How To Do The Straight Arm Cable Pulldown
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Can’t feel your lats working with traditional pulldown exercises? Or are you looking to build strong muscular lats? Said yes to either of the above? The straight arm cable pulldown is a must for you!
It’s of the few back exercises where you can work your lats through a single joint. The joint being your shoulder.
What does that mean for you? The movement is less complex, so your risk of injury is lower.
Let’s face it, we’ve all tweaked our back in our workouts at some point. The straight arm cable pulldown is a way to train your lats safely.
In this article, we’ll go through:
The muscles you work in the straight arm cable pulldown
The benefits
How to do the exercise
The recommended sets, reps, and rest for muscle growth and strength in your back
Mistakes to avoid making with this exercise
Variations of the straight arm cable pulldown. Especially handy if the cables aren’t free in the gym…
Alternative exercises you can do in the gym or at home
The straight arm pulldown is an isolation exercise. Isolation exercises are used to tackle one specific muscle group or joint. (1)
Isolation exercises are less complex and target one muscle group. Compared to compound exercises, which target more than one muscle group and use more complex movement patterns. Think straight arm cable pulldown versus the deadlift.
Which muscle groups do you work with the straight arm cable pulldown?
The latissimus dorsi
The straight arm lat pulldown activates the latissimus dorsi muscles AKA ‘the lats.
The lats are large V-shaped muscles that, when trained properly, give your back a really nice look.
Wide muscular lats give the appearance of a small waist and an even bigger back – win win!
The lat muscles run from the shoulder, across the back and attach at the hip.
This exercise isn’t just for bodybuilders!
The lats help protect and stabilise your spine, shoulder, neck, and back. If you have weak lats, you’re more likely to have pain or suffer an injury.
As well as injury prevention and general wellbeing the lats play an important role in performance. If you play a sport or you’re thinking of restarting one, listen close…
To be strong, powerful, and fast your whole body needs to be strong.
Your body needs to be able to transfer that strength power, and speed effectively too.
The lats transfer power through the core, the hips, the shoulders, and the glutes.
So, if your lats are a lagging muscle right now that won’t happen.
Strong and powerful lats are more than being big, strong, and looking good. They’re vital for athletic performance too.
All the more reason you should be doing the straight arm lat pulldown.
The posterior deltoids
This exercise also activates the posterior deltoids, which help to move your arm backward. The posterior deltoids are often overlooked. Especially for those who do a lot of fly’s and presses.
When you do the straight arm cable pulldown your shoulder muscles will become more developed, and you will have better all-round shoulder strength. That means less chance of shoulder injuries, meaning you can train pain and injury-free
The triceps muscles
This exercise also works the triceps muscles, the medial, lateral, and long head.
The triceps muscles make up 2/3 of your arms. So, if you’re looking to build bigger arms faster as well as your lats, the cable lat pulldown is a great exercise to choose.
The teres major
The teres major muscle helps with shoulder movement. Think of this like the lats little helper.
By having strong functioning teres major muscles, you will be able to accelerate the arm without pain or injury. Throwing sports, tennis, swimming, and rowing all benefit from having strong teres major muscles and will help you stay injury-free.
More benefits of the straight arm cable pull down
Stronger, more powerful athletic back muscles
Most back exercises contract the biceps muscles in some way shape or form. The biceps are small muscles and fatigue much quicker than your back muscles during workouts.
Doing back exercises that contract the biceps won’t provide the full benefit of some back exercises for strength, power, and overall athletic performance
The straight arm lat pulldown does not engage the biceps, which allows you to work your lat muscles.
Better mind-muscle connection
I’ve personally found I can feel this exercise working my lats more than other back exercises.
Studies show focussing on specific muscles during exercises can increase muscle activity. (2)
More muscle activity throughout the exercise equals more gains. Whether your focus is on muscle building, strength improvements, or power improvements.
Lat pull downs improve your posture
We’re sat down more than ever now, hunched over our desks and our posture is suffering!
Poor posture can lead to back pain, rounded shoulders, a pot belly, neck pain, headaches, poor sleep, and curvature of the spine. (3) (4)
Having strong healthy lat muscles supports good posture. And this exercise will help you to do that.
How to do the straight arm cable pulldown
To do this exercise you will need a cable machine. Most gyms will have these. You will also need a straight bar, or a rope that can attach onto the cable machine. I find the rope is much more wrist-friendly.
