Pull Up vs Chin Up

[GeneralSerpant]

I literally told you w

The teres major mainly locks the arm into an external rotation in order to allow the traps to position the shoulders and orient them to stretch the lats. Basically, wherever your rear delts end up and how they're pointed is going to determine what kind of stretch you can get with the lats. That's why you're supposed to raise you're shoulders before you pull in a dead hang. Your traps, hanging from the top of your spine, is completely mobile to flare the lats in such manner when "shrugging" your arms while they are overhead.

The teres major is what locks the tricep into place with the lat while your traps swing the shoulder around.

[BeginnerGainz]

The teres major mainly locks the arm into an external rotation in order to allow the traps to position the shoulders and orient them to stretch the lats. Basically, wherever your rear delts end up and how they're pointed is going to determine what kind of stretch you can get with the lats. That's why you're supposed to raise you're shoulders before you pull in a dead hang. Your traps, hanging from the top of your spine, is completely mobile to flare the lats in such manner when "shrugging" your arms while they are overhead.

The teres major is what locks the tricep into place with the lat while your traps swing the shoulder around.

The teres major is responsible for a few things. One, is internal rotation.

The other is, wait for it, shoulder extension. Particularly from higher flexion angles when it is in the best position to do so because the lats do not have the leverage.

No one is disputing the fact that lats are involved in the chin up or pull up. They just aren’t the prime mover, at least not how traditionally they are done.

There are a few ways to combat that, like doing them Gironda way, or getting a light lean (during pull downs) and holding it throughout to better line it up with the lats or in the case of the chin up/pull up, doing rack chins.

Either or, if the movement is starting with the scaps, that lats aren’t the prime mover. If it is starting at the glenohumeral joint and minimizing scapular involvement as much as possible, then it becomes a lat movement.

[EiFit91]

I'm a calisthenics person. Front lever holds and front lever pull ups is horizontal. I work on that a lot. Get strong at retraction so that you can retract to have upper body horizontal, legs relaxed/dangling (arching hang) and pull up like that.

Regular pull ups, especially gym bro pull ups is low range of motion, done fast using momentum, just dropping going down and bouncing to go back up. It's not kipping pull ups, but it's not just using muscles to do the movement. It's using technique to make the movement as easy as possible, range of motion just enough to feel a "pump" to count more reps. You're better off doing lat pull downs with a weight you can actually control and have some actual range of motion.

I agree with your point in the second paragraph and basically wrote the same in post 4 in this thread :P So many people do them incorrectly, and these people would be better off doing lat pulldowns.

Can you do full front lever pull ups? I normally do "pike" front lever pullups on rings (this guy is doing them on a bar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TeXpWIvl2Y) and they are my favorite back exercise. I am able to do proper advanced tuck front lever pullups but haven't been able to progress past those yet.

No one is disputing the fact that lats are involved in the chin up or pull up. They just aren’t the prime mover, at least not how traditionally they are done.

But so far you haven't really provided evidence for any of your assertions in the thread, yet you keep making them. For instance, Lyle McDonald reviews the evidence for the statement "lats have no leverage past 120 degrees" in the video I posted and concludes that the data used to support that conclusion is extremely limited. So it's like this thing that often happens where a statement gets repeated enough times and then it's suddenly true by repetition. Just because a lot of internet personalities say something doesn't make it true.

I am worried that statements like these mislead people into disregarding the basics that are proven to work time and time again, and instead do some weird movement instead. Of course we shouldn't be dogmatic in our recommendations, but we shouldn't be dogmatically anti-dogmatic either!

[BeginnerGainz]

I agree with your point in the second paragraph and basically wrote the same in post 4 in this thread :P So many people do them incorrectly, and these people would be better off doing lat pulldowns.

Can you do full front lever pull ups? I normally do "pike" front lever pullups on rings (this guy is doing them on a bar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TeXpWIvl2Y) and they are my favorite back exercise. I am able to do proper advanced tuck front lever pullups but haven't been able to progress past those yet.



