Q: I’ve been doing the cable lat pull-in that you and Doug Brignole say is the ideal exercise, but I can’t use much weight. It seems harder at the bottom contraction and easy at the top stretch. Shouldn’t it be the opposite to be ideal?
A: You’re right in that the resistance curve on the lat pull-in is not quite right. It is too hard at the contracted position…
Still, the line of pull on the lats is much better than any pulldown. On those the pull is coming from directly overhead and in front of you…
With pull-ins you can drive your upper arm back in line with the bulk of the lat fibers.
I’ve mentioned that to “patch” faulty strength curves on some exercises, you can use end-of-set X-Rep partials. If you’re not familiar with them, here’s the drill…
At the end of a full-range set of a continuous-tension exercise, move the weight to just above the stretch position and do piston-like eight-inch partial reps. Do four of those X-Rep pulses for more fast-twitch activation and to continue exhausting the muscle in it’s strongest range—which still has strength.
So you’re basically continuing the set in the stretch area, which was somewhat neglected due to the faulty continuous-tension resistance curve.
Incidentally, the chin-bar one-arm lat pulls I used in my Old Man Young Muscle bare-bones home-gym workouts has an almost ideal strength curve. The only problem is you can’t add weight; however, higher rep are just fine on that exercise for more lat size.
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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