The Ultimate Pull-Down Guide

Pull-downs are well-known as one of the best back-builders in the gym.

But many folks feel awkward performing pull-downs or become uncomfortable over time attempting to move into a loaded overhead position.

Today, I’m going to cover all things pull-downs: mistakes you might be making, cues you probably haven’t heard of, and mechanics you’ll likely benefit from understanding.

Table of Contents

• Mechanics

• Mistakes

  • #1 - Not assessing comfortable range first.

  • #2 - Only using fixed implements.

  • #3 - Using weight that’s too light.

  • #4 - Not paying attention to anchoring.

• Cuing

  • #1 - Drive the arm down, not back.

  • #2 - Don’t go all the way down.

  • #3 - Pull with the elbow, not the hand.

  • Heading 3

Mechanics

To understand what proper setup and execution might look like, we first need to understand the mechanics of a pull-down.

Pull-downs are, by definition, mainly a “back exercise”.

Why?

When we grab a bar and sit down underneath a thigh pad, the bar attempts to pull us upward toward the ceiling.

The brain must coordinate how to “fight” against a force that attempts to pull the shoulders and arms upward toward the ears.

As a consequence of this, muscles that move the arms and shoulders in the opposite direction - downward toward the body - will reactively contract to prevent our arms from getting tugged off of our bodies.

Although many muscles ultimately contract to coordinate pulling the arms downward, our biggest “puller” in these motions - by a substantial margin - are the lats (latissimus dorsi).

The lats are a fan-shaped muscle that attaches across much of the spine and even the hips.

Its main function is to prevent the arms from getting tugged forward and/or upward away from the body and to pull the arms and shoulder girdle downward towards the sides as it contracts.

The lats evolved primarily to allow for brachiation, which is a fancy way to describe how monkeys swing from tree to tree to move.

So, to train the lats, performing pull-downs (of any kind) is likely a good idea.

In tandem with the lats, the teres major, rear delts, and traps all contribute to the motion secondarily.

This “bias” is subject to change, but assuming you’re using substantial amounts of load and effort on your pull-downs, the lats will likely be the primary movers regardless of the specific arm paths, tempos, and range of motion you choose to utilize.

Mistakes

#1 - Not assessing comfortable range first.

This mistake is common to most exercises and not pull-downs alone.

If you’re a veteran lifter who knows and feels their body with a high degree of competence, it’s likely that, over time, you've become very intuitive about this - subtle torso adjustments, changes to arm path, and changes to tempo are all ways to work into a comfortable pull-down.

For those who are less familiar with making these adjustments, I’d recommend the following:

1. Sit down in the pull-down machine first, before grabbing the bar or handles of your choosing.

2. Wedge yourself into the seat - as if ready to perform the pull-down - and raise your hands up toward the bar in whatever natural path your brain organizes.

3. Move through the range of motion of the pull-down - as if you’re actually doing it - without any additional load aside from the weight of your arms.

4. Test out a variety of top-end positions to see which ones feel best as you reach and shrug your arms up overhead. Assess different positions of rotation in your upper arms and the width of your hands. Some of you may feel more comfortable with a narrower hand position, while others may feel better using a wider one.

5. Test out a variety of arm paths from your comfortable top position. Experiment with pulling the arms down tighter to the sides and/or slightly wider to see which feels the least “clunky”.

6. Test out a variety of torso positions, ranging from those that are more upright (relative to the floor) to those that are more backward-leaning.

After you’ve gone through this experimentation, it’s time to grab the bar to see how added load feels within the constraints of the comfortable ranges you’ve chosen.

Some of you will find that your initial positioning will feel perfect as you add load.

Some of you will find that you need to continue to make adjustments - especially as load increases - so that you can continue to feel comfortable as your effort and output scale.

Here’s a short clip from the pull-down lecture I posted in the Modern Meathead Community this week to demonstrate this:

#2 - Only using fixed implements.

Fixed implements aren’t the devil.

I used to believe that using “free-moving” handles was always the correct answer until I encountered several people who improved their execution and comfort dramatically using fixed handles.

As a default strategy, however, using handles (like these) that can rotate is likely your best bet for comfortable and repeatable execution immediately.

This is because free-moving handles grant more freedom at the hand, which in turn allows for greater adjustability of wrist, forearm, elbow, and shoulder position.

Here’s another clip from the Modern Meathead Community to demonstrate this, visually:

If you don’t have a bar (like this one) that allows you to easily attach and adjust free-moving handles, you can simply loop the handles around a fixed bar. You can also purchase handles like these - which allow for a more secure attachment to any fixed bar compared to the looping strategy - or attach a single free-moving handle to do single-arm pull-downs.

To summarize: using fixed implements is a fine strategy that will work well for many of you. For those of you who have never had success using fixed implements, I’d recommend using free-moving handles of some kind.

#3 - Using weight that’s too light.

Once you’ve assessed your potentially comfortable positions, make sure you’re not using an amount of load that allows you to flail and flop your arms around in any direction.

A similar problem occurs during presses, wherein when people are trying to learn how to press, they often use an amount of load that is too light to necessitate the target muscles to do the majority of work.

