Build a Strong Back

Wide-grip Pulldowns

By Stephen E. Alway, Ph.D., FACSM

Our electronic-dependent society seems to facilitate a perfect storm that can prevent you from having a strong backand possessing great posture. Whether you sit at a computer, stand hunched over a cash register or a filing cabinet, work your iPhone etc., the events that fill our daily lives just tend to coax our shoulders forward and this eventually will cause your upper back to round up.

Now you can settle for a weak and drooping upper back like most of our society, but this would make your shoulders sag and curl forward as if you were retreating into a cocoon. While it is not necessary to throw out all your electronic devices or change jobs, doing nothing will only make you look 20 years older than your real age. Wide-grip lat bar pulldowns will rescue the muscles around the shoulders, back and scapula (shoulder blade) and strengthen the upper pillars of your postural musculature to turn back the biological clock.

Wide-grip Pulldown

The lat bar pulldown stresses the extension and abduction functions of the humerus of the arm, which means that the latissimus dorsi, teres major, trapezius and scapular part of the deltoid muscles are all strongly activated.

1. Sit in the seat of the lat pulldown unit and place the thigh bar snugly across the anterior part of the middle regions of both thighs with your feet firmly on the floor.5

2. Take a wide pronated grip (palms facing away from your body). This will tend to de-emphasize the biceps and brachialis and stress the back.

3. Pull the lat bar down to the top of the chest and make sure to avoid a collision of your chin with the bar. Draw the elbows back as far as possible.

4. Hold the bar at the chest level for a count of two.

5. Slowly return the bar to the starting position allowing the weight to stretch your muscles. Do not let the weight stack touch at the bottom.

6. Immediately move into the next downward pull, and continue this sequence until your set is complete.

The wide grip on the lat bar will provide a direct line of pull and an optimal stretch for the teres major. Control the upward movement in the lat pulldown so that it is slow and controlled. Under no circumstances should you allow the weight to “jerk” your shoulders upward at the end of each repetition, otherwise you may overstretch the rotator cuff muscle group and de-stabilize your shoulder structures. With the bar in the top position, you should then hold the stretched position for a count of two before moving to the next repetition.

The wide-grip lat pulldown will strengthen the postural muscles around your scapula and spine. It will reduce back stress6 and reverse the rounding effects that are imposed by prolonged use of sitting while working your mobile apps. Instead of looking older than you are, a few months of dedicated wide-grip pulldowns will create a strong back musculature2,3,4 and spine7 that together will move you closer to preventing that aging-like posture slump.

Illustrations by William P. Hamilton, CMI

References:

1. Moore, K.L. and A.F. Dalley: Clinically Orientated Anatomy 4th Edition, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins,1999; 685-756.

2. Park SY, Yoo WG: Selective activation of the latissimus dorsi and the inferior fibers of trapezius at various shoulder angles during isometric pull-down exertion. J Electromyogr Kinesiol 2013;23:1350-1355.

3. Doma K, Deakin GB, Ness KF: Kinematic and electromyographic comparisons between chin-ups and lat-pull down exercises. Sports Biomech 2013;12:302-313.

4. Franke R, Botton CE, Rodrigues R et al: Analysis of anterior, middle and posterior deltoid activation during single and multi joint exercises. J Sports Med Phys Fitness 2014.

5. Yoo WG: Effect of the Foot Placements on the Latissmus Dorsi and Low Back Muscle Activities during Pull-down Exercise. J Phys Ther Sci 2013;25:1155-1156.

6. Wages NP, Beck TW, Ye X et al: Resting mechanomyographic amplitude for the erector spinae and trapezius muscles following resistance exercise in a healthy population. Physiol Meas 2013;34:1343-1350.

7. Moghadasi M, Siavashpour S: The effect of 12 weeks of resistance training on hormones of bone formation in young sedentary women. Eur J Appl Physiol 2013;113:25-32.