Q: I’ve seen new muscle after adding in stretch exercises. But your discussion on pulldowns was kind of confusing. You concluded that parallel grip with separate handles is best at about shoulder width, and close-grip V handle is okay, but an over grip can cause shoulder impingement. I don’t see much of a difference. Can you explain?
A: The above pic is Jonathan doing a V-handle chin. That’s the handle you can connect to the pulldown cable.
Before I continue, let me clarify that no pulldown, chin-up or pull-up is an ideal back exercise due to various factors including the wrong line of force and incorrect resistance curve.
So I use certain variations of those as an add-on stretch move for lats. Why?
A muscle forced to work against stretch resistance can gain new layers of growth. I often reference the bird-wing study by Jose Antonio, Ph.D., et al.. Here’s what he said about it:
I performed the study using the stretch model. I used a progressive-overload scheme [only at the full-stretch point]. Using this approach produced the greatest gains in muscle mass ever recorded in an animal or human model of tension-induced overload, up to 334 percent increase in muscle mass.
A more recent study with humans produced a 5.6 percent increase in muscle thickness over a six-week period—no full-range work, only resistance in the stretch position similar to the bird study. [Scan J Med Sci Sports, Jan 30, 2017]
Brad Schoenfeld, Ph.D., verifies that the research shows that “a loaded stretching protocol produces significant hypertrophy in humans.”
While stretch overload can be a muscle-growth accelerator, you must be careful…
The first precaution with any pulldown, pull-up or chin-up is to keep your torso angled back through the entire set. That’s a lot harder to do on a chin-up or pull-up because gravity is pulling your bodyweight down…
Keeping your eyes looking up can help. Never rock your torso forward as in Kipping, a CrossFit “pull-up.” This 30-second video shows why orthopedists start pricing yachts as they salivate uncontrollably when watching it…
I suggest not ever doing that—avoid the bottom “dead-hang” position. And definitely no dropping and jerking.
You can see that the main impingement problem occurs in the arms-extended position when the torso rocks forward to vertical. That’s basically the finish position of an overhead press, but here you’re jerking the shoulder joint apart. Yikes…
Plus, with a shoulder-width OVER-hand grip, your upper arms are rotated outward, which is also a problem. Over-grip pulldowns aren’t too bad if you keep your torso back, but you get more lat stretch with your arm in front of you…
That’s why it’s better to use a parallel-grip V handle, as in the opening photo, or more of an undergrip pulldown with a bar that has separate handles so that your upper arms are rotated more forward—in front of your torso.
Also, always move slowly, and, again, keep your torso angled back somewhat.
All of those things limit the possibility of shoulder impingement, something you want to avoid like Taco Bell before a long flight.
Yes, rocking your torso to vertical in the arms-extended position does provide even more stretch, but don’t do it…
Again, that puts your upper arms next to your head where the impingement problem is most likely to occur.
Incidentally, you’re using the V-handle or separate-handle pulldown for lat stretch, so you don’t worry about getting your arms all the way down next to your torso for lat contraction. Repping in the top half of the range is fine—but no Kipping!
And if any pulldown version hurts your shoulders, stop doing them. Not worth the risk.
New: Get the ideal exercise for each muscle, the best add-on moves for ultimate mass, complete 35-minute workouts, exercise start/finish photos, and details on building muscle fast and efficiently in Old Man, Young Muscle.
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Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
Steve Holman
Former Editor in Chief, Iron Man Magazine
www.X-Rep.com
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