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The lat pulldown machine is ultimately designed to work your lats through a variety of pulldown exercises, which you are probably familiar with. However, there is a range of unique ways to use this machine that allow you to work a lot more than just your lats!
In this article, I’m going to tell you about eight lat pulldown machine exercises you may not have thought about before.
Contents
1. Straight Arm Pulldown
Muscles worked: latissimus dorsi, deltoids, triceps, abdominals
Attachment: Straight bar
A rarely seen but super-useful lat machine exercise, the straight arm pulldown is a goodie for adding width to your back.
It is an isolation exercise as the movement is derived from only one joint. However, it works numerous muscles throughout your upper body, with the bonus of recruiting your core for stabilization.
Keeping your arms straight during the pulldown is critical in eliminating bicep involvement. The more your biceps work, the less your back does. So, straighten out those arms and focus on your wings, baby!
2. Reverse Close-Grip Lat Pulldown
Muscles worked: rhomboids, lats, biceps
Attachment: Straight bar
When compared with the wide grip lat pulldown, the close grip in this version targets, more specifically, the muscles towards the middle of your back than your wider lats.
It makes sense to think of it this way – the wider your grip, the further out towards the sides of your back the exercise works; the narrower your grip, the closer towards the center of your back the exercise works.
You should aim to keep your elbows as close to your body as possible as you pull the bar down to just above your chest. Concentrate on retracting your shoulder blades as you go through the motion, so that they are squeezed together hard at the bottom of the movement.
Allow your arms to go to full extension, creating a stretch through your lats before you pull down into your next repetition.
Maintaining a small bend in your knees, having your elbows tucked by your sides, and keeping your core engaged will help power you through this movement safely and effectively.
Learn more: 5 Powerful Lat Pulldown Alternatives With Dumbbells
3. Reverse Grip Tricep Pulldown
Muscles worked: triceps
Attachment: Straight bar
The underhand grip in this version of the tricep pulldown places the focus on the medial head of your triceps, unlike its overhand counterpart, which focusses on the lateral head.
While the lateral head is great for aesthetics, the medial head significantly aids the functionality of your elbow joint. Consequently, it will boost your performance in your other exercises requiring movement through the elbow joint.
Hold the bar with an underhand grip, shoulder-width apart. Keep your elbows fixed by your sides as you pull the bar downwards until your arms are straight and your triceps fully contracted. Standing with your feet hip-width apart and hinging forward slightly at the hips while you perform this will provide a solid and stable base for you.
4. Single Arm High Cable Bicep Curls
Muscles worked: biceps, forearms
Attachment: Single handle
I love this exercise for working the inner head of the bicep, responsible for giving your biceps a thicker and wider aesthetic. You can do this double-sided using a cable tower. However, the lat pulldown machine lends itself to the single-arm version, which happens to be my preference.
It is an isolation exercise as the only joint fuelling movement is your elbow joint. Your biceps will get 90% of the work with just a little help from your forearms.
Don’t let your elbow drop throughout this exercise – it’s important to keep your arms parallel to the floor to maximize the benefit of these curls.
5. Single Arm Lat Pulldown
Muscles worked: lats
Attachment: Single handle
The single-arm lat pulldown is a compound pull exercise for building unilateral strength and shape through your upper body. Of course, you can do this exercise with both arms at the same time, but I find this version helps develop a greater mind to muscle connection.
The primary working muscle is your lats, but it also works your rhomboids, deltoids, and even your obliques (a little bit).
As far as technique goes, use the same plane of movement as you would when doing double arm lat pulldown. Draw your shoulder blade back and down as you pull your elbow down to end up tucked by your side.
In the eccentric phase, allow your arm to go to full extension, creating a stretch through your lat before pulling down into your next repetition.
6. High Cable Row/Face Pull
Muscles worked: deltoids, rhomboids, abdominals
Attachment: Double-ended rope
The face pull is one of my favorite posture enhancing exercises. It works the muscles through the back of your shoulders and middle of your back, which are responsible to a large extent, for keeping your upper back in an optimal position.
Doing this exercise helps draw your shoulders back, counteracting the downsides of doing regular push exercises. As this is a standing exercise, your core also gets a workout from having to stabilize your body.
It’s best to stand in a split stance while performing this exercise. Pull the rope to your face, sending your elbows out wide. Remember to squeeze your shoulder blades together and hold there for a second before returning to starting position.
7. Overhead Tricep Extensions
Muscles worked: triceps
Attachment: Double-ended rope
This exercise places constant tension on your triceps and works them from a unique angle. It makes for a fantastic finisher exercise at the end of your workout, if you want to go out with a bang!
My favorite element of this exercise is the stretch it provides through your triceps in your base/starting position.
If you feel like you’re using your body weight to pull the rope/extend your arms, the weight is too heavy for you. It is an isolation exercise, meaning only your elbow joint should be going through the motion. Your torso should stay fixed and your arms close to your head.
Flexing your wrists at the top of the movement will allow for 100% contraction of the triceps, which is what you’re aiming for. Give it a go!
8. Parallel Grip Lat Pulldown
Muscles worked: lats, biceps, forearms
Attachment: Parallel grip bar
This version of the lat pulldown helps target your lower lats, which are sometimes ‘hard to reach’ in the more traditional versions of lat pulldowns. The parallel grip recruits your biceps and forearms as well, making this a great all-round upper body exercise.
Strengthening this combination of muscles and teaching them to work in unison will significantly increase your performance in other exercises such as pull-ups, chin-ups, and all variations of rows. So, it’s a great ‘bang for your buck’ exercise to include in your upper body workout day!
There is a range of parallel grip bars available, offering various widths of grip handles. Ultimately, you want the handles to be over shoulder-width apart. Using a parallel grip handle will result in your palms facing each other/inwards.
Extending through your thoracic as you pull the bar down to just above your chest will give you the best contraction through your lats. Remember, time under tension is everything, so keep your reps slow and controlled – especially through the eccentric phase of the exercise.
Putting It All Together
You can get an excellent upper body workout by combining the lat pulldown machine exercises listed above.
Depending on your training goals, you could do these exercises in a giant circuit, split into supersets, or you could pick and choose a few of them to do in a set and rest style workout.
My personal preference for these pulldown exercises would be to do them in circuits or supersets and towards the higher end of the rep range scale, utilizing 45 to 60 second rest periods.
A good approach would be to work within the 10 to 12 rep range for the exercises that recruit larger muscles, for example, your lats. And work within the 12 to 15 rep range for the exercises that target smaller muscles, i.e., your triceps.
Final Words
There are many variations to the lat pulldown itself, from overhand grip to underhand grip, wide grip, narrow grip, single-arm, behind the head pulldowns… you name it. But, as you can see, the lat pulldown machine provides a versatile exercise station on which you can get a solid upper body workout done.
The versatility of the lat pulldown machine, as mentioned before, makes it a good home gym machine. It also provides a solution to those over-crowded, peak-hour gym feels, when the cable tower and other machines you may need have queues winding their way out the gym and down the road.
I encourage you to test some of these out in your next workout and let us know in the comments section below which one is your fav!
