Behind the neck chin ups,Pulldowns

There it is the man his self and that beautiful back..



So it has been ages since i have done these on the pull up bar or even seated via the cable pulldowns.I can remember when i was 18 years old at around 175 lbs.Man i though i was getting it could hammering out reps upon reps of behind the neck chin ups.I mean pumping iron showed me the way..lol.I was on a roll then.So as im repping these out an onlooker,older gym rat says boy you will need more than that.I thought then WTF?For some reason i lost my motivation for that movement and it went to the forgotten excercise stash.Looking back i realized he ment more bloody body weight.
So im rethinking back developement and movements that will bring up my weak points.

Upper back for me needs major work.So i was told by many over the years that chin ups or pulldown behind the head will target this upper back region between the shoulder blades and those tasty romboid muscles.Myth,truth or what i want to know what you guys think here.
If true what would be the proper trick to target that upper back with this movement.Do any of you use these specifically to hit the upper back and have you had success.?

Looking for some general feedback here and considering giving this old movement a try for my speacialization areas.And ofcourse any other tricks and excercises that can be suggested for the upper back region please share.

There was a study that concluded Front (traditional) is better:

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to evaluate the activity of the primary motor muscles during the performance of 3 lat pull-down techniques through surface electromyography (EMG). Twenty-four trained adult men performed 5 repetitions of behind-the-neck (BNL), front-of-the-neck(FNL), and V-bar exercises at 80% of 1 repetition maximum. For each technique, the root mean square from the EMG signal was registered from the pectoralis major (PM), latissimus dorsi (LD), posterior deltoid (PD), and biceps brachii (BB) and further normalized in respect to that which presented the highest value of all the techniques. A series of two-way repeated measures analysis of variance was used to compare the results, with Tukey-Kramer as the post hoc test and alpha = 0.05. During the concentric phase, PM value showed the FNL to be significantly higher than V-bar/BNL and V-bar higher than BNL. During the eccentric phase, FNL/V-bar was higher than BNL. For LD, there was no difference between techniques. PD presented BNL higher than FNL/V-bar and FNL higher than V-bar in the concentric phase and BNL higher than V-bar in the eccentric phase. BB exhibited BNL higher than V-bar/FNL and V-bar higher than FNL in both concentric and eccentric phases. Considering the main objectives of lat pull-down, we concluded that FNL is the better choice, whereas BNL is not a good lat pull-down technique and should be avoided. V-bar could be used as an alternative.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19855327

yeah although I've noticed that Sergio Oliva (Sr.) is often shown in videos performing Lat pull downs behind the neck, I always perform them in front because behind the neck just feels way too awkward for me, (just as behind the head military barbell presses always did). Behind the head for both military press and Lat pull downs feels so awkward for me, that it seems like it would eventually cause injury. And if you want to use Arnold S. as an example, in his first book, ("Education of a Bodybuilder") he makes it a point to mention that performing weight resistance exercises which have awkward movements is something that he never considered to be of value. Go figure.

Now one exercise performed and displayed by Franco Columbu in one of his books, is something that I've never seen anyone else perform. And that is 45 degree pulldowns performed on the Lat pull down machine. He would place a chair far enough behind the seat on the pull down machine, so that it would place the cable at a 45 degree angle. As long as the cable is long enough, this can be done on a Lat pull down machine. It's kinda like a combination of pull downs and rows. I used to do this when I was younger, but I tried it last year, and it too just felt too awkward to me, so I no longer do those.

behind the neck pulldowns are Snapcity for me.

but if it works for you and you enjoy it , go for it!

Only on a pull down machine, never pull-up. Don’t need a shoulder surgery.

Good feedback.So i actually love behind the neck military press and they feel natural and not too much.Ive taken these up to 225lbs seated in the 8-12 rep range some years back.I will give the behind the neck pulldowns a try and just see how they feel for me.I do know they work for some people for hitting that one area i mentioned.I will be doing plenty of bent over rear delt flys to add to the area as well for developement.Those hit rear delts but i feel the upper back gets some work with them as well.

*any other ideas for hitting that upper back besides the common things we know throw it out there.I am game for any new methods that i have not tried or even seen for that matter.

