TRAINING THE LATS

I remember watching the movie "Pumping Iron" and the scene when a bodybuilder is posing. Arnold is in the audience and making comments about the competitors. One competitor (Franco Columbo?) had such huge lats the Arnold and Robbie Robinson made jokes about him looking like a bat. All jokes aside, the lats don't have as much popularity anymore.
I think the reason for that is the obesity that we see in more and more kids today. The lats are a good measuring stick of relative strength, and the fatter an individual is, the harder it is to do just one chin. I emphasize lat strength to players and athletes I train as soon as I start working with them. If a kid is unable to do one chin-up, the day they can do one is an amazing event.
In Charles Poliquin's book "The Poliquin Principles", he has Chapter 11 dedicated to the Lats. He mentions the gymnast Yuri Chechi of Italy. If you watched the 2004 summer Olympics, you would have seen this amazing athlete in action. He is a ring specialist. That is the event that everyone goes wow at, when seeing it for the first time. The iron-cross is when the gymnast holds his arms straight out to his sides while holding the crucifix position. Adding weight while doing variations of chins while give you this look. I remember Yuri Chechi carrying the flag out for Italy in the opening ceremonies. That was with one hand. Very impressive. By the way, he finished third in an extremely closely contested event. But the major questions are why do I want to do these exercise?, and how do I do these exercises?
The lats are important in maintaining posture. I see my fair share of athletes that have shoulders that are forward with a rounded upper back. When you pull weights off the floor, they assist in maintaining the starting position. This would apply to the power clean and deadlift. For that matter, the position of the back in the squat is also assisted by lat strength and thickness. As I mentioned in my May 16th article "The Squat" the bar sits in a valley or gulley that is partially developed by the lats.
The lats also provide support to the shoulders in various pressing movements. The bench press is obvious, but the seated military press also. If you have ever experienced soreness in the lats after a heavy military press workout, you know what I am talking about.
So what can I do if I am unable to do one chin-up? If you have a lat pulldown machine that would be very helpful. I do think that chins and their variations are superior to the lat pulldown machine. So if you need assistance a partner is helpful. The downfall of a partner is how much assistance do they provide, and can this be measured? Well, an alternative to this is the flex bands I've spoken about previously. If you attach the band to the top of a power rack, and then loop your foot through it, the band will assist you in the chin-ups. There is a variety of bands, so you need to find which one will help you correctly. I like to think that once you have achieved 3 sets of 12 then you can make it slightly harder. You can then place 5 pounds or slightly more on a belt and continue to progress onward and upward. An alternative would be doing static holds at various positions within an entire chin up. A slow lowering of 10 to 12 seconds for a few sets can also add strength gains.
It seems that as we get bigger, certain exercise go by the way side. Some exercise are discarded because they are not good, but others should be maintained. The lats need chin ups and there variations, and you do to! acudave@yahoo.com