What are the benefits from doing doing pullovers?

[papaya_squishy]

HI, just reading some opinions on this excercise...is this a back excercise or a chest excercise?

[Cackerot69]

lat exercise.

[Ronan]

It can work predominatly your lats or your chest depending on the method you use.

To work lats keep your elbows nearly stright and get a deep stretch and pull the dumbbell over to your lower chest

To work your chest more get a moderate stretch and keep the elbows bent more. Think of pressing the weight over instead of pulling it with your lats and take the dumbell to your face not your chest and press up hard with your chest in the contracted position.

[chris mason]

It is a lat exercise, if you are working your chest then you are not performing a pullover, you are doing something else.

[Darcy Tucker]

Chris I understand that pullovers do work your lats. I personally don't do them but if they didn't work your chest why would some bodybuilders swear by them like Arnold.

[chris mason]

Because Arnold didn't know much about physiology. Arnold also thought they would expand an adult's ribcage---wrong!

[Darcy Tucker]

I don't think he would have kept on doing them if they were not working his chest.

[Frankster]

Altough its lat exercise, its still works the chest

[Budiak]

I believe it also works the devious serratus muscles. It does depend on how you do it, if you do a wide sweep with a dumbell its different from when you do it barely clearing your face with a barbell (I saw a guy doing the low-clearance pullovers with like 170 lbs...scary sh##).

[ryuage]

I know it works the back, but it's funny to see a lot of guys at my gym thinking it works out your chest.

[YatesNightBlade]

Originally posted by chris mason
Because Arnold didn't know much about physiology. Arnold also thought they would expand an adult's ribcage---wrong!

Is that true Chris ???

I too do them with chest and feel them .... I also feel them pulling on my rib cage .... Arnold used to swear by em ... and wrote that they help to expand your rib cage. Where have you read they don't ???

[chris mason]

I heard it from my anatomy and physiology professor in college. Adult tendons and ligaments don't like to stretch very much. If your tendons stretch, it is only a little and then they break. Ligaments are a little more pliable, but after they are stretched they snap back to shape. Just because you feel an exercise stretching you, it doesn't mean that it is actaully changing your shape. Think about this, wouldn't all yogas have huge ribcages if stretching them made a difference? I'm quite sure that with all of their contortions they get quite a bit of stretching in there. Arnold had a fantastic build, one of the best, if not the best shapes ever, but that doesn't mean he knew what he was talking about all of the time. Arnold also suggested 25-30 sets per bodypart for "advanced" bodybuilders. I think that would bury most natural trainees, don't you? Last, how much has your ribcage expanded since you have done them?

[j_dubs]

They don't expand your rib-cage because this is pretty much impossible. Just think about it; do you really think doing an exercise once or twice a week can actually change you skeletal structure??? I highly doubt it. Expanding your ribcage would take a lot more than that and it would probably be really painful to do so (you would have to majorly stretch tendons and ligaments). To answer the other question of what muscle pulldowns work, you should do them for lats, but you can also work your chest with them (though not very effectively) if you perform them slightly differently. I've also noticed (just from personal experience) that using a dumbbell seems to work chest and serratus a little more, and barbells (with a shoulder width grip) work the lats better.

Oops, I guess Mason already answered the question.

[Edited by j_dubs on 02-16-2001 at 09:16 AM]

[kAto]

pullovers are a lat excercise period. those who think it can expand your ribcage is a fool. imo their pretty useless, unless your using it for a pre-exhaustion technique before back traning. but still the rotator stress is not worth it. if you going to do them for pre-exhaustion purposes use the machine, its safer. IMO



peace

[Ronan]

I use the cross bench dumbbell pullover to work my chest: it works. I have noticed results from doing it.

If I want to work my lats directly I lie along the bench with a barbell taking a shoudler width grip.

I dont beleive it would expand my rib-cage, though it does give me a great chest workout with the method I use