The back muscles host the largest muscle in your upper body, the lats. Your back helps support your core and is responsible for good posture. Strengthening these crucial muscles will improve your physique and performance on pulling movements such as deadlifts. Additionally, a weak back often leads to injuries and persistent back pain.
The lat pulldown is a machine-based exercise that effectively builds your back muscles, primarily targeting your latissimus dorsi. This routine also targets your biceps, traps, and rhomboids. As a result, bodybuilders and athletes have it as a staple exercise in their workout programs.
The lat pulldown is a great exercise, but it’s performed on a machine. So here are other alternatives that you can try out if you don’t have access to a lat pulldown machine. When choosing an alternative to lat pulldowns, it’s important to ensure they target similar muscles. Below are the eight best lat pulldown alternatives that can help you build your back muscles, just like the lat pulldown.
The lat pulldown is an exercise that builds the lat muscles and also engages the rhomboids, traps, and biceps. There are a variety of horizontal and vertical rows that target the same muscles. We’ve compiled a list of eight effective alternative exercises.
Pull-ups are a great bodyweight exercise that can be done from any bar that gives your legs enough space to hang without touching the ground. This movement also works on your upper back, lats, rhomboids, traps, biceps, abs, core, and forearms. While you majorly do pull-ups with your body weight, you can increase the load by wearing a weighted belt or heavy backpack. Vertical pulls like the pull up and chin up are the best way to mimic a lat pulldown.
Regular pull-ups are done by suspending your body weight from a bar using an overhand grip and then pulling up and down. However, there are other variations, like the eccentric pullup, where you only focus on the lowering part of the pullup. Chin-ups are also a variation of pull-ups, but they involve using an underhand or reverse grip, which targets more of your biceps.
The barbell bent-over row is are a great alternative for people who want to increase their upper size and strength since the barbell allows the lifter to use heavy weights. This exercise is also ideal for your upper arm and grip strength. Barbell bent over rows build your lats, traps, rhomboids, and spinal erectors.
When doing the barbell bent over row, your hinge is important and allows you to work on overloading your lats while stabilizing your body. This exercise is an excellent substitute for lat pulldowns where the machine is occupied, or you don’t have one. It also helps strengthen your hinge, which carries over to exercises like deadlifts and squats.
Bench supported dumbbell rows use free weight dumbbells to target the lats and are a great lat pulldown alternative. Other muscles this exercise targets include the rhomboids, traps, rear delts, biceps, and core. They don’t allow as much weight as the barbell, but the dumbbells will better help correct imbalances since they better isolate each side of the back muscles.
When doing bench-supported dumbbell rows, ensure you drive your elbows back for a full range of motion. You should also use a low rowing motion to activate your lats when doing this routine.
Seated cable rows effectively build the muscles of your entire back. This exercise is great for your lats, biceps, rhomboids, and traps. The primary movers are your rhomboids and lats.
Try doing the seated low cable row for the best results with this one. This exercise is less complex than the bent-over barbell row above, so beginners can easily try it. It’s a great way to overload your latissimus dorsi with a low risk of injury.
Inverted rows are one of the best alternatives to the lat pulldown that you can do. They’re a bodyweight routine that requires immense upper body strength that engages various muscles, such as lats, traps, rhomboids, infraspinatus, teres minor, erector spinae, posterior delts, biceps, forearms, abs, obliques, hamstrings, and glutes. As you can see, inverted rows get the whole body involved.
You can do inverted rows using a barbell on a squat rack or a Smith machine. This exercise is a great way to train if you find it hard to perform pull-ups. You can do it using an overhand or underhand grip.
Lat pullovers are a great alternative to the lat pulldown you may initially think to work on the chest. However, although this exercise builds your pecs and triceps, it also activates the latissimus dorsi muscles. Many athletes use this exercise as an accessory for more volume on their back day.
Lat pullovers can be done with either barbells, dumbbells or a lat pullover machine. This exercise is similar to the skull crusher, but with the lat pullover, you move your entire arm rather than just flexing at the elbow. If you have a shoulder injury, avoiding it and trying other alternatives is best.
Another good lat pulldown alternative is the t-bar row. T bar rows are excellent for building the muscles in your entire back. They target your lats, traps, delts, rhomboids, biceps, teres minor and major, brachialis, erector spinae, and core. This exercise surpasses the lat pulldown when it comes to intensity.
One bonus of adding T-bar row to your routine is that the stability of the landmine at the anchor point allows you to focus on your mind-muscle connection. This leads to higher hypertrophy in your muscles. Also, you can change the part of your back it focuses on by switching your foot positions.
Kroc rows name derives from Mathew Kroczaleski, a powerlifter and bodybuilder. It’s a variation of the single-arm dumbbell row that uses lots of momentum to lift heavier loads. Krocs work on your traps, delts, rhomboids, biceps, forearms, and erector spinae.
You can do the Kroc row with a staggered stance or use a bench like single-arm dumbbell rows. The more bent over you are the more this routine targets your lats. Krocs also work on your grip strength and fix muscle imbalances since they’re a unilateral exercise.
The lat pulldown exercise is highly effective for strengthening your back, especially your lats. However, if you don’t have access to a lat pulldown machine in your home gym, there are compact alternatives available that you might consider exploring.
These eight other exercises are great alternatives. They will specifically target your lats, rhomboids, biceps, and traps - just like the lat pulldown! If you don't have access to a machine, these exercises can be a great option to include in your workout routine. You'll discover various options that can be performed using other machines, free weights, or even just your body weight.
Joe leverages over 20 years of intense workout experience and six years in the fitness industry. As a former collegiate football player, Joe knows what it takes to stay in peak physical condition. He's dedicated to providing straightforward, expert advice on setting up home gyms, personal training spaces, and commercial facilities. Balancing his passion for fitness with being a devoted family man, Joe’s rigorous full-body and metcon workouts exemplify his commitment to staying strong and being a role model for his kids and customers alike.
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