Unlike standard pull ups, pulldowns, and rows, pullovers allow you to directly isolate your lats through a large range of motion and with minimal involvement of these other muscle groups. This is why the lats are often a lagging muscle group on many liftersвЂ™ physiques. Most lifters (especially beginners) tend to have a hard time activating the lats effectively using traditional vertical and horizontal pulling movements, as other surrounding muscles (such as the biceps, shoulders, traps, rhomboids, and teres groups) end up taking on a high percentage of the load.

But in any case, pullovers definitely are a great exercise when it comes to isolating the lats for increased width and thickness and work very well as a finishing movement to round out your complete lat workout. Whether or not pullovers really are the вЂњkingвЂќ of all upper body exercises, and whether or not they actually do expand oneвЂ™s ribcage, I highly doubt. Just as the barbell squat is considered the king of all lower body exercises, the pullover was given the same respect for its muscle building effects on the upper body and was even said to вЂњexpand the ribcageвЂќ when performed using deep breaths in between each rep.

You wonвЂ™t see these being performed in the gym very often nowadays, but a basic lat pullover is actually one of the oldest bodybuilding movements in the book and was considered an absolute staple exercise back in the 50вЂ™s, 60вЂ™s, and 70вЂ™s. Just as IвЂ™ve suggested to use cables for bicep curls, I also highly recommend trying standing cable pullovers to effectively train your lats.

Pullover exercise