Activating lats
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stumblinthrulife
Posts: 2,558 Member
I'm back, and I have another probably stupid question.
I'm trying to strengthen my lats to help with my swimming. I've always had a hard time activating my lats. I've now found that with wide grip lat pull downs, I can at least feel it in my right lat, but my left still seems to be lazy. I'm being careful to keep the movement symmetrical.
Is there anything I need to do? Is this unusual? I mean, obviously something is activating since I'm not just pulling down on the right side. Could it just be that it's working but I'm not feeling it? Is it an imbalance that will correct over time?
I'm trying to strengthen my lats to help with my swimming. I've always had a hard time activating my lats. I've now found that with wide grip lat pull downs, I can at least feel it in my right lat, but my left still seems to be lazy. I'm being careful to keep the movement symmetrical.
Is there anything I need to do? Is this unusual? I mean, obviously something is activating since I'm not just pulling down on the right side. Could it just be that it's working but I'm not feeling it? Is it an imbalance that will correct over time?
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Replies
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Hard to say IMO. I do think though, that provided you are executing the movement correctly, you will still be developing and using your lats even though you may not feel it.
If you'd like to try and experience feeling the lats, I'd consider doing a straight arm pulldown on a high cable. Set a straight bar on the high cable and use a rather low amount of resistance and with the arms straight (no elbow flexion) bring the bar from about face height towards your body (you'll be pulling the cable downwards and toward your body as your arms go from out in front to by your sides). The bar will end up below your waist most likely.
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I don't know what you have access to, but Hammer Strength (and probably others, but HS is in my gym) has a series of isolateral plate-loaded machines. One of the ones we have is an iso-lat pulldown. If your gym has one of those, you can give it a try.
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Hard to say IMO. I do think though, that provided you are executing the movement correctly, you will still be developing and using your lats even though you may not feel it.
If you'd like to try and experience feeling the lats, I'd consider doing a straight arm pulldown on a high cable. Set a straight bar on the high cable and use a rather low amount of resistance and with the arms straight (no elbow flexion) bring the bar from about face height towards your body (you'll be pulling the cable downwards and toward your body as your arms go from out in front to by your sides). The bar will end up below your waist most likely.
Much appreciated. I'm working lats twice a week for the next couple of months, so I'll continue with the lat pull-downs in one session, and try straight arm pulldowns on the other session. And given that I have orangutan arms, the bar will end up near my knees...0 -
I don't know what you have access to, but Hammer Strength (and probably others, but HS is in my gym) has a series of isolateral plate-loaded machines. One of the ones we have is an iso-lat pulldown. If your gym has one of those, you can give it a try.
I don't believe we have anything like that, but I'll check. Much appreciated.0 -
In aerial, we do hanging exercises where we let the arms release, go to neutral, and then engage the lats and back. Maybe something like this will help you with muscle memory.0
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When you do the lat pulldowns, try alternating regular pulldown reps where you bend your elbows and the bar comes down to your chin, with reps where you don't bend your elbows but just work on pulling your shoulders back and down. The motion will be maybe a couple inches, very small, but it isolates the lats more IME.0
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkO1CR8TDHg