Attach a straight bar or rope to the cable
Put the cable to roughly above shoulder height. This will vary from person to person depending on your mechanics and where you feel the lat muscles activating most effectively. Play around with the height of the cable to see what works for you
Stand in front of the cable machine with your feet shoulder-width apart. This is so you have a nice stable position to do the exercise from
Grasp the rope or straight bar attachment with both hands. You want your hands wrapped over the bar in a pronated grip
Make sure your arms are full extended before you start the exercise
Bend your knees slightly and lean forward. This will take the tension out of your hamstrings, glutes, and calves and keep the tension on your lat muscles
Draw your shoulder blade back together. As if you’re trying to squeeze a can at the top of your back
Push your chest out, brace your core and bring your arms down finishing in line with your hips
Then you want to reverse the motion keeping your arms straight back to the top of the cable machine
Recommended sets, reps, and rest
Depending on what you’re training goal is will depend on how you do this exercise.
If you’re looking to build strength in your lats, you’ll want to do 6 reps or less, with 2 or more minutes rest. A good starting point is 3 sets. This varies from person to person though.
If you’re looking to build muscular lats you will want more variety with 6-20 reps. You should vary your rest. Anywhere from 30 seconds to 90 seconds is a good place to start. Again, the number of sets you can do varies from person to person. Starting with 3-4 is a good place to start.
Common mistakes to avoid when doing this exercise
Bending the arms
Bending the arms will put more stress on the triceps muscles. This is a smaller group of muscles compared to your lats and will fatigue quicker.
It will also take the tension away from your lat muscles and onto the triceps, which isn’t what you want for the straight arm lat pulldown.
If this is happening to you right now, there’s a high chance you’re lifting too much weight. Drop the weight and focus on your form.
If you’re lifting a heavier weight with poor form, you’re increasing your chance of injury. You’re also ingraining bad movement patterns which, again, will increase your risk of injury. This can also cause muscle imbalances. Form first!
Not working through a full range of motion
Partial reps have their place for some exercises and to improve performance in some sports like running and sprinting.
For the straight arm cable pulldown exercise you should work through a full range of motion.
This exercise is primarily used to build strength and muscle growth. To have strong well developed lat muscles, you should work through a full range of motion. The added benefit is you will improve your posture.
Engaging the arms too much
Improving your mind to muscle connection is an art. There are small tweaks and changes you can make throughout the movement to feel this exercise working your lat muscles more.
To make sure you’re not engaging the arms too much in this exercise, imagine pulling the weight down with your lats. Feel the squeeze in your lat muscles.
Maintain a slight bend in the elbow to take the stress out of your elbow joint.
Not engaging the core muscles
The core’s function is to transfer force effectively through the body. By engaging the core throughout this exercise, you will be able to lift heavier, with better form in a controlled manner.
Tip: to engage your core muscles, imagine someone is about to punch you in the stomach. Take a deep breath and tighten your abdominal muscles.
Variations of the straight arm cable pull down
Cable machines are popular pieces of gym equipment. You’ll see people doing most of their gym sessions on the cable machines. So, what are alternatives you can do in the gym? And what are alternatives you can do at home?
Let’s go through some variations now.
Banded straight arm pulldown
This is an exercise you can do at home or in the gym.
Attach your resistance band at the top of something stable
You can do this exercise by standing or kneeling. For this example, we’ll presume you are standing.
Grasp the band with both hands. Wrap your hands around the band. If you have handles, great, handles are much comfier
Before you start the exercise fully extend your arms, bend your knees slightly, push your chest out, and brace your core muscles
Draw your shoulder blades back together and bring your arms down. Your arms should finish in line with your hips
You will find the movement gets harder and increases in tension as you bring the arms down towards your hips
Really feel the lats squeezing at the bottom
Reverse the motion back to the starting position in a nice and controlled manner
Straight arm dumbbell pullover
This is another variation you can do in the gym or at home.
