Q: I have almost all of your e-books. I can’t begin to tell you how much muscle they’ve helped me build. I’d be lost without them, and I reread them often. My question is about back width, which is one of my weak points. In The Ultimate Mass Workout [the original X-Rep manual] you say that parallel-grip chins is the Ultimate Exercise for lats. But in many of your programs, like the POF-X workout in the X-Rep Update #1 e-book, you have wide-grip pulldowns as the big midrange move for lats. But what about chins? I’ve read that wide-grip chinups are the best lat exercises. Can you clarify, please?

A: For most trainees, parallel-grip chins will put the biceps in an advantageous position to maximize pulling power, but not so good as to make the biceps the prime mover. That’s why we say it’s the Ultimate Exercise for lats—if you’re only going to do one exercise for lats, that’s at the top of the list. [Read more…]