These people usually end up looking like a fish out of water, wiggling their arms around as they attempt to press.

During pull-down motions, using too little load usually manifests in people pulling their hands down in front of their bodies like they’re trying to do a triceps extension of some kind.

If you do not use enough load to require your big “pullers” to take on the brunt of the force, your brain will resort to using any number of strategies that are not well-suited to train the lats and upper back.

#4 - Not paying attention to anchoring.

Adjusting the thigh pad to an appropriate height is about as important as finding your comfortable arm position.

Whenever we attempt to pull something downward, our bodies get pulled upward.

This is how pull-ups work - where instead of pulling a cable downward, we pull our body weight upward against an immovable object (the pull-up bar).

During pull-downs, however, to maximize force through the pulling tissues, it’s of utmost importance that you secure yourself into the seat so that your body weight doesn’t end up contributing to the motion of the bar.

When people don’t secure their legs to the thigh pad and floor, execution becomes far more complex to manage, because the body can start to “cheat” using the momentum of body weight downward or hip flexors and abdominals to pull the weight downward along with the arms.

A similar example occurs in dumbbell pressing motions, wherein people don’t secure their feet onto the floor - you end up having to balance your body weight against the resistance, rather than being able to press 100% of your strength into the dumbbells you’re using.

To secure yourself into the seat, set the thigh pad so that it rubs up against your quads when you sit down.

Before you initiate pulling, do a calf raise down into the floor, so that the thigh pad smushes into your quads with a higher degree of compression.

I’d recommend starting with a thigh pad position that’s somewhere in the middle/lower portion of your lower leg, rather than directly next to the knee or hip.

Whenever you initiate the pull-down, pay special attention to pressing the foot through the floor so that you don’t waste energy managing your body weight against the resistance.

This is especially important during the eccentric (“raising”) portion of the motion, too.

If you do not actively press into the thigh pad throughout the entire range of motion, your body weight will contribute to controlling the load as much as your arms and shoulders will.

Cuing

Cuing pull-downs should be “icing on the cake” once you’ve checked all of the boxes above.

Cues should also be specific to the problems that one is encountering during the pull-down and you should not apply to same cue to every pull-down scenario you encounter.

With that said, here are several high return-on-investment cues I’ve implemented across a large sample size of clients:

#1 - Drive the arm down, not back.

Many people will attempt to perform pull-downs with an intent to row (as if the load were horizontal rather than vertical).

This typically leads to people rounding their shoulders forward immediately because they’re trying to stick square pegs into round holes - if the loading direction does not align with the direction the person is trying to move, you’re bound to see something that doesn’t align with the goal of any movement.

So, instead of pulling “backward”, I like to tell people to drive their hands directly downward, toward the floor.

Here’s a visual of what I mean, again taken from the 30-minute video lecture I recently posted in the Modern Meathead Community:

#2 - Don’t go all the way down.

If someone is having trouble conceptualizing driving their hand downward, it’s usually because they’re still unconsciously trying to pull their arm back behind their body.

Altering the range of motion so that the elbow ends up in front of the body is a great way to circumvent this issue.

As the arm gets closer to the body, the tendency is for people to start to think of driving “backward” rather than “downward” (as demonstrated in the above clip).

If you take away the opportunity for someone to move into that more complex portion of the range, you often see the entire range of the pull-down become better coordinated.

If I’m using this cue myself, I like to imagine stopping my arm when my elbow falls in line with my lower pecs.

If I’m using this cue to coach another person, I typically just use my hand as a stopping point for them to take their elbow to.

Providing a tangible reference for where the client should stop the motion is a fool-proof way to get them to appropriate execution because they can begin their execution with a clear end-point in mind.

As an aside: this is an incredibly helpful strategy across all exercises. Providing a tangible end-point to any range often improves the entire range of execution immediately because the brain will coordinate any exercise with that end-point in mind.

#3 - Pull with the elbow, not the hand.

If the above cues don’t seem to work out, I’ve found that bringing people’s attention to their elbows is a great way to get them to pull with their shoulders rather than their hands, wrists, forearms, and elbow flexors.

A similar concept applies in pressing motions, wherein bringing someone’s attention to their elbows as they press gives them a greater awareness of where their arm is moving at any given point.

This often leads to execution of a pull-down that feels a lot more like “back stuff” as compared to “forearm and arm stuff”.

Of the three cues, this one is probably the most popular - and for good reason.

But it often gets abused to the point where people end up completely forgetting about their hands altogether.

Don’t someone to forget about their hands and forearms entirely, because limiting contraction around the wrist, forearm, and elbow may impede the ability to stabilize the entire arm as you pull.

So once you’ve temporarily brought someone’s attention to the elbow, just ensure that they don’t forget about their hands altogether. Reintroducing an awareness of the hands should be a priority as soon as they’ve gained the ability to execute the pull-down as you intend them to.

In my personal experience, using one cue at a time is most effective.

If you attempt to use or give 2-3 cues at a time, you or the person you’re training will be thinking about too many things to focus on any one of them.

I hope this helps.

-Ben

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