Best Grip For Lat Pulldowns

When you walk into any gym, you may see quite a lot of people queuing up behind the LAT PULLDOWN machine. What’s interesting are the various type of attachments with different grips and ranging widths, individuals are using for the pulldown movement, pondering that hitting it from different angles and styles, may activate the back muscles higher, or it can also hit some muscles within the back which is getting missed with the opposite grips.

Let’s get the sensible and science based understanding behind this idea.

So, we now have generally the next bars getting used:

• Wide pronated grip
• Close supinated grip/Reverse grip
• Close Neutral grip (palms facing one another, close grip)
• Wide Neutral grip (palms facing one another, wide grip)

On top of this, there are guys doing the behind the neck pulldowns in addition to the front pulldowns.

A studyevaluated the results of various hand positions on muscle activity during lat pull down. Ten men did 3 reps with their 10RM weight. Four different lat pulldown variations were tested i.e. close grip (close neutral grip), supinated grip (reverse grip), wide grip anterior (wide pronated grip front pulldowns), and wide grip posterior (wide pronated grip behind the neck pulldowns).

The study found that:

• For the latissimus dorsi, wide anterior grip (wide pronated grip front pulldowns) was higher than the remainder.
• For the long head of the triceps, wide anterior grip (wide pronated grip front pulldowns) was higher than the remainder.
• For posterior deltoid, all grips are similar, and all are higher than wide posterior grip (wide pronated grip behind the neck pulldowns).
• For the pectoralis major, all grips are similar, and all are higher than wide posterior grip.

The data suggest that the performance of the lat pull-down with the bar pulled anteriorly (to the chest) provides some mechanical advantage, allowing greater loads to be moved during these exercises than when the bar is pulled posteriorly (to the back of the neck).

The results of this study indicated that the wide grip hand position with the bar pulled anteriorly to the chest recruits more motor units, and subsequently requires more work from the latissimus dorsi than any of the opposite conditions tested. Therefore, this handgrip position ought to be used to supply a biggest amount stimulus and a greater development of the latissimus dorsi than other handgrip positions.

In a study24 male subjects, performed three various kinds of lat pull downs i.e. behind the neck, front-wide, and neutral V-bar lat pulldowns, at 80% of the 1RM. For each movement, the activation in pectoralis major, latissimus dorsi, posterior deltoid and biceps brachii, was checked.

The researchers said that, the behind-the-neck lat pull-down exercise has been criticized due to its potential risk to the shoulder joint. The external rotation combined with abduction places the shoulder joint in a risk position since it minimizes the stabilization capability of the rotator cuff and places the glenohumeral ligaments under great stress. This situation is worsened by horizontal abduction, which is required to avoid the contact between the exercise bar and the top of the practitioner.

On the opposite hand, when performed in front-neck, a lat pull-down is executed within the scapular plane where there may be more contact inside the articular surfaces, lower stress of the glenohumeral ligaments, and a greater function of the rotator cuff muscles. This technique has been used to exchange the behind the neck pulldowns, being safer, more functional, and allowing for a wider range of motion.

Another possible variation of this exercise is replacing the common straight bar utilized by a V-bar. This bar allows a knocking down with the elbows at the edges, stopping horizontal abduction of the shoulder.

Here are the observations of the research:

• During the concentric phase (lowering movement), pectoralis major activation was much higher within the front lat pulldown, than V-bar or behind the neck pulldown.
• During the eccentric phase, pectoralis major activation was more in front lat pulldown & V-bar, than in behind the neck pull down.
• For the latissimus dorsi activation, all movements and grips were similar.
• For the posterior deltoid, activation was way more in front lat pulldown than V-bar within the concentric phase, and behind the neck higher than V-bar within the eccentric phase.
• Biceps brachii showed higher activation in behind the neck pulldown than front or V-bar pulldowns. Also, V-bar activated more biceps during each concentric and eccentric phases, than front lat pulldowns.

The researchers concluded that, considering the fundamental objectives of lat pull-down, front lat pull down is the more sensible choice, whereas behind the neck will not be an excellent lat pulldown technique and ought to be avoided. V-bar could possibly be used as a substitute.

In a studytwelve healthy men performed lat pulldown with 4 different grips, using a load of 70% of 1RM. The 4 grips used were wide pronated grip, wide supinated grip (wide reverse grip), narrow pronated grip, and narrow supinated grip/reverse grip.

The study found that a pronated grip is perfect for training the lats in an anterior lat pull down. This grip can be considered the safest amongst the remainder. However, athletes and others engaged in resistance training can generally expect similar muscle activation which in turn should lead to similar hypertrophy gains with a grip width that’s consistent with a medium grip pull-down.

A studysuggested that, it’s a general belief that a wider grip during lat pull down, prompts the latissimus dorsi greater than a narrow one, but with none broad scientific support. The study compared 15 men performing lat pulldowns using 3 different pronated grips i.e. narrow, medium and wide grip, at a load of 6RM.

Then study concluded that, there was no major difference in activation for latissimus dorsi, biceps brachii, infraspinatus, or trapezius when performing 6RM within the anterior lat pull-down with narrow, medium, and wide anterior grip widths. However, the 6RM load lifted was lower using a large compared with a small or medium grip. The biceps received the best activity not on the narrow grip, but on the medium grip. The biceps had significantly greater activity within the concentric phase, than within the eccentric phase.

So, as a conclusion there isn’t a one grip which is simpler than the others. Muscle activation is just about the identical in all of the grips, with minor variations (except behind the neck pulldowns). To wave off boredom, one could try the hands on the various grips, once in a while.