- Sit down on a pull-down machine with a wide bar attached to the top pulley. Make sure that you adjust the knee pad of the machine to fit your height. These pads will prevent your body from being raised by the resistance attached to the bar.
- Grab the bar with the palms facing forward using the prescribed grip. Note on grips: For a wide grip, your hands need to be spaced out at a distance wider than shoulder width. For a medium grip, your hands need to be spaced out at a distance equal to your shoulder width and for a close grip at a distance smaller than your shoulder width.
- As you have both arms extended in front of you holding the bar at the chosen grip width, bring your torso back around 30 degrees or so while creating a curvature on your lower back and sticking your chest out. This is your starting position.
- As you breathe out, bring the bar down until it touches your upper chest by drawing the shoulders and the upper arms down and back. Tip: Concentrate on squeezing the back muscles once you reach the full contracted position. The upper torso should remain stationary and only the arms should move. The forearms should do no other work except for holding the bar; therefore do not try to pull down the bar using the forearms.
- After a second at the contracted position squeezing your shoulder blades together, slowly raise the bar back to the starting position when your arms are fully extended and the lats are fully stretched. Inhale during this portion of the movement.
- Repeat this motion for the prescribed amount of repetitions.
Variations: The behind the neck variation is not recommended as it can be hard on the rotator cuff due to the hyperextension created by bringing the bar behind the neck.
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Review: Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown
Dec 19, 2011 12:09 PM: My favorite exercise using the cable system on my home gym!
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Review: Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown
Dec 5, 2011 2:22 AM: while doing this exercise, my palms gets in pain easily why is that, i can't hold it for long
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Tip: Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown
Sep 29, 2011 12:15 AM: 100 lbs
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Review: Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown
Jun 27, 2011 1:01 PM: One of my favorites..I hardly ever miss doing these
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Review: Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown
May 17, 2011 1:43 PM: 1 of my favorite exercises to bulk up.
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Review: Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown
May 17, 2011 1:43 PM: 1 of my favorite exercises to bulk up.
of people found this tip helpful
Tip: Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown
Mar 16, 2011 11:23 AM: This is a great exercise for the Lats, but if you want to feel the burn use a bar where your palms are facing eachother, if your gym has one of those bars.
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Review: Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown
Feb 16, 2011 2:25 PM: One of the best back exercises, lat pulldowns and bent over rows are the best for back. Lat pulldowns beat pull ups in my opinion because its a much better strength better, for example, if somebody cant do a pullup, lat pulldown is the mimic of pullups, so it would be better to use lat pulldowns to...+See More
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Review: Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown
Aug 19, 2010 8:02 PM: Let Pulls Downs are one of my favourite exercises for my Lats but there is a lot of technique involved that can dramatically enhance ones results. Here are some of my favourites.
1) Shrug your shoulders and retract your scapula by shrugging your Traps before you pull the bar. This way your shoulder...+See More
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Review: Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown
Jul 20, 2010 2:47 PM: