Everybody wants a great set of lats. Regardless of your goals it never hurts to look like an upside-down Dorito. But you need the right exercises to hit your latissimus dorsi (lats) and not a different part of your back which brings us to the 2 types of pulling exercises, horizontal and vertical pulling motions.

A horizontal pulling motion would be any type of row because you’re pulling the weight toward your body. A vertical pulling motion is where you’re pulling the weight down toward the ground. The latter motion (vertical) is what we’re focusing on in order to grow our lats.

Fun fact, if you’re an avid bench presser you need strong lats to grow your bench. In the movement your lats have the job of stabilizing the weight so don’t rely on this movement to grow your lats as it’s only a supporting muscle, but do keep this in mind if benching is your thing.

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Best Exercises for Your Lats

  • Pull Up
  • Lat Pulldown
  • Straight Arm Cable Pulldown
  • Kneeling Single Arm Lat Pulldowns
  • Pullover

The Pull Up

The pull-up is an iconic exercise and it’s one that requires almost no equipment except for, go figure, a pull-up bar. It’s also fun to find a good tree outside and use it for pull-ups to show off that back in public. What adds to the greatness of the pull-up is how effective it is for your lats but it also does a lot for your grip strength and hits a little bit of biceps too! Pull-ups can easily be made harder by adding weight on a belt or made easier by having an assisted machine.

How to do a Pull-Up
  1. Grab the bar evenly a little wider than shoulder-width apart so your elbows are bent 90 degrees at the top of the motion, your palms facing away from your body.
  2. Position legs to keep them out of the way, most people cross their legs.
  3. Keep your back and shoulders activated at the bottom of the motion.
  4. Pull the bar like you’re trying to touch it with your collarbone as quickly as possible.
  5. At the top of the motion, your head should be above your hands and your body should be relatively straight.

The Lat Pulldown

Lat pulldowns are definitely the most beginner-friendly exercise on the list as it’s the only seated exercise here and the motion is the same as the pull-up but you pull weights on a cable instead of bodyweight. Don’t get it twisted though, just because it’s beginner-friendly doesn’t mean it’s obsolete if you are an experienced lifter. The reason I say this is because of how easy it is to progressively overload this movement (click here for progressive overload) which is a key aspect of lifting for muscle gains.

How to do a Lat Pulldown
  1. Think about this movement exactly like a pull-up but instead of pulling your body to the bar it’s the other way around.
  2. Just like a pull-up, you want to grip the bar just outside of shoulder width with your palms facing away.
  3. Simply pull the bar down to your upper chest without leaning too far back then slowly let the bar go back up slowly, make sure you’re controlling the weight.

Bonus Tips:

  1. To get optimal activation in your lats press your pinky fingers into the bar and almost try to bend it.
  2. Don’t create leverage by turning it into a swinging motion, I see this far too often and you’re just missing out on gains by doing this, if you can’t pull the weight just go lower no-ones judging.

The Straight Arm Cable Pulldown

This is definitely a weirder movement because it doesn’t really feel like any other exercise except for a pullover which isn’t exactly a common exercise either. One thing I will say about this exercise though is if you want to help tone your core/obliques and just overall make your physique look great from the front this is a great one to add to the list. There’s a small muscle that connects your obliques to your lats called the serratus anterior or “the boxer’s muscle” and it’s hard to target but it’s important for movement supporting the back, plus it definitely gives your physique a shine that not many have.

I wouldn’t consider this variation of pulldown beginner friendly exactly not only because the stance is difficult to maintain but it also requires a good amount of mind-muscle connection. I wouldn’t recommend adding this to your routine until you’ve been in the gym for at least a few months but this is one of the many things that you have to look forward to when you’ve been grinding for a bit!

How to do a Straight Arm Pulldown
  1. First, you’re going to need some sort of bar cable attachment, you can use a rope but if this is your first time just use a bar.
  2. Use one of the top pinholes so the bar starts just above your head and take a step back with it lifting the weight.
  3. Bend so your hips are close to 90 degrees with your arms relatively straight while keeping most of the tension on your lats, at this point, you should be looking towards the ground and the weight should just slightly be lifted, this is your starting point.
  4. Once the tension is on your lats, pull the bar down on a slight curve towards your knees or towards the floor whichever feels better, and then slowly let the bar travel back through the motion to the top.

The Kneeling Single Arm Lat Pulldown

This movement is similar to the regular lat pulldown but it’s usually performed on a cable crossover style system with a single-handed grip. This is a great movement to train your lats unilaterally (one at a time) and it allows you to hit the lats at a different angle. Might I add you look amazing in the mirror doing it, this is one of those movements that you always wanna hit like the cable crossover just to admire your hard work. Last thing to add is that it really gives you that burn in your lats close to your armpits which is a product of a bodybuilder-level pump.

How to do a Kneeling Single Arm Lat Pulldown
  1. You need the basic single-handed grip and just take a lunge back and sit on your knee (use a pad for your knee if needed, no-ones judging… ok I might be a little bit).
  2. Pull the weight down and toward you almost like it’s in between a pulldown and rowing motion with a bit of room for rotation in your upper body while keeping your arm tucked in by your lat.
  3. You should feel the tension on whichever lat you’re using high up close to your armpit, if you feel this you’re doing it right.
  4. A tip for this is to start with your palm facing the floor and rotate your wrist so it’s facing your body by the end of the movement and repeat that for better muscle activation. If you’re lifting a little heavy you might need some support to keep your body still so feel free to hold onto the frame of the pulley system just watch your fingers so they don’t get crushed by any weights.

The Pullover

Adding this movement to the list feels a little weird because it’s not known as a back exercise but as a chest exercise. But I have good reason! The Pullover is really the only movement that targets both your chest and lats so it’s the perfect exercise for folks doing chest and back on the same day. Although most people at the gym don’t run an upper and lower body split it’s a lot more common among bodybuilding as well as powerlifting enthusiasts so this one’s for y’all.

I wanted to add this to the list because I feel like pullovers don’t get the love they deserve. Almost every bodybuilder considers this a barebones movement to add muscle mass yet rarely do you see someone doing a pullover in a commercial gym which doesn’t make any sense because other than intensity, not much changes when it comes to the actual exercise utilized by bodybuilders compared to your casual gym goer.

How to do a Pullover
  1. For this, all you need is a bench and a dumbbell.
  2. Lie down with your shoulder blades along the long part of the bench so that if you reach your arms to your sides they lay across the bench.
  3. Bend your knees at a 90-degree angle with your feet firmly planted on the floor and have the dumbbell somewhere it’s going to be easy to pick up. Hold the dumbbell above your upper chest by the side of the weight so one end is facing the ceiling and the other end is facing your body, (don’t be afraid your actually holding the dumbbell with a very secure grip).
  4. At this starting position, with straight arms reach them straight above your head so you feel a stretch on your lats then bring the weight back above your chest.
  5. Make sure you’re keeping your back and core braced while maintaining the curvature of your spine to stay away from injury.

Conclusion

Your lats play a crucial part in creating a nice physique, it’s really what gives you that width and makes you look more solid. Just throw 1 or 2 of these exercises into your routine to add more mass to your lats and be sure to cycle through them every so often so your muscles keep adapting to new movements. If you’re specifically looking to get a stunning V Taper along with your sick lats click here!