Man. Arnold is a badaaass... my body doesn't even work that way lol

I love pull-ups, I always do them in front.

These used to be painful for me and anything painful I won't do however, when I started using the Rope it was much better and less strain.. I would actually employ these in my routine when I was doing traps and shoulders.. I would use both variations of the Rope, the black tricep pull-down rope or the longer pull-down rope.. I would do these towards the end of my session after I've been warmed up in the blood is going and everything is lubricated, I will do them on my knees while leaning forward.. compared to the bar which I personally feel ads too much pressure and is a very unnatural movement, the Rope allows you a bit more of a free range motion and it targets more of the traps and rhomboids in my opinion, it's a great clean up movement..

Guys who lean way back when doing lat pulldowns are doing nothing but turning the movement into a row instead of a pulldown. To isolate the lats properly you must sit upright while retracting the scapula. Lighten up the weight and focus on form. I think this is why some guys prefer behind the neck pulldowns because it forces you into proper form.

I see guys doing this all the time and it cracks me up. Ego lifters who have the stack maxed out while leaning their bodies way back, almost parallel to the floor, at the bottom of the movement. GTFO.

TouaregV8 said:

Guys who lean way back when doing lat pulldowns are doing nothing but turning the movement into a row instead of a pulldown. To isolate the lats properly you must sit upright while retracting the scapula. Lighten up the weight and focus on form. I think this is why some guys prefer behind the neck pulldowns because it forces you into proper form.

I see guys doing this all the time and it cracks me up. Ego lifters who have the stack maxed out while leaning their bodies way back, almost parallel to the floor, at the bottom of the movement. GTFO.

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Yeah, now that you mention it, I've seen some guys do the pull downs like that too. It never looked right to me either. After all, pull downs are supposed to simulate a wide grip chin-up movement. I do them in front, but I stay upright through the movement, bringing the bar as close to my face as possible, without banging myself in the nose.

TouaregV8 said:

Guys who lean way back when doing lat pulldowns are doing nothing but turning the movement into a row instead of a pulldown. To isolate the lats properly you must sit upright while retracting the scapula. Lighten up the weight and focus on form. I think this is why some guys prefer behind the neck pulldowns because it forces you into proper form.

I see guys doing this all the time and it cracks me up. Ego lifters who have the stack maxed out while leaning their bodies way back, almost parallel to the floor, at the bottom of the movement. GTFO.

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I laugh when I see guys get the steam and build momentum and pull down as leaning back, like a mechanical machine.. Like you said.. Drop the weight, full stretch and down while being upright when contracting stick chest out/into the pull once you reached that range at end of movement to assure that contraction..

TouaregV8 said:

Guys who lean way back when doing lat pulldowns are doing nothing but turning the movement into a row instead of a pulldown. To isolate the lats properly you must sit upright while retracting the scapula. Lighten up the weight and focus on form. I think this is why some guys prefer behind the neck pulldowns because it forces you into proper form.

I see guys doing this all the time and it cracks me up. Ego lifters who have the stack maxed out while leaning their bodies way back, almost parallel to the floor, at the bottom of the movement. GTFO.

Click to expand...

ahhh yeah... "The momentum lifter" he has brothers that work out at LA fitness near me, lol. I'm from the old school when pulldowns were like the seated press both were done behind the neck

See those guys all the time, loading the stack and barely getting anything actually done.

For me, to build the rhomboids and all the upper back, I prefer doing things like high rows (closer to the chest than hips) with a Smith or cables, a modified row-flye with dumbbells (these are awesome) and rack pulls. Also cable "shrugs" where the angle is more in front instead of straight up and down, I use two handles when I do these. Doesn't take as much weight as you'd think. Full ROM on all movements seems to help a lot for me too

HFO3 said:

ahhh yeah... "The momentum lifter" he has brothers that work out at LA fitness near me, lol. I'm from the old school when pulldowns were like the seated press both were done behind the neck

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Indeed this is why i mention them.In the 90's we got pretty massive doing behind the neck press and chins.I have never been settled on if those chins behind the neck or pulldowns target that area in the upper back.Im going to be adding seated behind the neck pulldowns on my pump days soon around a weight that lets me do 15-20 good controled reps.