Lat Pulldown

Muscles worked: Back (assisted by biceps, rear delts).

How to do it

1. Sit down on a pull-down machine with a wide bar attached to the top pulley.
2. Grab the bar with the palms facing forward using the prescribed grip.
3. As you have both arms extended in front of you holding the bar at the chosen grip width, bring your torso back around 30 degrees or so while creating a curvature on your lower back and sticking your chest out.
4. As you breathe out, bring the bar down until it touches your upper chest by drawing the shoulders and the upper arms down and back.
5. After a second at the contracted position squeezing your shoulder blades together, slowly raise the bar back to the starting position when your arms are fully extended and the lats are fully stretched.

Coaching cues

The two cues IronPack shows on this exercise's card mid-workout:

• Chest up to meet the bar
• Pull to the collarbone, elbows down and back

Logging it

IronPack suggests working in the 8 to 12 rep range, progressing in 2.5 kg jumps when you own the top of the range. Records are tracked automatically at every rep count from 1 to 12. Check your estimated 1RM from any hard set.

Related exercises

• Deadlift - back, glutes
• Pull-Up - back
• Chin-Up - back, biceps
• Barbell Row - back

Photos and steps: free-exercise-db (public domain). Cues, muscle weighting and logging guidance are IronPack's own app data. Last generated 2026-07-17.