Lat pull downs

[musketeer]

I read that they should be performed while on your knees because your glutes are somehow involved and when you perform the exercise seated you dont get the full effect.

Hmm... I suppose that if you are using a fair ammount of weight compared to your own bodyweight, when you do the pulldown, you need to brace your knees under the foot support and then you run the risk of losing your arch in your lower back because you are concentrating on your legs.

You just need to be consious of you body position, not change the exercise. That sounds a bit like 90's Men's Health advice, where they tell you to put your feet on the bench when bench pressing to (protect your back) or they get you to do laterals against the wall...

I used to my lat pulldowns kneeling, bu then I had no chice - my home gym required that you remove the seat and get down there to do it! As soon as I got strong enough to lift my own bodyweight, it wasnt an issue because I put a bar between two rafters (I was working out in the garage for the first three years) and did sets of chins.

To get really good at doing bodyweight chins, you do not need to be able to do any more than 3 in one set. This system allows you to do a relatively large amount of reps without fatiguing. Suppose that your max is 6-7 chins:

Set Reps
1---------1
2---------2
3---------3
4---------4
5---------5
6---------1
7---------2
8---------3
9---------4
10--------5
11--------1
12--------2
13--------3
14--------4
15--------5 (actually failed on 5 for the first time!)

OK so that's 15 sets but you require very little rest between each set, and in the space of less than 20mins (max) a relative novice "chinner" has done 45 good chinups! If you could only max at 4 then do (1 + 2 + 3) x 4 so 24 chinups per workout. You never really get to failure until the final time when you can't do what would normally be an easy set...