Dépense estimée selon votre poids
Mouvement d'isolation · 3 s par répétition
| Répétitions | Dépense estimée |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0,23 kcal |
| 10 | 2,3 kcal |
| 20 | 4,6 kcal |
| 50 | 11,5 kcal |
| 100 | 23,0 kcal |
Estimation à partir des équivalents métaboliques (MET) du Compendium of Physical Activities. La charge, le tempo et la durée des repos font varier le résultat du simple au double : à lire comme un ordre de grandeur, pas comme une mesure.
What is the lat pulldown?
The lat pulldown is a resistance exercise where you pull a bar mounted overhead down toward your chest. You're seated, thighs locked under the pads, and you pull the bar down until it reaches chest level. It's the most widely used back-pulling movement in the gym.
Depending on the gym, you'll hear it called a lat pulldown or a front pulldown: it's the same movement. The machine mimics the pull-up, but with a load you can adjust. You can start at 25 or 30 kg when your own bodyweight is still out of reach on a strict pull-up.
Setup matters as much as execution. The seat should be low enough that your arms are fully extended at the top, and the pads tight enough that your hips don't lift off the seat as the load goes up.
Which muscles does it work?
The back first
The lats do most of the work. They run from your lower back up to the top of the upper arm: every time you drive your elbow down and back, they contract. They're what gives the back its width.
Right alongside them, the teres major acts as a backup to the lats. The mid and lower traps stabilise the shoulder blades throughout the entire pull.
Arms and shoulders as support
The biceps and brachialis bend the elbows. The rear delts and rhomboids come in at the end of the movement, as the shoulders travel back. So the muscles worked in a lat pulldown form a full chain, not one isolated muscle.
- Lats: the main driver of the pull
- Teres major and rhomboids: width and thickness
- Lower traps: shoulder blade stability
- Biceps and brachialis: elbow flexion
- Rear delts: pulling the shoulders back
Most lifters pull with their arms and then wonder why their back isn't growing. The problem is almost never the load: it's that the shoulders never drop and travel back at the start of the movement.
How to do a proper lat pulldown
Start by sitting down facing the pulley, legs wedged in place. Stand up to grab the bar, then sit back down: that way you start with your arms extended, already under tension, with no jerk.
- Keep your torso upright, leaning back 10 to 15 degrees at most.
- Breathe in, pull your shoulders down, then pull the bar toward your chest.
- Stop the bar at collarbone level, never behind your neck.
- Come back up slowly over 2 to 3 seconds, arms fully extended at the top.
The most useful cue: think about driving your elbows down toward your hips, not pulling with your hands. If you have to swing your torso to finish the rep, the load is too heavy. To round out your shoulder work, the cable face pull pairs well with this movement.
Overhand, underhand or neutral: which grip should you use?
Where you put your hands changes how the work is shared out. No grip is better than the others: they complement each other across a training week.
| Grip | Target muscles | Width |
|---|---|---|
| Wide overhand | Lats, teres major | 1.5 x shoulders |
| Medium overhand | Lats, traps | 1.2 x shoulders |
| Neutral | Lats, brachialis | Shoulder width |
| Underhand | Lats, biceps | Narrow |
| Single-arm | One side at a time | One hand |
Narrow grip or wide grip: what's the difference?
A wide overhand grip shortens the range and concentrates the effort on the outer part of the back. A narrow grip lengthens the range and brings the arms in more. On wide-grip pulldowns, stay sensible: go beyond one and a half times shoulder width and your shoulders end up working in a cramped position for zero extra gain.
What weight to use and how to progress
Aim for a load that lets you do 8 to 12 clean reps, with one or two reps left in the tank. In practice, plenty of intermediate lifters pull somewhere between 45 and 65 kg on this exercise.
Only move up a plate once you've hit the top of that rep range three sessions in a row. This kind of planned progression is exactly what training programmes matched to your level handle for you, without you having to keep a notebook.
Pulldown, seated row or bent-over row: which one?
The pulldown builds back width. Rows and seated cable rows build thickness, with the traps and rhomboids doing the heavy lifting. You need both directions, either in the same session or split across two days.
The low pulley lets you do a seated row, and the single-arm version fixes imbalances between your two sides. So a balanced back session includes at least one vertical pull and one horizontal pull.
Doing it at home
Without a machine, a resistance band anchored at the top of a door reproduces the movement well: kneel down and pull your hands toward the floor keeping your torso upright. If you have a pull-up bar, an assisted pull-up is the closest alternative.
Tracking your loads and grip variations is easy to do from your phone during the session, one of the most used guided session features.