Wide Grip Pulldowns San Francisco CA

Wide Grip Pulldowns to the Front - Exercise for the Muscles of the Back

The Wide Grip Pulldown to the Front is one of the most widely known back exercises though few people actually do it properly. The mechanics of the movement are very similar to the Close Grip Pulldown, with the only major difference being the wider, overhand grip.

How to do it:

Take a wide grip with your palms facing forward. Don't grip excessively wide, though. About 4 to 6 inches outside shoulder width is fine (too close will involve the biceps too much while too wide will reduce the amount of weight you are able to use). Start with your torso vertical and your arms overhead. As you begin to pull down, lean back slightly, arching your lower back and puffing your chest out to meet the bar. This isolates the lats better. Pull the bar down to your mid-pecs, concentrating on pulling with your back muscles rather than pulling with the biceps. When you get to the bottom of the movement, try to squeeze your shoulder blades behind your back for a second then slowly let the bar go back up.

Tricks:

This movement should be done as a two-part movement to work your back best. Try this little exercise to get a feel for the movement:

• Start by sitting in the pulldown machine grasping the bar with your arms fully extended overhead.
• Allow your shoulders to shrug up, letting the weight stretch your shoulders.
• Now try dropping your shoulder girdle. This is the opposite movement of when you shrug your shoulders; it is the down part. The arms should not bend in this part of the movement. Your shoulders should just drop down a few inches.
• Practice this short movement a few times.
• Once you have the feel for that, add this to the pulldown movement by first shrugging down, then pulling the bar down the rest of the way.
• You should feel a difference in your back immediately as this technique will lock your lats into activation.
• Repeat this technique at the start of every rep.

A good way to get the feel for the proper technique at the bottom of the movement is to have somebody put his or her knee in your mid-back on your spinal column.

• This will force you to wrap your back around it, arching the back and puffing out the chest.
• Focus on trying to squeeze the knee with the shoulder blades to feel the movement.

It is a little known but important trick that you should breathe backwards when doing pulldowns and chins (especially pulldowns). Here is the sequence. ...