Thread: Lat pulldown noob question

Pronated grip will work shoulder adduction.

Neutral and supinated grip gives the lats a better angle of pull, and involves slightly more bicep.

Do them all, swap them out from time to time, get strong on each.

Originally Posted by WesternGrizzly

Hey guys. Starting to workout again and doing both wide grip and close grip pulldowns
Now my question, is there a big difference between V bar pulldowns or close underhand pulldowns, so the close grip v bar or wide bar but close underhand grip. Or am I overthinking this?

The lats have two main functions:
Extension, as in pulling your arms down in front of you.
Adduction, as in pulling your arms from out wide into your sides.

Choosing a wide grip allows you to combine lat extension with lat adduction.
Choosing a narrow grip will focus much more on the extension portion.

The different between neutral, pronate, and supinate grips is largely which bicep involvement you prefer.
Pronate grip will work more of the outer biceps.
Supinate grip will work of the inner biceps.
Neutral grip splits the difference.

I would say there isn't really an advantage of going with anything much narrower than shoulder width, but that's probably personal preference.

There are, however, some advantages with going wider, as that can add towards the function of adduction of the lats.

*edit*
BeginnerGainz beat me to it

Originally Posted by WesternGrizzly

Thanks guys for the anwers had to look up what each grip meant so gonna start with pronated and supinated grip and later one switch it up with neutral (and once I lose some fat/weight start doing pull/chin ups)

Just also tried the cable rows, wide grip felt weird so might try next time the somewhat wider bar but with neutral grip next time, guess difference is kinda neglectible aswell or am I mistaken? Also gonna/wanna combine them with the close grip v bar

Rows and lat pull downs are 2 very different movement patterns.

Pull downs are internally rotated, and stress the teres major and lat, while rows are externally rotated and stress the rhomboids, mid and upper traps.

You should be doing 2:1 rows to pull downs IMO.