Any value in lat pulldowns?

[Abaddon]

Originally Posted by BigFiveFive

Stiff arm lat pulldowns will rock your world. HUUUUUUUUURRRRRRT

Originally Posted by Fazc

Also from a PL point of view, they're very good to help you feel lat involvement while Benching.

I was also a fan of that one, before I got more serous about Strongman. Some people say the exercise is not that beneficial, but personally I found it pretty good, just not really applicable to functional movements.

[Shadowschmadow]

Originally Posted by Disciple X

Depends on his goal... pullups are, in my opinion, a much superior exercise. I do both...

Also, just my experience, lat pulldowns didnt increase my pullup strength. Only thing that makes me stronger at pullups is pullups. I focused on them a lot when i was running a crossfit cycle and got to where i coukd crank 15 strict pullups or chinups easy... 21 using some swing... my lat pulldown strength didnt change much...

If he wants to do pullups, and he should, i would reccommend using assistance of some kind to build his strength- bands or partner assisted. Even better is jumping pullups- where you jump into the top position and let yourself down under control.


There's all kinds of ways to progress on pullups even before you can do one strict pulluo. Search some of the guys that do a lot of bodyweight training and theres a ton of information out there.

Good post. If you work out at a gym, I recommend finding an assisted pull up machine. Certainly not my first choice over jumping pull ups, or even sloppy pull ups, but IMO its far better than LPD.

As Disciple stated, and in my experiences as well, LPD has very little carry over to pull ups. And like anything else, practice what you play.