Lats

So, if you're like me, you may have first thought of the pull up as mainly a bicep exercise. Granted, it is a great bicep exercise, it's meant to target the biggest back muscles: the lats. Their real name is the Latissimus Dorsi... but I'll just stick with lats or lat. These muscles help with posture, are super for pulling objects, and help stabilize your core. So they're pretty important. They are kind of like the Gluteus Maximus (glute or bum muscle) for the upper body, because they are the biggest muscle in the upper body. Pretty much if you strengthen it, everything is better: pushing power, pulling power, posture, less back pain, etc...

Back to the pull up. If you are thinking the pull up is a bicep exercise. Then it probably will be mainly be a bicep exercise. Why? Because of the muscle-mind connection. When you think about contracting a muscle when doing an exercise, that muscle will most likely be hit. You can see your bicep and everyone knows to flex the bicep when some tell you to 'show your muscle'. So you most likely have a very strong muscle-mind connection between your bicep and mind. The lats on the other hand? Probably not. You can't see your back flex, you might not even know how to flex your lats! Well, here's how: concentrate on squeezing your shoulder blades together as hard as you can. I find I get a better lat squeeze when I bring the lower part of my shoulder blades together, that way I'm squeezing my back more than my shoulder muscles. If you only do this with one arm, you can try and squeeze the flexed lat with your other hand. You might not feel much tension in the muscle, but that could be because you don't have a strong muscle-mind connection, or your lat isn't very strong.

So how do you activate the lat in a pull up? It can be tough. Try doing the shoulder blade trick and think of pulling the elbows down, don't think of flexing the biceps, they will flex, just try to think about the lats as much as you can when doing the exercise. Sometimes looking up a little and leaning backward a little helps too...

If you are like me, then thinking about the biceps will still give you more reps because of the muscle-mind connection is strong and my biceps have been worked for years, while I'm only starting to really work my lats.

If you can't do a pull up yet and are thinking about the biceps, your problem may be just thinking about it wrong. The lats are WAY bigger than the biceps. Actually, naturally the biceps are one of the smaller upper body muscles. They are just so easy to train that they tend to grow ahead of everything else. Try using your lats more when you try to do a pull up. You might just do it!

There are plenty of other lat exercises you can do. If all you have is dumbbell, then doing a single arm row will work the lat, if you use a barbell, then doing a bent over row will be a superb lat exercise. Just remember the tips (flexing the shoulder blades, pulling the elbows) about activating the lats with your mind.

If you're trying to put on bulk, the lat is a great muscle group to work. It is the biggest muscle in the upper body, so it can put on some meat pretty fast. Also, when it starts getting wider, your waist look slimmer. You get kind of a V shape with your back, thus making abdomen appear thinner.

That whole thinking about and flexing the muscle during an exercise apply to every muscle. So try and work on your muscle-mind connection with all your muscles... you can do this with your face too, so you could become better at raising an eyebrow, for example.