Correct Form Of A Lat Pull Down - Mental Muscle Monday

By Jim Steffes, BS, Board Certified Athletic Trainer, ACSM Certified Personal Trainer. Jim is the Team Leader of Fitness Together Milwaukee, located in the Historic Third Ward.

In this video, Joe is performing an incorrect lat pull down.

This exercise targets your latissimus dorsi, two large muscles located in your back. These muscles help you bring your arms down closer to your body. This movement is called shoulder adduction.

As I mentioned earlier, in the video Joe is bringing the bar down behind his head. This is wrong. You can do it this way and still hit the target muscles, but it is also adding extra rotation to your shoulder, which adds pressure to the anterior and posterior aspects of your shoulder. This, in turn, can cause shoulder impingement and injury.

Instead, when you perform a lat pull down, pull the bar down in FRONT of your face, then down to your chest and collar bone area.  This is going to be a more natural movement for your shoulder and it will still work the latisimus dorsi in your back.  

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