The close neutral grip lat pull-down, or close grip v-bar pull-down, is a mass and strength building exercise which primarily targets the latissimus dorsi (Lats) muscles. But the upper back (Rhomboids) is also heavily stimulated during this exercise because of the close grip bar, plus the biceps and forearms get a good workout since you’re using them to pull the weight.
This cable exercise targets your upper and mid back and helps strengthen the stabilising muscles in your core!
This exercise is a great way to isolate the lats while protecting your core and lower back.
Stability Ball Overhead Lat Pull is a great way to strengthen your lats and core and challenges your stability by having you try to do the work while lying back on the stability ball.
This exercise is a great way to target your back muscles while protecting your lower back.
No equipment, no worries! You can complete this row exercise from the comfort of your own home.
The renegade row is a fantastic full-body exercise that requires total body tension to master. This exercise will challenge your ab strength, increase your core stability, and build your back and quad strength.
Got a TRX? Well Then – you have a great and challenging exercise to have a go at! This is a fantastic way of training your back with a variety of different ways to spice it up!
A variation on a typical barbell row that is more demanding given you have to lift the bar from the ground each time.
This is a great exercise to engage the lats and they also can help wake up the upper area of the triceps.
A rack pull is actually a variation and partial movement of a deadlift. It is great for strengthening the back and also you can get a bit of glute work in there too which is no bad thing!
Neutral spine, shoulders in depression and flex your lats, pull bar into your knee, leg press the floor away. Keep your shins vertical and your butt poked back. Before your pull each rep insure you feel your lats tight and innervated to ensure they take the load.
By changing the grip on the bar, we can alter the way in which this lat pull down activates your lats and supporting muscles. By using an underhanded grip, we target the lower lats more than overhand grip. Also, as the hands are relatively close together, it also increases the range of motion beyond wider-grip pull-down variations.
Let’s be clear here – Chin ups are hard. But you have to start somewhere and that is why assisted chin ups are great for working with a weight that is in line with your current strength. Most assisted chin up machines have varying grips so be sure to work with the grip that is given to you by our trainers.
To get those lat muscles firing, this exercise stretches them out and then allows you to shorten the muscle as much as possible to get that all important squeeze! Core stability is also important for the exercise – make sure the right muscles do their job!
This is a great exercise to engage your lat and rhomboid muscles to help develop stability and strength in your back. No cables handy? No problem – you can always improvise and use a power band lassoed around a post or solid, unmovable structure. It’s important to remember that this exercise is about retracting your shoulder – not about getting your elbow as far behind you as you can.
Dead Lifts are often considered to be the biggest and most beneficial lift in the gym. It makes sense as to why too. The number of muscles recruited and the amount of weight the body can lift are both impressive and very effective in changing your body.
The Dead Lift is also one of the more technical lifts in the gym but if you learn correctly first time around, they can be seen as a simple lift! Afterall – it is simply lifting a dead weight from the floor đŸ™‚
This is a great exercise for targeting your lats but one side at a time. It is also a handy one to use if you are attempting rebalance your self in the situation of having one side of the body being weaker than the other. Focus on posture and technique is better achieved doing this motion also.
The one arm row is such a great staple of the weights room and it is important that we get it right! Too many people reef the weight too high and they also pull the weight close to their chest which actually engages your internal rotators and chest muscles which isn’t right!
Ensure your back is in neutral with no skewing to the side.
Also ensure that you pull the weight to the top of your hip bone!