Wide Grip Pulldowns To The Front
| Primary Muscles Worked: | Description: |
| Latissimus Dorsi (Lats) | The largest muscles of the back. |
| Secondary Muscles Worked: | Description: |
| Rhomboids, Teres Major, Trapezius | Upper back muscles that move the arm backwards. |
| Biceps Brachii | Flexing muscles of the upper arm. |
| The Wide Grip Pulldown to the Front is one of the most widely known back exercises though few people actually do it properly. The mechanics of the movement are very similar to the Close Grip Pulldown, with the only major difference being the wider, overhand grip. |
How to Do Wide Grip Pulldowns to the Front:
- Take a wide grip with your palms facing forward.
- Don’t grip excessively wide, though. About 4 to 6 inches outside shoulder width is fine (too close will involve the biceps too much while too wide will reduce the amount of weight you are able to use).
- Start with your torso vertical and your arms overhead.
- As you begin to pull down, lean back slightly, arching your lower back and puffing your chest out to meet the bar. This isolates the lats better.
- Pull the bar down to your mid-pecs, concentrating on pulling with your back muscles rather than pulling with the biceps.
- When you get to the bottom of the movement, try to squeeze your shoulder blades behind your back for a second then slowly let the bar go back up.
Tricks for Performing Wide Grip Front Pulldowns:
1. Two part movement
This movement should be done as a two-part movement to work your back best. Try this little exercise to get a feel for the movement:
- Start by sitting in the pulldown machine grasping the bar with your arms fully extended overhead.
- Allow your shoulders to shrug up, letting the weight stretch your shoulders.
- Now try dropping your shoulder girdle. This is the opposite movement of when you shrug your shoulders; it is the down part. The arms should not bend in this part of the movement. Your shoulders should just drop down a few inches.
- Practice this short movement a few times.
- Once you have the feel for that, add this to the pulldown movement by first shrugging down, then pulling the bar down the rest of the way.
- You should feel a difference in your back immediately as this technique will lock your lats into activation.
- Repeat this technique at the start of every rep.
2. Knee in the back
A good way to get the feel for the proper technique at the bottom of the movement is to have somebody put his or her knee in your mid-back on your spinal column.
- This will force you to wrap your back around it, arching the back and puffing out the chest.
- Focus on trying to squeeze the knee with the shoulder blades to feel the movement.
3. Breathe backwards
It is a little known but important trick that you should breathe backwards when doing pulldowns and chins (especially pulldowns). Here is the sequence.
- At the top, inhale deeply, hold it and pull down.
- Exhale as you let the bar up.
- The reason for this is that the chest should be puffed up when you are pulling down to maximize tension on the lats.
- When you exhale, you collapse your chest, caving it in and increasing the work on the biceps. This is the opposite of what you want to do.
- By holding a deep breath, you puff the chest more and arch your back more, greatly increasing the effect of the exercise.
4. Getting into position
If you have trouble getting the weight into position at the start of the rep, try this trick.
- First, remove the pin from the weight stack.
- Then, pull the bar down to a level where you can easily reach it from a sitting position under the hip pads.
- Finally, place the pin back inside the stack at the weight you will be using for your set.
This trick will allow you to get into and out of the pulldown machine without worrying about what is happening to the bar and the weight.
Common Errors in the Wide Grip Front Pulldown Exercise:
Some specific ones for this exercise include:
1. Pulling down behind the neckThis is also known as the Behind-the-Neck Pulldown exercise.
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2.Taking too wide or too narrow a gripIf you find your biceps are more fatigued than your back, your grip is too narrow.
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It’s autumn – winter is just around the corner and while the last thing on your mind may be a six pack for summer, thinking about it now might not only have you raring to go in your bikini when spring time hits, but will also help you to avoid that role of fat that pokes out the top so wonderfully named a ‘muffin top’…
This has to be the most asked about question in the fitness industry. Some people think that all they need to do to see their “six-pack” [or simply a flat tummy] is to do hundreds of sit ups / crunches everyday! This is simply NOT TRUE!!!
