Kneeling Cable Pull Down (Lat Pulldown Progression)

Kneeling Cable Pull Down is a great progression for those new to lat pulldowns or those looking to improve their technique. This exercise can help build strength and stability in the back and arms. The cable is attached to a low pulley and the individual kneels down with their hip and chest facing the cable, holding the handle with both hands with an overhand grip. Keeping the torso straight and neck in-line with the spine, pull the handle to the chest in a controlled manner

Transcript

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This is Brent doing another exercise for
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your back. This is a great stability
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progression for those of you guys who've been doing lat pull downs for years this
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is a way to take it up a notch. I'm going to have my friend Mike Tierney from
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metropolitan fitness come out and help me demonstrate this exercise. He's going
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to show you how it's done while I take you guys through some of the cues and
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the progressions you can use. Now first things first body position. Mike here is
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going to be kneeling, alright he's going to start on both knees and he actually has
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his feet dorsi flexed so that he doesn't smash his foot into plantar flexion.
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Alright and he's kind of sitting back on his heels. This is a very comfortable, fairly
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stable position providing you don't have knee pain. Now I'm going to hand Mike these
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two cables and you guys can probably already start to visualize where this is
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very similar to a lat pulldown, but because of the independent cables a
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little less stable. His kinetic chain check points are going to stay the same
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notice his knees are underneath his hips, he's drawn in, his shoulder blades are
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down and back and his head is back. I actually have these cables set up
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slightly in front of his face. Just like we wouldn't want to do a lat pulldown
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behind the head because of the compromised position it puts the
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shoulder, we also don't want to put this behind the shoulder either. Besides this
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is a better angle in general for scapular mechanics as well as creating a
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nice line or a line of resistance for the lats themselves. So Mike is going to
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demonstrate this exercise in a relatively stable position sitting back
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on its heels first, drawing his shoulder blades down and back, and just bringing
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those elbows right towards his back pockets. And there you go we have a nice
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bilateral cable pulldown. Now the first progression we could do is just go from
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our bilateral to our alternating. So now he's going to keep both of these in his
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hand but he's going to go one at a time. Now the trick is he has to maintain his
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centerline. So if you guys draw a little line between Mike's nose right between
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his pecs, right between his knees, this shouldn't shift back and forth as he
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pulls this weight down unevenly. You guys also see that it takes a lot more
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endurance from his shoulders as an alternating pulldown takes about
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twice as long as a bilateral cable pulldown. So the next thing he's going to
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do to increase the stability and actually he's already done this because
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it's a more comfortable position for him, because some of the knee pain he has.
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He's actually kind of come up to a, on both knees, but almost vertical position
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with his body. You guys see that, so that's a little less stable position for
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some people it will be more comfortable though. So go ahead and demonstrate a
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couple with that. Now once we get into this position I might even take this
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upper body progression up another notch and go from bilateral to unilateral.
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This gets real tricky though. The trick isn't being able to pull down the weight.
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The trick is, can Mike pull down the weight without leaning either away to
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try to counterbalance this weight, or leaning towards as he pulls like he
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can't stabilize himself. You guys see that Mike's actually very good at this
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exercise, he has been doing this exercise a while, he's drawn in, let's see a couple more
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of those. Now I can take this up another step, get a little bit more complicated
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with my lower body position by going into a kneeling cable press. You're more
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comfortable, okay good. So if it's this arm that he's working on, it's going to
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be the opposite leg that's forward. This creates tension in his posterior oblique
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sub system, makes this a little bit more comfortable. If you guys are doing
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bilateral then the leg forward doesn't matter. So let's go ahead and see a
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couple more reps just like that. How's that feel? Alright let's see you switch
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sides I know you've done about 20 reps on that side. Since this is a stability
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exercise guys I probably wouldn't use this in a strength training phase and
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obviously wouldn't use it in a max strength training phase. We're probably
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looking at 12 to 20 reps here, and your focus is going to be on increasing
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stability and maintaining perfect form. Alright so that's 12 to 20 repetitions.
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You guys had the bilateral to alternating to unilateral in the upper body.
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We had the sitting back on the heels, to
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sitting up on the knees, to kneeling progression
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in the lower body. And of course you guys can use different pieces of stability
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equipment to make it even more unstable. These Airex pads themselves were only
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used to keep comfort in his knees. Hope you guys enjoyed the video enjoyed the