Let’s have a little chat!
What’s my favorite muscle to train for overall better gymnastics and let’s be real overall better strength? THE LATS!
Your latissimus dorsi muscle or lat serves many purposes. It helps you be able to pull better whether that be a barbell off the ground or pulling yourself up to get a pull-up! It also helps us breathe and is called an “accessory breathing muscle.” We can go on and on about the lat muscle as far as anatomy goes but I want to talk about why I think it’s so important in CrossFit and gymnastics.
Often times when we are wanting to learn toes-to-bar or butterfly pull-ups or bar muscle ups we tend to think we need bigger biceps or stronger grip or a better core. These things are not bad to train and not wrong to chase after. However I think we make a huge mistake when we neglect our lats! Think about the movements I listed above. Let’s visualize them. They all require you to lean back behind the bar. They force you to move your body back behind the bar to either compress your toes to the bar or pull your chin to the bar or even to continue to press down and find yourself on top of the bar.
Now if we think about a Snatch or Clean & Jerk you may ask “how do my lats play a role in this?” Well if you don’t have strong lats you won’t be able to keep the bar close to you as the weight gets heavier. From the initial pull off the ground to the extension of your hips and the high elbows and pull underneath, your lats play a crucial role in those segments of the lift. That’s not all. When you receive the bar overhead in a snatch position or in the front rack for that clean, strong active lats are needed. They create more tension and tension = power (we’ll get to that in the next blog)
Your lats aren’t only used in the gym though! You use them everyday. Carrying the groceries in, picking up your laundry basket or carrying your kids/playing with them. Just to name a few!
I can go on and on about this but I’ll leave you with 3 of my favorite lat exercises below: 👇🏽
PVC Lat Press Downs
Lat Press Down w/ Rings
Single Arm Banded Pull Downs
Now go get those lats strong 💪🏽
