Lat Pulldown vs Pullup

PLBFitness said:
I don't really see the difference between the two other than for pulldowns, it's easier to increase the resistance and you can vary the shoulder angle by leaning back. I disagree with whoever said that a pull-up is more natural... for either exercise, your hands are at a fixed position throughout the movement. See this here:





The only way I would consider one 'more natural' over the other is if your hands and arms were able to move independently... The only way I can think to do this for a movement similar to pull-ups or pull-downs is to hang upside down and use free weights in basically an upside-down shoulder press, which by the way, I would NOT recommend :)

Oh and I definitely think that pull-ups look more impressive... mostly because most people don't do pull-downs correctly ;)
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You might want to explain your comment better. Cause as a Kinesiologist and a cert'ed ACSM... You should know know the difference between the two and easily explain better than "I don't really see the difference".
 
Bobdawg said:
You might want to explain your comment better. Cause as a Kinesiologist and a cert'ed ACSM... You should know know the difference between the two and easily explain better than "I don't really see the difference".
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A feisty newbie...welcome to the forum.
 
SXIPro said:
A feisty newbie...welcome to the forum.
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Thanks! And ya I'm a little fiesty when it it comes to people giving advice about other people's health and not being clear and exact about the truth. This is how people get hurt, over/under train, etc... Not to mention this is how fitness myths/drama/rumors get started. I can't remember how many people that I had to 'de-program' cause of the "I saw on online/forum it says *this*"

And I don't mean to be insulting and yes I know it sounds harsh, but when you get a degree/certification, you are representing that group. And has someone that has an NASM and ACSM cert, it's like I want to slap you in the back of the head and say "do better" :p
 
I personally like pull ups over pull downs, but that's because the women find it more impressive to see you pull yourself up 30 times than pull the bar down, haha, I kid. I kid. All though, I do, do pull ups more than I do lat pull downs.

Bobdawg, I see that you too hail from Minnesota, if you don't mind me asking, where in this wonderful state are you from?
 
Bobdawg said:
You might want to explain your comment better. Cause as a Kinesiologist and a cert'ed ACSM... You should know know the difference between the two and easily explain better than "I don't really see the difference".
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You're more than welcome to explain what you see that is different between the two. I welcome discussion! Since we are on a forum, what is stated is my opinion based on the info given... Since the post is quite old, I don't expect the original poster who asked the question to come back and answer any questions that I might have such as what variations he might be doing of each exercise, etc. Based on the examples that I posted, the joint angles, target muscles, and muscle actions are the same.
 
Bobdawg said:
Thanks! And ya I'm a little fiesty when it it comes to people giving advice about other people's health and not being clear and exact about the truth. This is how people get hurt, over/under train, etc... Not to mention this is how fitness myths/drama/rumors get started. I can't remember how many people that I had to 'de-program' cause of the "I saw on online/forum it says *this*"

And I don't mean to be insulting and yes I know it sounds harsh, but when you get a degree/certification, you are representing that group. And has someone that has an NASM and ACSM cert, it's like I want to slap you in the back of the head and say "do better" :p
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I'm not sure what I said or didn't say that offended you so much, but if you're so against forums and people giving advice on forums.... why are you on a forum giving advice?

Do you have anything to say that is relevant to the question asked on the thread?
 
SXIPro said:
I always start my back day with pullups. Mentally it's just one of those things I get a kick out of seeing progress. Kinda like benching more weight. I know, it's weird. My pulldown has increased from 180 lbs to 220 lbs, but I could care less. My pullups have increased from being able to do 5 to being able to do 12, and I'm like Yippee!! (Which is sad in itself since I used to be able to do millions of them when I was a scawny teenager)
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The psychological value is good, I admit even though I don't think of PUs as superior to PDs, ups are more fun to do, with the whole moving through space thing.

SXIPro said:
I see some guys that almost look like they are laying down they lean back so far.......
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Is it a problem to do that? It'd shift the angle of the pull, sure, but if you touch your chest to the bar during pull ups you're inevitably leaning backward too. Leaning makes it a bit more row-like, but you'd still be hitting the lats and upper back and all those goodies, so it seems fine.

Jaymann said:
I personally like pull ups over pull downs, but that's because the women find it more impressive to see you pull yourself up 30 times than pull the bar down, haha, I kid. I kid. All though, I do, do pull ups more than I do lat pull downs.
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True, BW moves are visually more impressive to a lot of people since you can't really see the weight, to someone not familiar with weight difficulty, doing a lat pulldown with 300lbs could look similar to doing it with 30lbs. People may ignore the numbers and think "I can do that" and rightly so, if the weight is light enough. But since the body's weight has a higher minimum in most cases, BW feats impress people.

It's sort of like... a 150lb guy pressing a pair of 80lb dumbbells should be more impressive than him doing a handstand push up, but a handstand pushup could be more visually impressive to an outsider since they might think "I can press dumbbells overhead too" (even if they were 10lbs each) but they couldn't as easily think "I can do that handstand push up."

PLBFitness said:
Or they have to use so much momentum to lift the weight that you're left wondering how their back feels after they workout...
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Momentum is unavoidable when you lift explosively, and this is a factor to consider in both p-ups and p-downs.
 
pull ups are a true measure of fitness. They should be a staple in everyones routine. Lat pulls as with any other exercise have their place.

That said,
How is momentum unaviodable during explosive lifts? I power clean every now and then, theres no momentum. I also do plyometrics here and there. No momentum there either. I suggest you use less weight if you are using momentum. Thats cheating.
 
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