Countless opinions, rumours, and theories about ab training are continually being circulated by an endless parade of “experts” including doctors, infomercial gurus, and even friends, teachers, and parents. Abdominal mythology abounds, and some myths never seem to die.
MYTH: If you train abs every day, you’re guaranteed a six-pack. One of the most common abdominal myths is that training your abdominals every day is the best way to get a small waistline and develop the six-pack look in your stomach. Despite the fact that bodybuilders appear on stage with incredibly ripped abs, their abs come from their diet, not just their ab workouts.
Daily training is not only a waste of time, it’s an approach that won’t work for the average person who doesn’t use performance-enhancing substances or have a naturally high recovery
capacity.
There are two reasons that daily abdominal training is unnecessary and does not guarantee you a six-pack.
First, the muscle tissue of your abs is virtually the same as the muscle tissue in the rest of your body. Abdominal muscles cannot become stronger and more developed without time to rest and recover after each workout, just like any other muscle group such as your biceps or chest. You wouldn’t do 100 barbell curls every day to “see your biceps” or 100 bench presses every day to “see your Pecs,” so why do the same for your abs? Try increasing the resistance so that you can only manage around 10-15 reps and see how you pull up the next day!
Second, even if you could achieve excellent muscular development in the abs with daily training, you won’t be able to see your abs if they’re covered with a layer of fat. Daily abdominal training does not burn the fat off your midsection! Fat is lost by creating a
calorie deficit through your diet. Build the muscle tissue with exercise; burn the fat with diet.
You can’t “spot reduce” fat from one specific part of your body! You lose fat systemically. That means you can’t control where it comes from. When fat is oxidized for energy, you will draw
it from all areas of the body, and the first place you tend to put it on will be the last place it comes off.
Everyone has certain “stubborn” areas where the fat seems “hard to get rid of” but the fat WILL go, it will just be the last place to go.
The best way to burn fat off your abs is not to do more ab work, but to do more cardiovascular work: Bike, Stairmaster, treadmill, elliptical machine or rower – they’re all great fat burners. Work at about 70-85% of your age-predicted maximal heart rate (220-your age) and maintain it for 30-45 minutes 5-6 days a week for optimal results.
Train your abs about twice a week, just as you would any other body part. Doing your abs every day will do almost nothing to remove the layer of fat covering the muscles. In
fact, it’s possible to have a great set of abs that you can’t even see because they are covered up with a layer of fat!
And don’t forget, nutrition is half the battle when it comes to fat loss! If you’re drinking beer and eating pizza on a regular basis, it doesn’t matter what you do in the gym, you’ll probably never get a great set of abs.
So here we go, 10 steps to the six pack of your dreams……
Step 1. Diet – Eat 5-6 meals per day
Step 2. Diet – Eat a portion of protein “every” meal
Step 3. Diet – Consume “good” fats everyday – (good fats DO NOT put on fat!)
Step 4. Diet – Eat less / little or no rice, potato’s, pasta or bread after 4pm (more vegies)
Step 5. Drink – WATER and lots of it, 3 – 5 litres per day
Step 6. Reward yourself – Your diet is not about being perfect, follow it strictly for 85% of the time
Step 7. Keep a Diary – keep track of what you do and work out what works for you
Step 8. Plan and prepare – Keep ahead of yourself, know what you are eating days before you do for that day
Now that we have the right start with the eight steps above, when we do the next two, results are bound to come your way….just give it some time. (You didn’t put on the extra kilos in a week so don’t expect them to come off in one! Aim for a kilo a week)
Step 9. Train with weights – the more muscle you build all over your body the more fat you burn all day long!
Step 10. Cardio, Cardio, and more cardio
The secret to ripped abs is nothing more then 3-steps in this order of importance:
-Nutrition 90%
-Cardio 9%
-Training 1%
Even if you are not after a great 6 pack… all these steps are just as important if you wish to lose the dangerous fat around your midline. This information is very important for your total health.
Train Hard, Eat Well!!
Are You Flooded With Thoughts of Food?
