If you want a bigger, wider back, you need to master the lat pulldown. In this video, we break down proper lat pulldown form, the biggest mistakes people make, and how to actually feel your lats working every rep.
Most people turn this into an arm exercise… not here.
We’ll show you how to fix your technique so you can build muscle, increase back width, and improve your pull strength immediately.
In this video you’ll learn:
Proper lat pulldown form step-by-step How to activate your lats (not your arms) The best grip for lat pulldowns Common lat pulldown mistakes (and how to fix them) How to get a stronger mind-muscle connection Tips for beginners and advanced lifters
Key Coaching Cues:
“Chest tall, slight lean back” “Drive elbows down to your pockets” “Pull with your elbows, not your hands” “Control the negative” “Full stretch at the top”
Whether you're a beginner or experienced lifter, dialing in your lat pulldown technique will help you build a V-taper, stronger back, and better posture.
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What's up? Coach Josh here from Gloss Fitness and today I'm going to show you how to do the
lat pulldown with perfect form. It's an easy movement but a lot of people make small mistakes
that really get it wrong for them. I'm going to walk you through what to do, what not to do. So
let's jump right into it. So you're going to start by making sure your setup is right. Get your bar
attached when you want. You can go closed grip, wide grip. Today I'm going to demonstrate wide
grip. From here you want to make sure when you're sitting that you're snug. A lot of people have
too much wiggle or not enough space where they can't get in. You want to be able to get in here
to the top of your legs. Plant your feet flat so you have a strong base to begin this movement.
So you're going to grab nice and wide here. Get in nice and tight like I demonstrated.
Plant yourself. From here what you want to do is actually retract your scapula. So it's going to
look like this. This motion here where you're pulling the back of your shoulder blades backwards,
lifting your chest up a little bit, putting your head high and pulling the bar in towards your
chest. You don't necessarily need to touch your chest. If you have some mobility limitations or
more muscle, like for me this is a full range of motion, but try to go as far as you can. Let the
bar bring you up and stretch out your lats. From here you're going to come back with power, leaning
back ever so slightly and squeezing. One pro tip I really like is envision you have a tennis ball
behind your back as you can see on the screen. Really focus and isolate that squeeze. Getting a
full contraction and then as you come up really try to control and fight against the weight snapping
back so you can get a great negative in this movement. Now there's a couple intricacies I
want to show you and things you want to avoid that you might think you're doing right that
you're actually doing wrong. But before I get into that, I'm an online coach with over 5,500
transformations. I guarantee my results your money back. Form is so important but what's more
important is nutrition, accountability and goal setting and I help with all of that. You want to
learn more about how I can help you one-on-one risk-free for your guaranteed results so you can
get absolutely ripped, get unlimited form checks and have support in every area of your journey.
Go ahead and check out my website. First link down below. Colossusfitness.com. Now into those
common mistakes. So first is pulling the bar straight down. If you're doing this, you're not
properly engaging your lats. Instead you're going to pull back here, squeeze into those lats. There's
a big difference between this. This is correct form and you're just keeping your chest upright
and pulling down with your arms. This is not what we're trying to do whatsoever. We really want to
recruit our lat through the whole motion pulled down. The second mistake is going too far the
other way. That's leaning back too far. Here we're just using gravity. We're using momentum.
You're going to feel strong. You're going to take away a lot of the tension throughout the movement.
You want to keep tension on the lat the whole time with control and this is how you're going to get
the most out of the movement. The last common mistake I'll see a lot of beginners do. This will
try to bring it forward to their legs like this. Turn into a bit of a tricep push down and if you
can even do this, this indicates to me that you're going way too light. That's where you want to use
a weight that can challenge you. It's actually hard to complete a good set of 8-12 reps.
Don't go too light. Use a heavier weight. It'll actually help correct this movement. If you're
really unsure, you can also film yourself from the side. Get an idea of how it looks because
often there's a disconnect between what you're doing and how you think it's looking. That is
a quick change I would make. I hope this video helped you. If it did, smash like, subscribe,
all that great stuff. If you want one-on-one support, you want to guarantee your results,
you want to take it to the next level, click that first link and I will work with you one-on-one.
Peace out.
