Pull ups VS Lat pull downs

[Pump Freak 86]

you guys have me looking forward to my next back workout. I will start with pull ups, and try to get the most out of them. old balls, I will be dreaming tonight of that day in the gym when I have a 45 lb plate around my waist while doing pull ups

what do you guys think of this workout for my back. (I also do traps that day)

5 sets pull ups
3 sets seated rows
3 sets Lat pull
3 sets bent over rows w/BB
4 sets deadlifts

is there any glaring omissions that I should be doing?

thanks again for all the chatter.

That's close to what I do on my back/shoulder hypertrophy day
3 sets weighted pullups
3 sets tbar rows (bb rows would fulfill the same function)
3 sets Lat pulldown
3 sets seated rows
2-3 sets smith machine "deads" (more like rack pulls)

I like to start out with a whole bunch of weight with moderate reps (8-12) in my first 2 movements (a vertical and a horizontal pull) and then follow up with some lighter weights for higher reps (12-15, sometimes 15-20). It lets me blitz the muscle by dropping major bombs on it, and then I send in a small battalion of foot soldiers to kill off all the survivors. Then I drop one more bomb with the dead lifts so I can walk away from the explosion without looking back (like a badass action star, )

[_OZ_]

was wondering how much of a difference there is between the two as far as muscles used is. the reason I ask, tried some pull ups during my last back work out and found I needed a lot of assistance (like 140lbs) where as doing the lat pull downs I can do two reps at my own body weight (250lbs). while doing pull ups I could feel it a lot more in the arm pit area.

thanks

Get the best of both worlds, do sets of pull ups until your strength declines preventing you from getting sufficient reps, then finish off your quota of sets for the back with pulldowns and rows.

Further to what everyone else has already said, here are some latissimus dorsi EMG readings from an experiment done by Bret Contreras on various back exercises which show chins up and pullups generate more electrical activity within the muscles than pulldowns.

Pullldown, pronated wide grip, peak 63.5, mean 108
Pulldown, supinated grip, peak 71.2, mean 129
Chin up - supinated grip, weighted, peak 108, mean 159
Pull up - pronated wide grip, weighted, peak 102, mean 167

Source: http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_...ceps_exercises

Explanation of terms peak, mean and EMG: http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_...trap_exercises

[banky41]

if you guys don't mind, I think I will update this thread in a month or so with any gains, Strength or size that I get. I feel my back is on the small side so hopefully pulls ups can add a little mass that I can see.

thanks again

[Pump Freak 86]

if you guys don't mind, I think I will update this thread in a month or so with any gains, Strength or size that I get. I feel my back is on the small side so hopefully pulls ups can add a little mass that I can see.

thanks again

Don't get too caught up in the whole "wide grip = lat width" thing either. It doesn't actually work like that. You wind up recruiting more of your rotator cuff muscles that way (which are important muscles to train of course). A shoulder width or slightly wider grip is optimal because it gives your lats a longer ROM. When I do my pulldowns, I actually go with a close grip to get a deeper contraction down in the lower lats. A lot of people don't believe in the whole upper/lower thing, but given the changes in ROM, it makes sense that more fibers would work on the close grip relative to the standard grip. It's not an issue of isolation so much as it involves including more fibers, particularly those that aren't as heavily recruited in other movements.

[GeneralSerpant]

I was guessing this type of assistance pulley might be what the OP's using to explain the huge difference in strength. Being able to lift your bodyweight on a pulldown and needing over half your weight in assistance to get a pull up is a huge difference, a halfing pulldown seems like it could explain it.

So you're thinking someone was smart enough to make a lat pull-down, and failed to notice this mechanic design difference?

These aren't the same at all, these exercises contain incredibly different factors. First off: pushing and pulling are very different movements and have very different stability components. Believing what applies to a pressing movement would apply to a pulling movement is a bad assumption.

You don't know what you're talking about.


Real pull-ups which are disciplined call for you to not let your body sway forward. Doing L Shape is an additional ab exercise to the pull-up, and isn't a natural tendency. He said he could do 240 lb twice. It's not a very big mystery.

I'm not going to explain to you when you don't know practical experience of stabilizers.

[DrunkParkRanger]

W/ pullups your using your bodyweight (or more if adding weight) against gravity and moving your torso thru space, it is a superior compound lift for recruiting muscle fiber
That's not to say there isn't a place for pulldowns tho, im just not big on them personally
im not a bb'er tho, so definition/more localized back work isn't as important to me

[JichaelMordan]

I used to to lat pull down before i could do pull ups. Now i only do pull ups. moral of the story.... pullups ftw.

That's what I'm doing right now, using pull-downs to build up strength for pull-ups

[krease]

There is some research showing open-chain exercises are better for hypertrophy and strength (i.e. pull-ups)

However I would recommend a combination.
For example a couple of sets of jumping negatives with pull ups (where you jump up to the top position of a pullup, then descend slowly), then carry on to a few sets of pull downs.

