the bar. The first action in a wave of responses is going to be the movement of your shoulders backwards. Then you start bending your arms back. The goal, however, is to follow the wave of action STARTED BY MOVING YOUR SHOULDERS BACKWARDS.
I honestly think some of you just have bad coordination because anyone who can do the simplest dance move should be able to accomplish this without much of a problem.
Try lowering the weight and concentrating more on the form for a while. I had a similar thing happen with some lifts, where I just kind of got ahead of myself with increasing the weight, and I didn’t even realise my form had started to slip a little because my stronger muscle groups were ‘taking over’, the solution for me was to go back down in the weight for a while and re-train my form.
[quote]Malevolence wrote:
Try lowering the weight and concentrating more on the form for a while. I had a similar thing happen with some lifts, where I just kind of got ahead of myself with increasing the weight, and I didn’t even realise my form had started to slip a little because my stronger muscle groups were ‘taking over’, the solution for me was to go back down in the weight for a while and re-train my form.[/quote]
Just to make it clear, however, there is nothing wrong with some cheating on some movements. The huge guy who leans forwards and backwards a little is not doing the exercise wrong.
The guy leaning back so far his back is parallel to the ground IS doing it wrong.
Good advice so far. I had the same problem. What you want to conceptualise (while first re-learning the movement, because when you start pulling much bigger weights for reps and stuff, form may get less important than just making the lift) is that your hands are merely hooks. The object of a row is to pull your shoulder blades back, and you just happen to be bent over with your arse out as prof X described, holding a barbell.
What you will probably find when you get your form more backpowered, is that you are more pulling your elbows towards the celing, and your forearms stay more-or-less vertical, because you don’t flex at the biceps. There will be less ‘wrist to shoulder’ kind of movement, which would indicate arm pull.
Practice keeping your shoulder blades pulled back (shoulder back, chest out) while you’re just walking around day-to-day if you can’t ‘feel’ the back muscles.
Good luck mate
few more tips:
Move the weight more towards your waist. This is really helpful with DB bent rows, if you pull the DB back towards your waistline, you’ll feel a lot more lat activation. Or at least I do.
Imagine pulling from the elbows. Not the hands.
[quote]boyscout wrote:
Imagine pulling from the elbows. Not the hands. [/quote]
That’s the primary piece of advice/instruction that I tell people when teaching them back exercises.
Movement of the shoulder girdle (scapulas) is also an important aspect. I see a lot of people doing partial ROM back movements (especially pull-downs/pull-ups). You want to let your shoulder blades move forward/up at the beginning of the exercise (in order to really get a good stretch) and then pull them back/down on the pull in order to fully contract your back.
Also, as Prof. X stated a little cheating when using very heavy weights, or on the last couple reps of a set isn’t a bad thing. If you start to make the movement more of a leg press/hip extension movement where you gain lots of momentum and then just basically hold the bar in place as you bring your chest to meet it, then you’ve taken the emphasis off of the muscles that you’re trying to build.
Honestly when I teach people back exercises I make them do them in perfect form. There is too much ego involved in a lot of beginning lifters training (and even in some more advance guys’ training as well). They’re too worried about the amount of weight they’re moving and not on if the desired muscle is actually doing any work. Once they understand the exercise, know how to activate the muscles properly and can feel whether the muscles are working or not, then I’ll let them start experimenting with some body English.
[quote]msd0060 wrote:
So in lat pull downs, seated rows, bent over rows… I feel as though I’m muscling the weight up with my arms rather than my lats. Like I can’t “activate” my back or something. What do I need to do?[/quote]
I know exactly what you mean. But you need to mentally focus and contract your lats without weight, pre-exhaust them with very light weight. Build up slowly. I can voluntarily contract my lats just standing with my arms hanging normally. It shouldn’t take you
more than a month to fully ‘innervate’ them and be comfortable with it.
What Professor said about posture is a very good point. And also DON’T straighten out your arms completely, keep the tension on the lat the whole time, maybe even hold the weight midway. You may not need to do this all the time later on but by practicing you’ll get there.