Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown
The wide-grip lat pulldown is a lat pulldown with your hands well outside shoulder width. It focuses on the lats, with the upper back and biceps helping. The wide grip shortens the range a little and reduces biceps involvement, which makes it a solid pick when you want more lat focus.
Muscles worked
The wide-grip lat pulldown trains the lats, with back, biceps helping.
Weekly sets for lats
Hard sets per week that Swole.fit plans for lats, counting every exercise that trains it. Start a cycle near the growth line and climb toward the recovery limit before a deload.
How to do the wide-grip lat pulldown
- 01Lock your thighs under the pad with your feet flat and knees bent about 90 degrees.
- 02Take an overhand grip about one and a half times shoulder width, near the bend of the bar.
- 03Sit tall with a slight lean back and arms fully extended overhead.
- 04Drive your elbows down and out to the sides until the bar reaches your upper chest.
- 05Control the bar back up until your arms are straight and your shoulders rise slightly.
Coaching cues
- Think elbows down, hands are just hooks
- Spread the lats like wings
- Lead with the chest, not the chin
Common mistakes
- Gripping at the very ends of the bar can make the range too short, so stay just inside the bend.
- Jerking the torso back to start each rep shifts work off the lats, so stay still and pull with the arms.
- Shrugging up at the bottom of the pull loses lat tension, so keep your shoulders down as the bar hits your chest.
How Swole.fit programs it
Log it once and the app plans the next session for you.
- Most sets land between 8 and 15 reps, the range the plan steers compound lifts toward for size.
- Week one starts around 2 to 3 reps in reserve. Each week you train a little closer to failure, ending around 0 to 1 in reserve before a deload week.
- Hit the top of the range on every set and the next session adds the smallest real jump in weight, rounded to the plates, dumbbells or stack you actually have.
- Sets for this exercise count toward your weekly volume for every muscle it trains: a full set for the primary muscles, half a set for the helpers.
The full method, with the maths, is in how mesocycles work.
Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown alternatives
Same muscles, different tool. Swap in one of these when the equipment is taken or your joints want a change.
Free programs that use it
Ready-made splits from the Swole.fit library. Pick one and the app runs the progression.
Log it. Let the app plan the next one.
Track your wide-grip lat pulldown free. Swole.fit picks the next weight, counts your weekly sets and tells you when to deload.