[dualspace]

Have you looked closely at the pulley mechanism used in your machine? Basic lat pulldowns are equivalent, you're pulling down with the force needed to move that amount, meaning if you can do a pulldown with your bodyweight, doing a pull up should be not problem. The basic pulley is this type:

(btw, the force on the pulley in that left pic would be 200N, and basically invert the blue pulley on the right to match left illustration)
With this much of a discrepency (you're talking about needing assistance with over half your weight) it makes me suspicious you might have a mobile pulley system which assists using the weight. Like perhaps you're only lifting half as much on the stack (125) which would explain the pull ups difficulty.

If it resembles the above, that's an example of how you could be pulling with half the force of the weight, which sounds like the simplest approximation to explain your issue. Basically: 125+140=265.

This is doubtful, gravity pulls the body straight down. You'd be using more 'core' muscles and all that if you weren't keeping straight, because they'd be actively using extra energy to contort you into strange positions.

Try different grips widths, and check out the difference in lat involvements compared to shoulder and body firmness.

Muscles do work to hold the body together and fight the traction forces in a pull up, but this occurs in lat pulldowns in the same way.

I have no idea what this means. The anchoring comes into play as you approach your body weight, and it simulates doing a pull up with yours knees raised, there's not much of a difference besides that.

Why? Beats it how?

That's not a moral, pull ups are just more fun to do because moving yourself through space feels awesome, it's a more exclusive club because the lat pulldown's something a wider variety of people can use. That doesn't make it inferior, it just means you need to be exceptional to do pull ups and it feels good to show it off. That doesn't mean we should pretend it has magic properties.

To turn 200 into 150 would be a rather odd mechanism. Pulleys themselves do not inherently reduce the force needed to pull, they can actually increase resistance via friction. It's only certain pulley designs (which the pictures above explain) which aid the lift.

Cool story bro.

Good to see someone else here seems to understand that lat pulldowns and pull ups are equivalent on physical grounds, you cant change the laws of dynamics.

[cviji]

Same for me. It's just a whole different ball game when you pack on well over 50 lbs of muscle (my normal weight would probably be around 185-190). Jay Cutler can hardly do pull ups at all. Maybe 3 or 4... then he needs an assist. Totally fresh, he might be able to do more... but not all that many. He couldn't do 10 to save his life. This is something that's hard to appreciate, unless you've actually experienced it.

Do you know this or are you guessing? So your saying I can out pull up Jay Cutler because i'm currently doing 5x5 weighted with 55lbs? Puts it at 289lbs total. I Find it hard to believe..

[Livestrong7]

have you looked closely at the pulley mechanism used in your machine? Basic lat pulldowns are equivalent, you're pulling down with the force needed to move that amount, meaning if you can do a pulldown with your bodyweight, doing a pull up should be not problem. The basic pulley is this type:
(btw, the force on the pulley in that left pic would be 200n, and basically invert the blue pulley on the right to match left illustration)
with this much of a discrepency (you're talking about needing assistance with over half your weight) it makes me suspicious you might have a mobile pulley system which assists using the weight. Like perhaps you're only lifting half as much on the stack (125) which would explain the pull ups difficulty.

if it resembles the above, that's an example of how you could be pulling with half the force of the weight, which sounds like the simplest approximation to explain your issue. Basically: 125+140=265.

This is doubtful, gravity pulls the body straight down. You'd be using more 'core' muscles and all that if you weren't keeping straight, because they'd be actively using extra energy to contort you into strange positions.

Try different grips widths, and check out the difference in lat involvements compared to shoulder and body firmness.

Muscles do work to hold the body together and fight the traction forces in a pull up, but this occurs in lat pulldowns in the same way.

I have no idea what this means. The anchoring comes into play as you approach your body weight, and it simulates doing a pull up with yours knees raised, there's not much of a difference besides that.

Why? Beats it how?

That's not a moral, pull ups are just more fun to do because moving yourself through space feels awesome, it's a more exclusive club because the lat pulldown's something a wider variety of people can use. That doesn't make it inferior, it just means you need to be exceptional to do pull ups and it feels good to show it off. That doesn't mean we should pretend it has magic properties.

To turn 200 into 150 would be a rather odd mechanism. Pulleys themselves do not inherently reduce the force needed to pull, they can actually increase resistance via friction. It's only certain pulley designs (which the pictures above explain) which aid the lift.

Cool story bro.

wtf

[ConP83]

if you guys don't mind, I think I will update this thread in a month or so with any gains, Strength or size that I get. I feel my back is on the small side so hopefully pulls ups can add a little mass that I can see.

thanks again

When you get to about 220 i reckon you will be able to do a set of 6-10 reps

edit: that is if you keep training to do them

[oldballs]

When you get to about 220 i reckon you will be able to do a set of 6-10 reps

edit: that is if you keep training to do them

Why don't you ask him if he kept training them? He posted that almost 3 years ago.

[ConP83]

Why don't you ask him if he kept training them? He posted that almost 3 years ago.

fking lol, who the f revives all these old threads lately

[1883]

was wondering how much of a difference there is between the two as far as muscles used is. the reason I ask, tried some pull ups during my last back work out and found I needed a lot of assistance (like 140lbs) where as doing the lat pull downs I can do two reps at my own body weight (250lbs). while doing pull ups I could feel it a lot more in the arm pit area.

thanks

I do both. Usually in the same workout. I do ToNS of pull-ups tho. Twice a week. Weighted and body weight.