What is Straight Arm Pulldown

Straight arm lat pulldowns are an isolation exercise that targets your latissimus dorsi (lats) muscles, the large, winglike muscles that span across your upper back. For this exercise, you use a cable machine with a straight bar attachment. Pull the bar down toward your thighs by driving from your lats, keeping your arms straight but not locked out. This exercise isolates your lats to help you build a stronger and wider back. It also activates your triceps and core as secondary movers that help keep you stable.

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How-to

To do a straight arm pulldown, face a cable machine with a straight bar attachment set at the top of the rack. Hold onto the bar with a shoulder-width overhand grip, keeping your arms slightly bent in front of you.
Pull the cable down until the bar almost touches your thighs. Keep your elbows fixed throughout the motion. Briefly hold.
Slowly return to the starting position.

Muscle Worked

Primary Muscle Groups

Lats

Your latissimus dorsi, also called the "lats," help you to move your arms and keep your shoulders stable.

Shoulders

Your shoulders are ball-and-socket joints which connect your arms to your torso

Lower Back

The low back helps stabilize your spinal column and connects your upper body to your pelvis.

Upper Back

Lie on the floor and place a foam roller below your traps and above your shoulder blades.

Secondary Muscle Groups

Abs

"Abs" refers to your abdominal muscles, which sit at the front of your trunk between your ribcage and pelvis

Forearms

The forearms help you grip objects and move your hands, wrists and fingers

Chest

Your chest helps you move your arms across your body and up and down while stabilizing the shoulders

Traps

Lie on the floor and place a foam roller below your traps and above your shoulder blades.

Pro Tips

Engage Your Lats from the Start: Start each rep by activating your lats rather than pulling with your arms. Imagine you’re squeezing your armpits and pulling your shoulder blades together (think about the feeling of squishing an orange between your shoulder blades). Drive your elbows down toward your hips, don’t just pull the bar. Visualizing can help you target your lats and improve muscle activation.
Lean Slightly Forward: A slight forward lean at the hips (not your lower back) will help you stretch deeper through your lats at the top of this exercise. Keep your core tight so you stay stable and don’t arch your back. That way, you isolate your lats and don’t put as much of a strain on your lower back, which is an easy area to injure.
Control the Eccentric (Negative): Slowly release your bar upward so your lats can stretch all the way to the top, but don’t let the bar yank your body up! Controlling the eccentric phase helps you increase your time under tension, This can help you with muscle growth and building up your overall strength. Aim for 2-3 seconds on the “down” phase with your bar so you fully benefit from each rep.

Equipments

Cable Machine

This pulley machine attaches to a steel frame and offers weighted resistance for pulling exercises

Benefits

Isolates Your Lats: Straight arm lat pulldowns are a useful back isolation exercise for targeting the latissimus dorsi. They help you build a stronger and more defined upper back. If you’re looking for a want a wider and overall more aesthetically pleasing upper body shape, this is especially helpful.
Stable Shoulders and Core: Because this exercise uses your shoulders and core as stabilizer muscles, you’ll get more upper body control the more you train and improve at straight arm pulldowns. Core and shoulder stability translates directly to better performance in other compound exercises like deadlifts or compound shoulder exercises like rows.
Mind-Muscle Connection: Since the movement isolates your lats and keeps your biceps mostly still, over time, you start to build a strong mind-muscle connection. You’ll become more effective when you need to think about lat engagement or driving an exercise from the lats. The pull-up, for instance, is one of the strongest tests of lat strength in fitness and your straight arm pulldown is a great way to build up to it if you’re still a beginner. This connection can help you mentally connect to your muscle activation and appreciate what sensations you should be feeling in your body to indicate that the right muscles are working.

Variations

The following exercises target the same primary muscles using the same equipment:

What is the Face Pull Exercise?

Alternatives

The following exercises target the same primary muscles using different equipment:

All About the Dumbbell Pullover

Barbell Clean and Press

Decline Bench Press

How to Do Kneeling Push-Ups

Warm Up & Cool Down

Warm Up

Use a lighter load on the lat pulldown machine to warm up. You want this to be mostly an activation load to get yourself thinking about range of motion and form. Although there will be some strength effort involved, use a load that doesn’t feel challenging but just allows you to practice the movement pattern of your lift before your heavier work.
Hold a resistance band and pull it apart. When your hands are separated at their furthest point, think about squeezing your shoulder blades together as much as you can so you engage your upper back, lats and shoulders.
Kneel on all fours and alternate between rounding out your upper back, sending your gaze down, and looking up while pulling your chest forward and bringing your shoulder blades together. This dynamic stretch is great for spinal mobility and shoulder blade movement while you warm up your back.

Cool Down

Kneel on the floor, crawl your hands forward and straighten your arms. Sink your hips back, sit on your heels to stretch your lats, and let your back release and relax.
Place one arm on a wall or pole, lean forward, and gently stretch the lat muscles on each side. You can also do this with both arms at once if you prefer.
Pull one arm across your body to stretch your rear deltoids (backs of your shoulders) and your upper back. This is a good tension-release technique after pulldowns.

FAQ

By design, straight arm pulldowns are meant to work your latissimus dorsi (lats). These are the large muscles on either side of your upper back. They work a few other muscles too, namely, the rear deltoids, triceps, and core. These muscles assist as stabilizers during a straight arm lat pulldown. By doing this exercise you can build back width, creating a “V-taper” look by working the lats without a lot of bicep involvement.

Start with a lighter weight. Most beginners do fine with somewhere between 10-30 pounds to start. Use a weight where you can do 10-15 clean and controlled reps without swinging or using momentum. As you get more comfortable and stronger in the exercise, increase your weight gradually. Use your judgment, but if you’re unable to complete the sets and reps that you intended to at a given weight (unless your goal is to train to failure), it’s probably too heavy. Going too heavy in this lift can cause injuries, plus, you risk using other muscles to compensate too much. An overweight straight arm lat pulldown can become more shoulder-dominant rather than focusing on your lats, which isn’t the point of the exercise.

Absolutely! This is a great beginner back exercise if you’re using proper form and moderate weight. Straight arm pulldowns are a great progression you can use for bodyweight pull day workout exercises as well, like pull-ups or chin ups for biceps. If you’re a movie, try to master the movement pattern and just think about lat engagement, rather than lifting heavy. Start with a lighter weight or you can even use a resistance band to mimic the movement of a pulldown. This helps you develop your muscle control before you progress to heavier weights or more complex exercises on the cable machine.

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