Food would at one point in my life take my day and sometimes my thoughts. How food was somewhat ‘flood like’ in my life. Sometimes I would be in control but at other times so many things could trigger me to turn to food as a coping mechanism for my emotions, stress or anxiety and even at times a good mood. Once I turned to food it was like a flood. I was over run with it, turning nvc to it for comfort and distraction. The flooding represented the all encompassing battles with food that would consume so much of my thoughts, time and energy. It was like trying to hold the river back. I just couldn’t do it.
Now that my food flood rivers have receded I never lose sight that without the right mindset and tools I could be back in deep waters. So I keep using the tools that I taught myself and keep the ‘food flood’ waters at bay.
So I want to talk about your food and great body mindset. How to get one and keep one.
Your Great Body Mindset Is A Must For Success!
Clients tell me all the time that they know what they should be doing but just can’t seem to do it consistently. They get so frustrated and the beat themselves up for being weak. Weak will power. Weak staying power, just weak. They even hear it from other people. Most of them, well meaning and trying to help, ”just eat half a portion”, “just go for a walk everyday”, “join a gym” “just cut back” and so it goes.
Don’t they know you know that already? Well meaning advice often back fires because it makes you feel lousy that everyone thinks you just can’t do it or that you don’t want to do it. You get more frustrated and often beat yourself up again and again.
Well here is a little secret. You can do it. It takes some time and practice but it is very attainable. If you struggle with eating, or staying on a diet or program it may just be because you don’t have the right programming yet. Programming that can help you break the cycle of eating, turning to food for comfort or whatever non serving relationship with food you may want to change to be healthier. Yes it even works on starting an exercise program.
You often hear me mention the brain and how it works. Well, that’s because much of our behaviour is driven by the brain and up until the past ten years much of what we thought about how the brain works has been proven wrong by scientists. This cutting edge technology can’ see’ the mechanisms of the brain as we think. Pretty neat right? Okay, I will confess I am a little bit of a brain geek and study a good deal about it.
Let’s simplify things down to “with the right information reviewed often and then applied over time you can actually change your programming by building new connections in the brain that can get strong enough to change your actions.”
How does it all work? Actually quite simply. How long does it take? I have seen it become effective in as little as a few weeks and automatic in about 12 weeks. But, I have seen progress in as little as one week and for some clients less.
These new connections are weak at first. The neurotransmitter is like a child trying to take their first wobbly step. After practicing and with each successful effort the neurotransmitter fires stronger and more quickly making the new habit or action become second nature.
Sceptical? Think about the first time you tried to ride a bike, drive a car or even when you learned to use cursive writing at school. It all took concentrated effort, that done consistently over time became easier and easier until now you don’t even think about it you just do it effortlessly. The same is true for you and your food decisions.
Okay, I can hear some sceptics asking what happens to the transmitter that was causing all the problems with programming me to eat. The one that was firing so quickly that the food was in your mouth before you could blink. Well, as you use that neurotransmitter less and less it actually gets weaker, like a muscle you haven’t used gets smaller. Eventually it has a very weak signal compared to the one you are developing [the one that says no to overeating or keeping you from your daily walk] so your brain puts the priority on the stronger one. The one that says “walk away from the cookies and pick up an apple.” Hard to believe but true and a scientific fact.
This is really important because you want to be able to understand the dynamics of how things are working from the perspective of your brain. You want to make some sense of the perpetual contradiction that’s been going on in your head. You know you shouldn’t eat the cookie but you do and the second you do you start beating yourself up for failing at saying “no to the food.” But you’re really only failing in the sense that you haven’t made these ‘new connections’ in your brain with consistency so they can grow stronger, you really didn’t even know existed. Now you do.
Here is an example:
You start your diet eating healthy, but as your day progresses and three o’clock rolls around your day starts to get stressful. You’re programmed to deal with stress by eating. Your brain fires off a neurotransmitter to eat the cookies and you do.
Second scenario:
You start your diet eating healthy, but as your day progresses and three o’clock rolls around your day starts to get stressful. Your programmed to deal with stress by eating and you have the thought, “I am going to eat some cookies to feel better,” this is the brain firing off a neurotransmitter to eat the cookie. But this time you have the thought “I know I want the cookie but it is not really going to make my stress go away it is just going to make it worse afterward. I am not going to eat that cookie.” It’s hard not to eat the cookie but you stick to it.
