Lat Pulldown Vs Weighted Pull Up

And by using resistance bands to modify the movement you can build the strength needed to do the full movement. And as some of you know, progressive overload is a very effective way of improving strength and size in muscles. Progressive overload is simply adding to the load of each workout, it’s as easy as adding more reps, sets, or weight each time you train. Now your upper body shouldn’t move, you don’t swing back into this movement. Grab the bar in an over hand position and pull the bar down to your chest with your elbows and squeeze your shoulder blades together.

Using a bench in order to do pull ups is completely different than doing them on a pull up bar. Some drawbacks that aren’t as common as others include injuries from improper form. People tend to hold the bar too tight at the bottom, which can lead to injuries to the back. As well, lifting weights unevenly can also lead to problems. Many beginners find that their body mass doesn’t look balanced after completing a workout of this nature.

I was guessing this type of assistance pulley might be what the OP’s using to explain the huge difference in strength. Being able to lift your bodyweight on a pulldown and needing over half your weight in assistance to get a pull up is a huge difference, a halfing pulldown seems like it could explain it. I wish that was the case,i can knock out tons of bodyweight pulls.i can barely do a few reps at my weight on the pulldown.

Overall Winner: Pull

In terms of joint stress, providing you are strong enough to do pull-ups properly, both exercises should be similarly safe. Pull-ups recruit more muscle fibers than lat pulldowns, which means they could help you build muscle a little faster. As such, and despite the studies, lat pulldowns may be marginally better for hypertrophy.

Whether you are a full-blown bodybuilder or a complete beginner, lat pull-downs work great whereas pull-up exercises help you improve your overall strength. A big difference between pull-ups and lat pull-downs is weight. With pull-ups you are stuck in your weight due to your bodyweight being the only weight that is being lifted by you. Tough you can add more weight through a belt or weight vest, it is not possible to immediately lower the weight being pulled up (unless you use a pull-up band). 2) The lat pulldown allows for very close grip overhand, which at my gym you can’t do on the pullup bar because they have premade grips instead of a single bar going from end to end.

Lat Pulldown Alternatives: How To Train Your Lats With Free Weights

To effectively work each muscle group can prove to be great in the long run and the lat pulldown and the pull-up can really get this done. The choice may seem to be one or the other, but you will find that both can be placed in your back day routine so you start to see the growth you want most out of the pulldown or pull-up. A challenging exercise– with pull-ups, you need to be strong enough to lift your entire body weight with just your arms. Women may also struggle with pull-ups as they tend to have less upper body muscle mass than men. The dumbbell row isn’t a perfect substitute for the lat pulldown. The range of motion isn’t as big, and it doesn’t work our lats under a deep stretch.

The last thing you want to do is pull something out of place, causing you to fail. To get the most out of your workout, it is imperative that you maintain proper form. If you don’t, then it is time to go back to the drawing board and start over.

How To Do A Lat Pulldown

For pure strength, focus on lifting in the 3-5 sets of 3-6 rep range at around 85% or higher of your one-rep max . Browse other questions tagged muscle pull-ups biceps back machine or ask your own question. I’ve experienced more lats engagement with wide grips than close grips. Out of all of the row variations, the inverted row works your latissimus dorsi the most. Daniel has a decade of experience in powerlifting, is a certified personal trainer, and has a Master of Science degree in engineering. Besides competing in powerlifting himself, he coaches both beginners and lifters at the international level.

That’s why you’ll often see lat pulldowns programmed for those 10–12 rep sets, and that’s why we need to find a substitute that lets you do enough reps. What that lat pulldown is best at, though, is bulking up your lats. It starts with your lats in a deep stretch, works them through a full range of motion, and our performance is limited by our strength.

The lats are the primary mover when doing lat pulldowns, they do most of the heavy lifting. The traps and pec minor assist with depressing the scapulae. The levator scapulae, rhomboids and pec minor work in unison to execute the downward rotation of the scapulae.

Let’s break down the pros and cons of these two strength-training staples and see which one prevails. The same can’t be said of those who max out the lat pulldown machine. The lats are an extremely important muscle as far as function is concerned. Their role is to help you drag heavy objects toward you, to pull things down from overhead or to pull your self up .

You can get a free copy of John’s 3-month pull-up training program and download more of his premium pull-up training resource as part of his free 5-day Pull-up Training Crash Course. Pull-ups use a greater amount of musculature (e.g. more core activation, stabilizers, etc.), and thus, strengthen the body more systemically. Doing sets of reps isn’t an option with pull-ups, but it can be done with pulldowns. As far back as the 1990s, researchers established that different portions of the lats were more or less active depending on the type of movement being performed .

To finish, you will slowly let the bar travel back to the starting position. It’s less of a shot to the ego, plus you can jump right in and begin with the full range of motion on day one. On the other hand, even if you can’t access a pull-up bar, you can still improvise by performing pull-ups on other surfaces such as ledges, street signs or doorframes. If you’re relying on a pull-down machine to work your lats, they’ll be out of commission any time you can’t get to the gym. Some say that pull-ups and chin-ups are the best lat exercises, giving you a lot more “bang for your buck” than lat pulldowns. Your own experience has shown you that the machine is simply easier than a real pullup.

Pull up carries over better to the real world – While both the lat pulldown and the pull up follow the same movement patterns, there is one huge underlying difference. That is, the pull up moves the entire body through space, while the lat pulldown does not. I started at 65# x7 reps and kept working at it, gradually increasing the number of reps and lowering the weight. The only real exception to the rule is people who have mostly performed the overhand grip. They are hard to do, plain and simple, it’s hard to pull your own bodyweight.