Lats

Overview

This is technically a lats, teres major and other supporting musculature section, colloquially known as ‘back width’.

Effective lats training involves targeting the latissimus dorsi at various angles. Although it doesn’t have distinct heads, the fan shape of the muscle means likely more than one angle is necessary to train (over time).

The lats are involved in shoulder (the glenohumeral joint) extension and abduction.

The reality is back training is an interconnected puzzle. Lats, traps and spinal erectors (classified under core for our purposes) have to be considered in unison. There will be movements and exercises here that works our traps and vice versa.

Prescription

Minimalist

An absolute minimalist approach means 1 movement ‘slot’.

In this case if we can only 1 motor pattern, there’s a clear winner:

• Vertical pull

Moderate

If we have more resources to expend on the muscle group, it is of course the preferred approach.

In this case the movement slots would look like this:

• Vertical pull
• Unilateral pull

Maximalist

This is the approach if we are throwing everything at the kitchen sink. Use sparingly either if you are in a plateau or looking for a specialisation phase.

Here the movement slots might look like this:

• Vertical pull
• Unilateral pull
• Teres major dominant pullover

Standout exercises

Vertical pull movement

Pull-up

• If you can do at least 5 clean reps, there’s no doubt this is the best for this movement slot. If you can’t, it’s definitely preferred to do lat pulldowns or the assisted pull-up machine rather than sloppy reps or banded pull-ups (FYI I think banded pull-ups do have utility but only for folks who can already do clean pull-ups reps).
• There’s no best grip, and if you have access to the equipment you should be periodically cycling between the tri grips on a cable machine, supinated on a bar (i.e. chin-up), pronated on a bar (i.e. pull-up) and gymnastic rings (i.e. ring pull-ups). While you can make some assertions that bio-mechanically a grip that brings your elbows closer in biases it more towards the lats, it’s a fractional difference that shouldn’t deter you from other variations.
• The two progressions from bodyweight pull-ups are weighted pull-ups with a dip belt and bodyweight variations gradually moving to a Gironda style pull-up into a pull-up to front lever row.
• Equipment wise, straps or rubber grips can be used, but if so it’s imperative you use it sparingly – save it only for one top set.

Lat Pulldown

• The inversion of a pull-up. Similar to the leg press vs squat, I strongly believe for advanced lifters this is not a replacement for pull-ups and there’s probably some effectiveness lost. Having said that it can be cycled in on occasion for variety’s sake or during a recovery phase. For beginners and intermediates there is of course no difference and this is a great choice.

Unilateral pull movement

I’m adamantly convinced a unilateral variation is a game-changer for advanced lifters. These 6 options are all S tier though I do have to give the edge to the cable variations.

1-arm Cable Pull or variations

• I consider these three variations to be equally good: 1-arm row on the Seated Cable Row, 1-arm pull on the dual pulley Lat Pulldown, 1-arm diagonal row on the cable stack with chest supported against a bench. In simple terms, think of it as a horizontal, vertical and diagonal (45 degrees in between the two).

1-arm DB Row or variations

• Coincidentally there are also three ways of performing this that all have merit: staggered stance with DB side as lead foot, staggered stance with DB side as rear foot, neutral stance.

Teres major-dominant pullover movement

Remember we’re calling this section ‘lats’ for simplicities sake. We also need to train the teres major, teres minor, and all the other muscles surrounding our shoulder socket and the back.

Pullover Machine

• If your gym has this, use it. That’s pretty much it, the old school Nautilus machine is arguably still one of the best but any number of brands are solid.

DB/KB Pullover

• For most people (due to lack of equipment), this is going to be the best variation. These are done with the upper back and butt lying on the bench, not the sideways version. Alternate between dumbbells and kettlebells every once in a while to change the stimulus slightly.

Cable Pullover

• I don’t consider this to be as good as the two options above. This is a near perfect lat-dominant pullover, but the problem is it doesn’t take the teres major to a lengthened position.
• Also called a lat prayer by some.

Execution

With pulls – secret sauce to the pull-ups is the full shoulder elevation of each rep; this adds to scapula work which is underworked for almost everybody.

With unilateral pulls, execution is even more important than the bilateral variants. Remember that the lats wrap around the rib cage.

We need to a slight rotation of the torso to reach a fully lengthened position. We also need a slight rotation of the torso, and a slight sideways towards the pulling arm, to reach a fully shortened position. Yes this involves your obliques to an extent and you’ll need to use your body to stabilise the weight, but we should be treating that as a feature not a bug. This is doubly true for the cable variations, but also applies to the dumbbells to an extent.

There’s very few exercises that take the lats through this complete range of motion and you should be able to develop a strong mind muscle connection with the entirety of the movement over time.

One additional note on 1-arm lat pulldown variations. Keep the tension on the lats by not letting the hand go vertically straight up. If you find a mind muscle connection with the lats you should be able to feel it lose tension in that position. Your hand should be going roughly 10 degrees off a vertical line, give or take dependent on your individual anatomy and where you can feel your lats.

With pullovers, make sure to keep intra-thoracic pressure so feel your rib cage expand with each breath. You will be arching your lower back here to stretch the teres major and lats, but don’t completely lose pressure inside the torso.

Programming

Reps, tempo, sets, rest times

Lats don’t really need any special notes here, just focus on execution (particularly on those uni-lateral pulls!) and effort and the rest will come.

The only note is the back in general is a very resilient muscle so you may choose to start them off at 1 set higher than other muscles if it’s your priority. So starting at 3 sets instead of 2 if you’re intermediate, or 2 sets instead of 1 if you’re advanced.

Intensifiers and volume

Pull-ups should generally be kept as straight sets or mechanical drop sets. Lat pulldowns can effectively use cluster sets or drop sets.

For cable unilateral work, most of it can be pushed to mechanical drop sets. Treat them as full ROM reps, partial reps, and scapula only reps.

For dumbbell unilateral work, straight sets or drop sets are the way to go.

With pullovers, it is so lengthened biased that straight sets are pretty much it, with an optional iso hold at the end.

Sequence

The sequence here doesn’t need to follow the standard shortened biased first, mid-range biased second, lengthened biased third rule.

Generally it makes sense to go a traditional heavy to light approach with lats, with pull-ups or pulldowns first, unilateral pulls second, ending with pullovers.