But so far you haven't really provided evidence for any of your assertions in the thread, yet you keep making them. For instance, Lyle McDonald reviews the evidence for the statement "lats have no leverage past 120 degrees" in the video I posted and concludes that the data used to support that conclusion is extremely limited. So it's like this thing that often happens where a statement gets repeated enough times and then it's suddenly true by repetition. Just because a lot of internet personalities say something doesn't make it true.

I am worried that statements like these mislead people into disregarding the basics that are proven to work time and time again, and instead do some weird movement instead. Of course we shouldn't be dogmatic in our recommendations, but we shouldn't be dogmatically anti-dogmatic either!

What is weird about rowing? The only difference between a lat movement and an upper back movement is arm positioning and spinal positioning.

For lats, you want extensions with as little scapular movement as possible. Why? Because the lats don’t attach to the scapula. Which during a traditional pull up or chin up is what is initiating the movement.

For lats you want a neutral spine. Why? Because they use the rib cage as a fulcrum to produce force. For upper back you want an arched back, which if you look at anyone doing a pull up or chin up that is the position they end up in at the top.

Honestly at this point I really don’t care. Look at the things on an anatomy chart if you don’t believe me. While your at it, look at some of the biggest dudes out there and watch some of their training footage and not just the “look at me” sh!t they put out there for clicks and views. They all have absurd hanging lats and they didn’t get that way from doing pull ups and chin ups.

Here is a few.

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CYkqRre...dium=copy_link

https://www.instagram.com/johnjewett...dium=copy_link

and some more resources

https://builtwithscience.com/must-do-lats-exercises/

I’ll close by saying completely disregard anything I’ve said here if all you want to do is some basic movements that don’t maximize development of any one muscle group. The basics are great.

But at the same time, you’re not gonna reach your full potential without getting brutally strong in a lot of different movements that bias different muscles and muscle divisions.

Also to the OP, pick either one you like. But neither is “more lat” than the other. If anything, give rack chins a try. You’ll put the lats under a full stretch and you’ll find you can more naturally lead with shoulder extension vs scapular retraction.

[GeneralSerpant]

Yeah teres major is an inferior muscle that does the same function but doesn't use the stability of the trunk.



I'm not seeing any indication that it's better for pulling the arm in from high. Dips maybe.

[BeginnerGainz]

Kassem Hanson of N1 training explains it better than I can, this is from a rebuttal to Doug Brignole.

https://getpodcast.com/pl/podcast/th...sem_f9168159e3

Skip to 55 minutes

[GeneralSerpant]

So the traps kind of exist on their own schedule. It's simple enough to understand that the upper traps raise the entire shoulder basket and will help the front deltoid adduct and pull the arm up on a completely lateral basis. It's not a very confident movement, and shows the limitation of the traps direct work with the arms.



The traps start at both the top and middle of the spine and insert into the centerline of the scapula. The upper traps serve to directly rotate the scapula up-forward while the lower traps serve to rotate the scapula back in completely opposite fashion. These two functions together have a lot of torque obviously, but are very dull and don't translate directly to pullups very precisely.

So while the upper traps are pulling the entire scapula up in rotation, the teres major is anchoring the arm to tug directly on upper trap via the scapula that is being very regionally but intimately anchored to the lower traps. As I was saying, the scapula can move the upper arm with an entire stability basis of upper/lower traps, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it can translate that strength fully to the arm.

Now, instead of handling very slow movement between the upper and lower traps, we have the lower traps just latch on to the teres major to keep it cocky and give the intimate pre-tense to the upper traps. The lats now come into play with direct contact to the arm and tug directly in opposition of the upper traps with conjunction of the external rotation elicited by not only the teres major (and rhomboids , but the lower traps as well.

[BeginnerGainz]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CYpzU...dium=copy_link