Mark Ottobre coaches a trainee who can't feel their lats during pulling movements. He uses cues like "pull your armpit down" and "hide your armpit" to shift the movement from the elbow to the shoulder, and points out that an elevated shoulder blocks lat engagement.
We're starting the release position there, then bring that down to there. That's it, good. Elbow back behind your body. Good. 1, and crunch it. Good. Stretch. Did you feel that in your lats or not really? No. No? Okay. The way you're moving right now, I can see that your lats, they're not really working. They're not— it's not natural to you. Remember, like, if we're up here, we're not gonna— it doesn't matter what we do, if we're elevated, we can't use the lat. The cue that I like to use is pulling that armpit down, almost like someone was trying to tickle you. And because you're crunching and also not just crunching down, you want to bring it close to your body so like no one can get their hand into your armpit. So you're a little like that. All right, stop. So you initiated just from your arm. Don't initiate from your elbow, initiate from here. So from here, hide your armpit. More, more, more, more, more. There you go. Yes, yes, yes. Now pull. Feel the difference there? Yeah. Good. It's all about initiation, right?
