The traditional way that pullovers are executed is by laying perpendicular across a bench and performing the movement using a single dumbbell.Īlthough still an effective exercise, the problem with dumbbell pullovers is that they don’t provide consistent tension on the lats throughout the entire range of motion due to the straight-up-and-down direction that gravity pulls the resistance. Why Traditional Dumbbell Pullovers Are Not The Best Option
#Overhead pullover machine full
Just as chest flys are a good follow-up to compound presses for isolating the chest and ensuring full stimulation and growth, pullovers can be treated in the same way for the lats. Unlike standard pull ups, pulldowns, and rows, pullovers allow you to directly isolate your lats through a large range of motion and with minimal involvement of these other muscle groups. This is why the lats are often a lagging muscle group on many lifters’ physiques. Most lifters (especially beginners) tend to have a hard time activating the lats effectively using traditional vertical and horizontal pulling movements, as other surrounding muscles (such as the biceps, shoulders, traps, rhomboids, and teres groups) end up taking on a high percentage of the load. But in any case, pullovers definitely are a great exercise when it comes to isolating the lats for increased width and thickness and work very well as a finishing movement to round out your complete lat workout. Whether or not pullovers really are the “king” of all upper body exercises, and whether or not they actually do expand one’s ribcage, I highly doubt. Just as the barbell squat is considered the king of all lower body exercises, the pullover was given the same respect for its muscle building effects on the upper body and was even said to “expand the ribcage” when performed using deep breaths in between each rep.
You won’t see these being performed in the gym very often nowadays, but a basic lat pullover is actually one of the oldest bodybuilding movements in the book and was considered an absolute staple exercise back in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s.
You can find his thoughts on the subject in the article he wrote about his line of TSC machines (posted at the Ren-Ex site).Just as I’ve suggested to use cables for bicep curls, I also highly recommend trying standing cable pullovers to effectively train your lats. Ken Hutchins was an early fan of the pullover machine, and then changed his mind and started avoiding the exercise for both himself and clients, based on risk of shoulder injuries. But I stopped the overhead movement short of feeling a stretch in my shoulders, and focused more on the finished position, which I think you can also work with a straight armed pulldown. My last gym had a Cybex pullover, and it was OK. As for rib cage expansion: never felt a need or desire for that. In fact, I’ve been doing them occasionally with a light dumbbell, just as a stretch for my shoulders, not as a muscle building exercise. Rather, it more of an an effect on shoulders and chest in the fully stretched position.
The dumbbell pullover never felt like much of a lat exercise to me. Yikes! (You can find the story on his joint friendly fitness site.) Bill DeSimone tells a story of watching a newbie in a health club dislocate both shoulders while trying to do a dumbbell pullover with too much weight.
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