What has just happened is that you weakened the transmitter in brain that fired quickly with the thought “I’m going to eat the cookie.’ and made the other one that said you weren’t going to eat the cookie.
Why? Because your actions that followed the thought actually make the transmitter strong or weak. It matches the actions with the thought. So if you don’t do what you think then your actions weaken that thought, if you do it makes it stronger. Your brain actually rewires itself based on your actions. That is why it takes some time and consistency. The more you validate a thought with a corresponding action the quicker your brain will rewire.
Now the opposite is also true. If you validate the “eat the cookie” scenario then you will also make that transmitter stronger. Because we have these strong neurotransmitters we don’t expect perfection when we start this process. We aren’t prefect in the beginning but to get better at it is important to recognize the thoughts you are having before you eat or talk yourself out of exercising and start to talk back to them with a better solution.
Your ‘mind set’ step is so important. Defining what behaviours you want to change and then defining what behaviours you want to replace it with to attain your goals. This step is something you will practice for the rest of your life but it becomes so second nature that you don’t even realize you are doing it.
Here is another secret. It is also the step that keeps you from yoyo dieting and regaining your weight. It is the most simple tool but the most valuable because until we can change the behaviour, reaction or thoughts about how we interact with food we end up going back to old habits which are just old programming.
So how do we actually do it? Well it starts with a few steps and I will list them below in the “call to action” area. Remember it takes consistency and time. It is not a magic pill but it does work magic.
Call To ACTION:
1. Monitor your thoughts that trigger you to reach for food. Believe it or not eating is not an automatic function of the body like breathing or your heart beat. You actually do have a thought before you pick up a piece of food and eat it. Even if sometimes it happens so fast that we think we don’t recognize it.
Just starting becomes aware of them.
2. Start to think about counter thoughts, to start the neurotransmitters firing and provoking thoughts that support your goal instead of sabotage it. List some positive reinforcing statements. Positive Affirmations. Create it on your computer or by hand on cards. It’s not about how slick they look but about how often you read them. Sometimes I even right notes on my hand.
3. Don’t let the simplicity of this step fool you into not doing it. The beauty is in the simplicity. It doesn’t have to be complicated to work; you just have to use them. Notice after you read them what you think. When I started reading mine I found validation and strength in these little cards. I would read “No excuse”, just because I want to eat, doesn’t mean I should.” After reading that I always felt like I had permission not to eat because I often felt such stress being on my diet. What was I going to eat, when was I going to take my walk, what would I feed my family, would anyone say anything that I ate something different. It was a plethora of stress.
When I felt like I was in it alone these cards became my voice of support and reason. My friend in quite moments. Most importantly they became my voice in times when I had trouble saying no to food. After a while I found my own strength, but it all started with the cards.
In reflection, I knew I was doing the work, I was changing things but the cards somehow helped make that transition much easier. I felt stronger having them in my pocket, my purse, my night table even in my bathroom drawer. Hey, we do what we have to and sometimes I would just read them real quick and stuff them back in my drawer.
4. Make your cards! Make a second set or third. Start with 10-15 counter thoughts.
So your brain says. “I really want that cookie!” and your counter thought is:
“I may want that cookie and I may not like it but I am going to be OK not eating it or not OK and just move on.”
or
“I’d rather be leaner. Being leaner is SO much more important to me than eating this food.”
OK you get the picture..
5. Read them 2-3 times a day.
6. Do this for two weeks and be aware of how you are responding to them.
So many times I get asked….”how often should I exercise?”
And to put it in the simplest terms I respond:
- For a beginner I would recommend that you workout once or twice and week and progress from there
- As an advanced trainer I workout 3 or 4 times a week for no more than 30 minutes.
- Doing one session a week is fine, but only for a short duration of about 1 month. Why you may ask?
To alter your body you need to provide the stimulus for change. (That includes the right nutrition formula.) Our bodies want to stay the same – this process is called homeostasis. So, if you wish to stay overweight then do not challenge your body.
The human body will accept change for a short time, then with added stimulus – will continue to change. That’s another reason why I change the actual exercises from week to week.
