Gentlemen, the Lat Pulldown Machine? Useful for Pull Ups? Yay or Nay?
There is little doubt that the Lat Pulldown Machine is an incredibly useful and effective tool in the gym for developing a foundation of vertical pulling strength, however, too often the Lat Pulldown Machine is the very reason you can’t do any decent Pull Ups or Chin Ups and progress in that vertical pulling motion.
Starting on the Lat Pulldown Machine is of course fine to begin the development of a sufficient vertical pulling foundation, however remaining on the Lat Pulldown Machine and never beginning the process of developing sufficient upper body pulling strength to actually pull your body weight vertically on free bars, will mean you will remain on the Lat Pulldown Machine indefinitely and bodyweight Pull Ups and Chin Ups will always be too difficult for you.
The moment you can do one full chin up, is the moment you should begin your pulling days of training with multiple sets of single chin ups rather than bolloxin’ about with 4 sets of 8 reps til the cows come home on a lat pulldown. Nobody ever got substantially stronger on 8 reps plus.
When you can do real bodyweight chin ups, (even a single rep!), it becomes time to relegate the Lat Pulldown Machine to nothing but an accessory exercise, useful for hypertrophy no doubt, but rather unnecessary for serious vertical pulling strength.
So what does this tangibly look like in terms of programming?
Well firstly, you have to begin with 5-10 sets of a single chin up. So, 5-10 sets X 1 rep
Why?
Well, let’s say you weigh 80kg. You currently can only do 1 rep of a chin up per set. How can you go from one single 80kg chin up per set (totalling 80kg of work), straight to 2 reps of a chin up at 80kg per ser (totalling 160kg of work, quite the difference!).
What you need in between those two repetitions is REST!
Wait one full minute, even 90seconds, and go for your second repetition (and therefore your second set in total).
Complete repetition number 2, (set number 2) and then wait another 60-90seconds before set number 3 (rep number 3).
Effectively an EMOM (a rep Every Minute On the Minute) for 5-10 minutes.
Do this until 10 sets of single repetitions becomes comfortable.
And look! Low and behold you can now do 10 chin ups. Humble. But let’s be real, it’s far better than the flopping around you have been doing on a bar or staying endlessly on the Lat Pulldown Machine.
Now that you can do 10 sets of an 80kg chin up, what do we do now?
Presumably 10 sets X 2 reps?
WRONG!!!!!!
What we need to do is 10 sets X 1 rep with a 1.25kg plate added to the body!
Now it’s 10 sets X 1 rep at 81.25kg! See what’s gonna happen long term?
When we keep adding weight to the body, rather than repetitions, we can progressively load the body until it becomes strong enough at a later point to achieve multiple chin ups. In simple terms it’s easier to do 1 chin up at 81.25kg then 2 chin ups at 80kg.
Typically, when a male can add 10kg to a single chin up (80kg bodyweight + 10kg plate), he can then separately achieve 5-10 repetitions at his typical bodyweight of 80kg without ever having trained multiple repetitions directly.
Trust me mate, the sooner you get off the Lat Pulldown Machine, the sooner you will have a strong and solid back and chin ups and pull ups will become easy work.
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