A trainer demonstrates the lean-away lat pulldown, a back exercise that strengthens the upper-back stabilizers supporting your bench press. The movement requires thoracic extension, lat depression, and chest contact with the bar. Common mistakes include using too little weight and not achieving a full stretch.
We're going to show you a variation on lat pulldown. It's called lean away lat pulldown, and I particularly like it. I almost think of it as a reverse bench press. So Jason, can you just demonstrate what not enough load on it looks like? Is when he does get into position on lean away lat pulldown, you'll see that he— so he's going to lean, lean, lean, lean, lean, lean, and as he does this, pull into it, he's able to maintain. But again, we need to have a counterbalance. There needs to be a bit of resistance here. I'm going to whack you on— let's go 61. So it's going to be able to counterbalance me a bit more. Now I do love this exercise for a few different reasons, but particularly in helping someone's bench press. Now let's do it in two parts. So lean away for me, lean away, lean away, lean away, keep all this tucked. So on the bench press, right, we want to get all of this tucked under, we want to get into thoracic extension, we want to get the lats nice and depressed, which is going to— and when we do get into that thoracic extension, we're going to automatically get into that external rotator position, which is super going to keep our shoulders super, super safe. So even more thoracic extended, now extend yourself up to the bar, Jason, Extend yourself up and pull. Extend yourself up even more, good. And let it stretch and then reset. Good, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull. And again, maybe a little too heavy, but we'll try one more. And pull yourself up into it. Pull yourself up into it. Pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull. Excellent. So we're gonna go a little lighter because you can see, just a little lighter. As Jason does this, he's not touching his chest and I want him to touch his chest. 'Cause again, this is about, this is perfectly complementary for our, bench press when we're thinking about the opposing muscle groups that keep us stable on a bench press. Obviously, we're exerting force on a bench press with our triceps, pecs, and shoulders. But what's keeping everything stable is our upper back. And as we extend into thoracic extension, and like I've said in previous videos, joints move muscles, muscles don't move joints. So let's go again, Jason. So pulls everything down, gets into position first. So pull yourself into position. Now pull everything down, touching your chest. More, more, exaggerate, exaggerate, and then let everything up. So you can see where Jason's weak he's weak in that extended, that mid back position, that thoracic extension. So pull everything in. This is a great exercise for Jason. This would help his bench press, those stabilizer muscles be worked. And pull it in, pull it in, pull it in, pull it in, pull it in more. Be aggressive, be aggressive. Good. And let's just do one more here. Pull it in, pull it in, pull it in. And pull everything down. Pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull. And all the way up. That's failure. And then we come all the way up. So make sure you're doing those parts rush through it.