The most effective way to make your body change is to do some form of resistance training at least once every 3 days. That is why I start with a full body exercise plan for the first week or two, then progress to splitting up the body parts not long after that.
Having said that it is still ok to do 2 workouts 2 days in a row… as long as they are different body parts. So basically, as long as you create that stimulus for change by working each body part at least once every week, you can expect results
If you are an advanced trainer and wish to do an extra session, but money is tight, then get yourself a cheap dumbbell set and I can write you out a plan to do at home – which would be stuff that you don’t need to be supervised with.
How much you eat and, more importantly, WHAT you eat plays a critical role in how often you can and should train. Don’t think nutrition plays a big role in training frequency? Eat nothing but Pop Tarts for a week and see how often you’re able to train…
The higher the quality of the food you eat and, the more food you eat, the better you’ll be able to recover and the more often you’ll be able to train.
When it comes to recovery, everybody is different…some people recover slowly while some recover very quickly. This difference can be heightened by outside activities and stresses to the body. For instance, a construction worker, who has a physical job, will need more recovery time than an office worker. Playing intense sports will also affect recovery ability.
Therefore, the slower your recovery rate and/or the more outside activities you do, the more time you will need between training sessions.
The bigger the body part, e.g. back, thighs and chest, the more recovery time it needs. All things being equal, smaller body parts can be worked more frequently because they have less muscle mass that needs repair.
Weight training works for EVERYONE. However, cardio may not. If you too have the ‘fat gene’, then you still have to do cardio, but the focus should be more on weight training. So if you are going to miss some form of planned exercise. Don’t miss a weights session. If you’ve broken your arm, then we will focus on leg exercises. Don’t let an injury stop you. If you can do housework or go to work, then you can exercise.
Weight training is far superior to cardio. But having said that… fit people burn fat better. So that is one of the reasons why I suggest you do cardio sessions as well.
Beginners could do cardio on separate days to their weights sessions. An intermediate trainer could do it on the same day, and an advanced trainer should add a short duration cardio / boxing session to the end of their weights sessions, as well as other cardio sessions. (Doing cardio after weights ensures you burn off any fatty free acids – released fat – in your blood – which prevents restoring.)
Cardio sessions should be spaced out to allow for recovery of the muscles. For example: cardio in the morning and weights at night.
Don’t forget also, that by eating more protein than carbs you will turn your body into a fat burning machine…. But you still need to exercise regularly to burn off the fat that the hormone – glucagon – has released.
I am more than happy to assist you with your cardio sessions, but I understand that most people can not afford to have me supervise that part of their plan. If you are chumping out on your cardio and are well aware of it, please talk to me about that or get a friend or family member to join you so you don’t slacken off!
I hope this answers your questions. If not, please ask me.
Train hard, eat well!
It’s old news, apparently. And you may have heard everyone talking about it, but what is the real story behind coconut oil?
Why is it so good for you?
First of all I want to start by letting you know that I have been cooking in coconut oil for some time now, and quite honestly I don’t think I will ever turn back. Not only are the nutritional benefits endless [as I will describe in a moment] but the taste is oh so fantastic and adds something extra especially when you are eating a comp diet 
Explaining coconut oil is quite complex, but to break it down here is an article sourced from The Coconut Research Center
Coconut Oil
While coconut possesses many health benefits due to its fiber and nutritional content, it’s the oil that makes it a truly remarkable food and medicine.
Once mistakenly believed to be unhealthy because of its high saturated fat content, it is now known that the fat in coconut oil is a unique and different from most all other fats and possesses many health giving properties. It is now gaining long overdue recognition as a nutritious health food.
Coconut oil has been described as “the healthiest oil on earth.” That’s quite a remarkable statement. What makes coconut oil so good? What makes it different from all other oils, especially other saturated fats?
The difference is in the fat molecule. All fats and oils are composed of molecules called fatty acids. There are two methods of classifying fatty acids. The first you are probably familiar with, is based on saturation. You have saturated fats, monounsaturated fats, and polyunsaturated fats. Another system of classification is based on molecular size or length of the carbon chain within each fatty acid. Fatty acids consist of long chains of carbon atoms with hydrogen atoms attached. In this system you have short-chain fatty acids (SCFA), medium-chain fatty acids (MCFA), and long-chain fatty acids (LCFA). Coconut oil is composed predominately of medium-chain fatty acids (MCFA), also known as medium-chain triglycerides (MCT).
