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How to do a lat pulldown
How to perform the lat pulldown with good form — grip width, torso angle, where to pull the bar, and how to stop your biceps and traps taking over the set.
- The top — arms straight, shoulders allowed to rise into a full stretch.
- The bottom — bar to the upper chest, elbows driven down beside the ribs.
- Primary muscles
- lats
- Also works
- biceps, rhomboids and teres major
- Equipment
- cable
- Type
- compound, pull
- Level
- beginner
- Also called
- Lat Pull Down and Lat Pulldown
The lat pulldown is the pull-up made adjustable, and that adjustability is the whole point. Most people cannot do enough strict pull-ups to train their back properly, and the pulldown lets them do the same pattern at a load that allows twelve controlled reps instead of three ugly ones.
It is also one of the most commonly wasted machines in the gym, because the obvious way to use it — sit down, yank, lean back, repeat — trains the biceps and the momentum of your own torso. Doing it well is mostly about where the elbows go.
The set-up
- Set the thigh pad so your legs are held firmly. If your hips lift off the seat on heavy sets, the pad is too high.
- Take a grip slightly wider than shoulder-width, palms facing away. Wider is not better here; past a certain point it just shortens the range.
- Sit down with your arms straight overhead and let your shoulders rise naturally into a full stretch. That stretch is the top of the rep.
- Set a slight backward lean — around 10–20° from vertical — and keep it fixed for the whole set. Chest up.
The rep
- Start the rep by pulling your shoulder blades down, before your arms bend. Everything good about this exercise follows from that ordering.
- Drive your elbows down toward your ribcage. The hands are hooks; the elbows are what you are moving.
- Pull the bar to your upper chest, around collarbone height. Stop there — dragging it to your stomach only adds a lean-back.
- Pause briefly with the shoulder blades depressed, then let the bar rise under control back to a full overhead stretch.
- Allow the shoulders to travel up at the top. Keeping them locked down throughout removes the stretch that makes the exercise work.
Common mistakes
- Leaning back to move the weight
- A fixed 10–20° lean is fine. A lean that increases as the set goes on is a seated row in disguise, and it means the weight is too heavy. Pick a load you can pull without your torso swinging.
- Pulling with the hands instead of the elbows
- If you feel this exercise mainly in your biceps and forearms, you are pulling with your arms. Depress the shoulder blades first and think about driving the elbows into your back pockets.
- Pulling behind the neck
- Behind-the-neck pulldowns force extreme external rotation and a forward head position for no additional benefit. There is no version of this that the front pulldown does not do better and more safely.
- Cutting the top of the rep
- Stopping with the elbows still bent skips the stretched position where the lat does most of its growing. Let the arms straighten fully every rep.
Sets and reps
A rep range of 8–15 suits this movement — it is a machine, so the risk of grinding out an extra rep is low and the stretch rewards control. Two sessions a week is common, and it pairs naturally with pressing days.
| Goal | Prescription | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Muscle | 3–4 sets of 10–15 | Two seconds up, one second down. The eccentric is not optional. |
| Building toward pull-ups | 4 sets of 6–8 | Heavy enough that six is hard. Progress until you can pull your bodyweight. |
| First year lifting | 3 sets of 12 | Learn to feel the lats before chasing the stack. |
Variations worth knowing
- Pull-up
- The same pattern at bodyweight, with a much greater trunk demand. The goal the pulldown is usually building toward.
- Close grip / neutral grip pulldown
- Palms facing each other. Longer range, more biceps, and generally kinder to cranky shoulders and elbows.
- Single arm cable pulldown
- One side at a time, which allows a little torso rotation and a longer range. Good for finding a lat you have trouble feeling.
Questions
How wide should my grip be on the lat pulldown?
Slightly wider than shoulder-width. The belief that a very wide grip builds a wider back is not supported by how the lat actually works — past about 1.5 times shoulder width you mostly lose range of motion and add shoulder stress.
Should I pull the bar behind my neck?
No. It requires shoulder external rotation most people do not have, encourages a forward head position, and offers nothing over pulling to the front. It is one of the few exercises genuinely worth abandoning outright.
Why do I only feel lat pulldowns in my arms?
Because the rep is starting at the elbows rather than the shoulder blades. Try a set at half your normal weight, pulling your shoulder blades down first and pausing for two seconds at the bottom. Once you can feel it, add the load back gradually.
Are lat pulldowns as good as pull-ups?
For training the lats specifically, they are close, and they are better if you cannot do enough pull-ups for a real set. Pull-ups demand more from the trunk and grip, and carry more real-world value. Most people should do both.
How much should I be able to lat pulldown?
A reasonable intermediate benchmark is your bodyweight for a set of eight with strict form — which is also roughly the point at which pull-ups start becoming available to you.
How do I make sure I am progressing on machines?
Machine work is where progress most often quietly stops, because the pin goes in the same hole for months without anyone noticing. Log it like a barbell lift and let the chart tell you. Workout Chat gives every movement its own progression, so a stack that has not moved since March is visible as a flat line.
Log it the moment you rack it.
Type “lat pulldown 3x5 at 80kg” and it's recorded, charted, and checked against your best.
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