Grasp one dumbbell in both arms. You want your hands to be in a diamond position. This will give you firm grip of the dumbbell to stop it from slipping out of your hands
You can either lie flat on a bench or tuck your shoulder blades over the side or corner of a bench. For the purposes of describing this exercise I’ll presume you’re going to do this exercise lying flat on the bench
Straighten your arms and raise the weight directly above your chest
Slowly take the dumbbell back over your hand. Breathe in as you do this and remember to keep your arms straight throughout
Your back may arch as the dumbbell goes behind. Engage your core muscles to keep your back from arching too much throughout
You will reach a natural point where you can go no further behind your head. At this point keeping the elbows straight, squeeze your lat muscles and pull the dumbbell back to your chest. As you do this breathe out
Side straight arm pulldown
You can do this exercise with a band if you’re training from home or can’t get on a cable machine. If there’s one cable machine free and you want to address a muscle imbalance you can do this in the gym too.
For the purposes of explaining how to do this exercise, I’ll describe how to do this exercise using a cable machine.
Hook a hand attachment onto the cable and bring the cable machine to a similar height to the straight arm cable pulldown
Grab the hand with one hand in a pronated grip (palm facing downward)
Stand side onto the cable machine
Keep the arm in contact with the handle straight and pull the handle towards your hip
In a nice and controlled manner bring your hand back to the start position to avoid injury
Repeat this motion for the desired number of reps
Dumbbell straight arm pulldowns
You can do this exercise from home or in the gym. It’s a very similar movement pattern to the straight arm cable pulldown. This exercise requires you to adopt a more bent over position
Grab a dumbbell in each hand
Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, push your chest out and engage your core muscles
Then you want to bend at the hip while simultaneously bending your knees until your back is almost parallel to the floor. This will help to take tension out of your hamstring muscles
Now you’re in the correct starting position
Squeeze your shoulder blades back towards the middle of your back, engage your lats, and pull your arms back until they’re slightly behind your back
Make sure to keep your arms straight
Then you want to slowly lower to dumbbells back to the start position to avoid injuring your shoulders
Repeat for your desired number of reps
Alternative exercises to the straight arm cable pulldown
Looking for alternative back exercises to the straight arm cable pulldown? Look no further!
Pull up
At Unstoppabl we’re all about function. If you can’t do pull ups but can lift a load of weight doing a wide grip pull down, it’s time to change that. Hence why we won’t be covering the wide grip pull down as an exercise here! Here’s how to do a pull up:
Stand by standing under a pull up bar
Place your hands over the bar NOT UNDER. Under is going to engage your biceps muscles more. Over the bar will work your back muscles more
Dangle from the bar before you do a pull up
Take a big breath in and engage your core muscles
Engage the muscles in your back and imagine bringing your elbows towards your hips
Try to get your chin over the bar, and then breathe out
Slowly lower yourself back to the start position. Try not to jolt down as this can hurt your shoulder
If you can’t do a pull up right now, not to worry. Everyone starts somewhere.
What you can do is apply the same technique to an assisted pull up machine. Focus on holding the downward movement of the pull up for longer.
This is the eccentric part of the movement. You can build more strength quicker by focussing your efforts here, which will get you to doing a pull up in no time!
Barbell row
This is a brilliant compound exercise that targets your back, arm, and core muscles. Here’s how to do this exercise:
Stand with your feet shoulder width apart
Make sure your foot is under the bar
Bend over and grab the bar with a straight back
Push your chest out slightly and bend your knees
Keep your head facing down in line with your back
Pull the bar towards your belly or chest. The position you decided to take will be dictated from where you feel most activation in your back. Some people will feel this exercise more in the back by bringing the bar toward the chest. Some will feel this more in the back bringing the bar closer to the belly button
At the top of the movement slowly lower the barbell back down to the ground
Repeat for your desired number of reps
Conclusion
In short, straight arm cable pulldowns are a great exercise for your back.
You may not feel this exercise in your lat muscles right away. But through regular consistent practice you will start to build the mind-muscle connection.
During your first few workouts, focus on form over the weight you lift. This will help you to learn the right movement patterns to get the benefits we’ve spoken about and also eliminate your risk of injury.
The Cable Straight Arm Pulldown is an effective exercise with a lot of variations.
You should now know everything you need to do the exercise. If you can’t get to the gym, or prefer to exercise at home, why not try one of the alternative exercises we’ve recommended?
Enough chat – time to get to work.
Let us know how you get on by commenting below. Also help us to spread the word on how to do this exercise properly. Please share this article on your socials to help some of your exercise friends to be able to do the straight arm cable pulldown.