The vast majority of fats and oils in our diets, whether they are saturated or unsaturated or come from animals or plants, are composed of long-chain fatty acids (LCFA). Some 98 to 100% of all the fatty acids you consume are LCFA.
The size of the fatty acid is extremely important. Why? Because our bodies respond to and metabolize each fatty acid differently depending on its size. So the physiological effects of MCFA in coconut oil are distinctly different from those of LCFA more commonly found in our foods. The saturated fatty acids in coconut oil are predominately medium-chain fatty acids. Both the saturated and unsaturated fat found in meat, milk, eggs, and plants (including most all vegetable oils) are composed of LCFA.
MCFA are very different from LCFA. They do not have a negative effect on cholesterol and help to protect against heart disease. MCFA help to lower the risk of both atherosclerosis and heart disease. It is primarily due to the MCFA in coconut oil that makes it so special and so beneficial.
There are only a very few good dietary sources of MCFA. By far the best sources are from coconut and palm kernel oils.
And what on earth do you DO with coconut oil?
Simple, use it instead of olive oil, replace butter or margarine with it, or simply use it in baking!
There are some GREAT coconut oil recipes out there and as I found this morning CoconutOilCooking.com is a GREAT site with some really interesting ideas. Here are some of their recipes…
Red snapper served with organic purple beans and cauliflower mash
Coconut Almond Chicken served with broccoli.
Homemade Spinach-Basil Pesto
So this week go out and buy yourself a bottle of coconut oil [available from health food stores] and give it a go – trust me it makes a simple stirfry into something magical!!
What motivates you?
Monday morning blues anyone? Well this simple leg exercise is defiantly going to get you up and going!
Give it a go this week
Cable Side-lunge
The cable side lunge is a great compound exercise. Add the cable for extra resistance.
Muscles Targetted:
Adductor muscles, gluteus maximus, Abductors and the quadriceps. Hamstrings, soleus, obliques and gastrocnemius are also invloved in this movement.
How To Preform:
1. Stand with feet about shoulder-width apart, cable in right hand.
2. Contract your abdominals and keep chest up and look forward, neutral spine.
3. Step out to the right. The further you step (lunge), the more the glutes are engaged, the shorter you step, the more emphasis is placed on the quadriceps. Your right knee and hip should be at a 90-degree angle. Your left leg should be straight.
4. Keeping your torso upright the whole time, exhale and return to the start position with an explosive push-off the right leg.
Tips:
-toes should always be in line with the knee,
-inhale in start position, exhale when returning to start position
-keep feet flat on the floor
-maintain a neutral spine with torso kept upright
**Try 3 sets of 12 per leg in your next leg workout.
[taken directly from Flavilisious Fitness and Nutrition]
You are who you aspire to be.
I am not talking about aspiring to be someone in particular, i am not talking about choosing a role model and turning into them, no. I am talking about aspiring to be the best version of yourself, about being who you want to be.
We all have aspirations in life. Some of us want to be famous, some of us think that if we were rich only good things would come about, some of us think “if only i was a size 8 my life would be perfect” – but when you go to sleep at night, you must close your eyes and realise that you must not aspire to be someone else or have someone else life, but rather to be the best version of who you already are.
Today i want to let you all know that while having a goal is the key to success, and looking up to someone for advice is important in its own right, knowing that you can be the best version of yourself, and aspiring not to be or to have someone else reality but simply to know in your own way that being you, and being the best version of you, is simply what you are meant to aspire to.
So – be healthy, be fit, be different to those around you, learn from others, and most importantly, have your own ambitions, be your own person, and at the end of the day, no matter how famous [or infamous] you are, no matter what physical riches you posses, and no matter what size and shape you are, always remember that you are who you aspire to be, and being the best version of yourself is nothing less than an amazing accomplishment.
Sourced directly from HERE
