The Complete Lat Pulldown Guide (Build a Bigger Back)

We're going to show you how to do lat pulldown when you don't feel lat pulldown in your back. We've got Jason here. Firstly, Jason, if you can demonstrate to us a lat pulldown where most people would not feel it in their back. So off you go, Jason, and do a couple reps. And this is how most people would do it, right? So they're super protracted forward, they move through their arms, they're using actually all biceps, forearm flexors. You can see his forearm flexors working. It's a really ugly lat pulldown, right? And there's no wonder why most people who do lat pulldown like this they won't feel it in their back at all. So let's break some things down, right? So the first thing that we do when we teach a lat pulldown is we're going to teach it in two parts. And the reason we're going to teach it in two parts is because your elbows do not— bicep flexion, your biceps do not initiate a lat pulldown. It all comes from your scapula. So Jason, grab the bar, and I'm going to show you a two-part. I'm going to demonstrate the two parts. So get into position, feet nice in front of your body. Yep, and get your feet in front of your body. That's it, heels on the floor for us. I'll adjust this if need be. There we go. All right, so So now he's locked in. So what we're going to do, whether you're using a pronated, supinated, uh, wide grip, all the same, what I'm going to get him to do is cue a depression. So I'm going to get him to tuck his underpants, tuck his underpants into his— well, tuck his underpants in basically, right? Tuck his armpits into his underpants rather. So his armpits are going into his underpants. Now in that position, what I want you to do is extend through here. This technically is your thoracic extension. So he's nice and extended. Now, staying in that position where you're depressed, you're extended, I'm going to get you to pull. So stay in that position. Now pull all the way down, pull all the way down in that position. That's beautiful, where he's at his collarbone. And you can see— hold that for us, Jason— you can see his back in that position. You can see how the lats are pulled in, everything is drawn towards the spine. And again, release all the way, release all the way, release all the way. Now He's released it all the way. So now he's in an elevated position. He's not in extended position through his thoracic. And let's just cue that again, show the viewers at home. So you're going to tuck your underarm pits, tuck your armpits into your underpants as much as possible. Again, if you look at the lats on Jason, we can see the lats are this big kind of— makes this Dorito shape. When people talk about having the V-taper, they're talking about the lats that are coming out. He's depressed all the lats in towards his spine. He's going to extend his thoracic up nice and high. That's the mid-back just through there. He's going to pull that into his chest. Imagine there was a, a rod that goes from here up to his chest. Now, holding those two pieces together, I want you to pull it down. Now watch, as he pulls down, you can see all of this come together. That's where we start and initiate. Now I just want you to move freely, just do a couple reps at your own speed. So stretch all the way through, stretch and squeeze, do it all at your own time. So pull it all in and pull, pull, pull, and just, just move freely. Do a couple reps nice and free. So The reason why I want to show the folks this is that's the initiation point. You can see every single rep that he does is initiated from the back. Now just flip back to the bad way, right? So flip back, watch his back when we do the bad way. We can see there's no engagement. We see all the movement, the scapula rotates internally, rotates in. That's not where we want to be when we do this exercise. You can see the lats aren't working, the mid-back's not working, none of it's working. So we definitely don't want to do— and you can see the arms, how he's holding on for dear life. Through the arms, which again, if we look at proportionately the muscle mass that is on our back versus the muscle mass that is on our arms, this proportionally is always gonna be stronger. In fact, Jason, hop off the machine for me for one sec. I'm just gonna do this demo live on camera. Stand just there for a sec, right? So often in seminars, what I show folks is we interlock hands, right? And I say to the folks, right, Jason, I just want you to resist me. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna use my arm, I'm just gonna use my shoulder, it's gonna be in this position, right? So resist me, Jason, resist me. And he's winning, right? He's winning. This is the lat pulldown that most people do, and I can't move him, right? 'Cause I'm using a small joint. If I get up nice and proud, nice and tall, we use the same force, Jason, and I use the lat pulldown, you can see that I'm using now, I'm moving him because all I'm doing is I'm depressing, retracting, and extending through that thoracic, and you can see I'm shifting his body weight. Now, if I add two joints, if I add my scap, my thoracic, and I also now bend through my elbow, you can see this is how I want to be rowing, right? And even let's say he's forced— is if he really puts a lot of force on it, I can move towards him, right? That's how we want to be. I'm going to get a lot more force, and that's how you want to approach. Think of it as the joints. Joints move muscles, muscles don't move joints, right? So think about your joints first, the articulation of your back, getting everything in, and then doing the exercise. If you've enjoyed this explanation of the lat pulldown, my name is Mark Ottobre. This is Jason. Make sure you follow our channel for more. 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