From Nick Nilsson
Author and Publisher of BetterU News
http://www.fitness-ebooks.com

The Pulldown is an excellent exercise for working the Latissimus
Dorsi muscles of the back (a.k.a. the lats). I've got a little
tip that can dramatically improve the effectiveness of this
exercise...it's just one simple movement done before each rep.

Many people have a hard time feeling their lats working when they
do pulldowns. The biceps can very easily take over the movement
and some people just don't feel anything in their back at all.

This little movement trick can change all of that. The movement
is simply a shoulder drop and even though it may seem like a
SMALL thing, it can have a HUGE impact on your back training.

To demonstrate this movement, start by sitting in a pulldown
machine with a moderate weight on the stack. Take a close grip on
the bar with your palms facing you. Do a couple of reps using
your normal technique so you have a gauge to measure against.

Now we will add the shoulder drop. Let your arms go straight and
let your shoulder girdle rise up as though shrugging upwards.
Your shoulders should be up by your ears. Now pull your shoulder
girdle DOWN in the opposite movement to the shrug (without
bending your arms), pulling the weight down as you do so. The
range of motion is small (only a few inches).

Repeat this drop and raise several times to get the feel for the
movement. You should feel your entire shoulder girdle moving up
and down.

We will now do a rep with the shoulder drop movement. Start in
the stretched position with your shoulders up by your ears again.
Drop your shoulders down, lean slightly back then do a pulldown.
Be sure to keep your lower back arched and your chest puffed out
to meet the bar on the way down. You should feel your lats
working harder than usual.

Squeeze hard as though trying to touch your shoulder blades
together as you come to the bottom then let the weight back up
slowly. You can repeat the shoulder drop movement at the start of
every rep or you can simply keep your shoulders down and locked
in that position throughout the set.

Dropping your shoulders down like this pulls the shoulder blades
back, locking the lats into the movement and helping to minimize
the biceps involvement in the pulldown. You should find that you
get a much more effective lat workout using this technique.

Nick

P.S. I got an email from Mike Westerdal this morning about his
Critical Bench program. He's actually at a wedding today and he
didn't have time to take the 50% sale page down this morning like
he planned. So you've got a bit more time to grab that today, if
you missed it last night!

==> http://www.fitstep.com/goto/bench.htm

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