6 Best Vertical Pulling Exercises to Build Back/Lats

These are the lat builders.

Vertical pulling exercises take the lats through a massive range of motion and will hammer them hard while building a broad back.

But that isn’t all.

Vertical pulling exercises work the forearms, biceps, rear delts, and other mid/lower back muscles.

1. Reverse Shrug

In the traditional sense, the reverse shrug isn’t a vertical pulling exercise because it is more an isolation movement than a compound exercise.

But it’s first on this list because if you cannot reverse shrug well, you cannot do any vertical pulling well.

Sit on a lat pulldown and grab the bar wider than shoulder width with a light load on the stack.

With your arms entirely straight, let your shoulders lift towards your ears. Now pull your shoulders down toward the ground while keeping your arms straight. You should feel the lats (the muscles directly under and slightly behind your armpit) working. When you’ve brought your shoulders as low as possible, allow them to lengthen until they’re near your ears.

You must keep your armpits facing forward during this exercise (and every vertical pulling exercise).

2. Lat Pulldowns

The lat pulldown is the next step if you’ve mastered the reverse shrug.

Begin with a reverse shrug and at the end of that exercise, begin to pull the bar towards the base of your throat. Don’t try to touch the bar to your chest. Instead, the goal is to keep your forearm perfectly straight with the cable.

If you pull the bar down low enough to touch your chest, your elbows will “wing” out behind your body. Don’t do this. Keep your forearms in a straight line with the cable and end the motion when you have pulled it as low as this will allow.

3. Assisted Pull-Ups

I’ve written an in-depth article on why pull-ups are a no-no (for beginners). But assisted pull-ups get a pass because they allow you to adjust the difficulty to something manageable. So if you want to learn pull-ups and you’ve mastered lat pulldowns, this is the next step.

These are preferably done on an assisted pull-up machine because it provides constant assistance throughout the lift. Banded pull-ups are a substitute but don’t replicate real pull-ups because the bands offer variable resistance.

Use the same mechanics as with your lat pulldowns. They are identical in the motion you will use.

4. Neutral Grip Pulldowns

Neutral grip pulldowns differ from traditional wide grip pulldowns in the grip and how hard your muscles have to work.

Neutral grip pulldowns will typically allow you to use more weight than wide grip pulldowns because they shift more work to the biceps, lower trap, and put the lat in a more advantageous pulling position.

5. Supinated Pulldowns

These are pulldowns with a chin-up grip.

Underhand (palms toward you) grip outside your shoulders will put a lot of the load on your biceps to help them grow.

Ensure you use the same mechanics as your other pulldowns. Reverse shrug first. Keep your arms aligned with the cable.

6. One Arm Cable Pulldowns

One-arm cable pulldowns are the best lat builder on the list for the same reason one arm cable rows are the best exercise for horizontal pulling.

One arm cable pulldowns allow you to put the shoulder joint through a massive range of motion.

Typically in pulling exercises, you reach the end of your range of motion when your shoulder blades touch.

When you do one arm at a time, that issue is moot, and you can focus on turning your lats into wings for flying.

Need Some Exercises to go with these?

Then you need a complete strength training program.

Lucky for you, we’ve written a beginner program that is completely free.