Want to Grow Your Back Fast? Try the Single-Arm Lat Pulldown

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Overview
Instructions
Expert Tips
My Favorite Grip for the Single-Arm Lat Pulldown
What to Do if Your Lat Pulldown Machine Doesn't Let You Do Single-Arm Pulldowns
Single-Arm vs. Two-Arm Lat Pulldown: Which Should You Do?
How to Add the Single-Arm Lat Pulldown to Your Routine
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Overview

The single-arm lat pulldown is a back exercise performed on a lat pulldown machine. You attach a single handle to the cable, grab it with one hand, and pull it down to the side of your chest before reversing the movement back to the fully stretched starting position.

Instructions

Attach a single handle to the lat pulldown machine and adjust the thigh pad so it locks your lower body in place when seated.
Grab the handle with your right hand while standing, then sit down and let your body weight pull the handle down with you. Nudge your thighs under the pad and plant your feet flat on the floor.
Sit slightly behind the cable rather than directly under it, with your chest proud and a slight arch in your lower back. Let your arm extend fully overhead and allow your shoulder blade to be pulled up toward your ear.
To start the pulldown, pull your shoulder blade down as if you’re trying to tuck it into your back pocket, then drive your elbow down toward your hip and bring the handle to the side of your chest.
Reverse the movement under control, letting your shoulder travel all the way back up into the stretched starting position.
Complete all your reps on your right side before swapping to your left.

Expert Tips

Allow your arm to fully extend until you feel a deep stretch in your lat and your shoulder and scapula are pulled several inches upward, and then pull your elbow as deep toward your waist as possible when you pull the handle down.
Rather than thinking about pulling the handle down, imagine driving your elbow into the floor.
If your grip gives out before your lats do, use lifting straps. This ensures your grip doesn’t become a limiting factor and your back can be fully stimulated by the exercise.

My Favorite Grip for the Single-Arm Lat Pulldown

My preferred grip style is a supinated grip (palms facing you, aka underhand grip) for two reasons:

It allows more scapular elevation and rotation—your shoulders rise a little higher at the top of each rep, which better stimulates your upper traps and lats.
It allows you to tuck your elbows a deeper at the bottom of each rep, which also trains the lats a bit better.
It trains your biceps a little more than the pronated (palms facing away) grip, though the difference probably isn’t huge.

In other words, the underhand grip makes the whole exercise slightly more effective for targeting not just your lats but also your mid-back and biceps.

That said, if you find pronated grip pulling more comfortable, then by all means go with that. Any slight benefits in terms of muscle building aren’t worth it if you find an underhand grip uncomfortable. But I encourage you to give it a try if you haven’t.

In terms of whether you should use a narrow, medium, or wide-grip—you don’t really have an option with the single-arm lat pulldown. If you’re using any amount of weight (which you should be), then the handle is going to move more or less straight up and down in line with your shoulder.

Don’t try to pull the handle in a wide arc in an attempt to isolate your lats. This will just force you to use less weight or sloppy form, which makes the exercise less effective for all of the muscles involved. Straight up and down—don’t overthink it.

What to Do if Your Lat Pulldown Machine Doesn’t Let You Do Single-Arm Pulldowns

If your gym has one of those lat pulldown machines that requires two cables to attach to the handle, you can still do the single-arm lat pulldown on a regular cable machine.

You just have to do the exercise in a half kneeling position instead. Otherwise the cues and technique are the same.

The main downside to the half-kneeling variation is that without thigh pads to lock you in place, it’s harder to keep your body stable—especially as the weights get heavy. For that reason, half-kneeling is usually only a workable option in the beginning. Once you’re moving heavy weights, switching to a dedicated lat pulldown machine with real thigh pads is the move.

Single-Arm vs. Two-Arm Lat Pulldown: Which Should You Do?

You don’t need to do the single-arm lat pulldown to grow big lats. The regular two-arm version—done correctly—is an excellent exercise for developing your entire back, and it’s simpler and more time-efficient.

That said, there are three good reasons to try single-arm pulldowns:

Variety. If you’re like me, you spent your first decade or so of weightlifting doing lat pulldowns and pull-ups. There’s much to be said for trying a new exercise—like the single-arm lat pulldown—so long as it’s no worse than your existing options and is more exciting.
Intensity. When you train one side of your body at a time, you can typically pull more weight per side than you could if you were using both arms. And heavier weights are generally better for muscle growth. Some people also find that it’s easier for them to push closer to failure when doing the single-arm lat pulldown.
Range of motion. The single-arm lat pulldown lets you reach further overhead and pull your elbows a bit lower. This allows you to get a deeper stretch on your lats and a slightly longer range of motion, both of which are generally better for muscle growth.

The main downside of the single-arm lat pulldown is that you’re generally forced to use much larger jumps in weight. Most lat pulldowns are designed so that you have to increase the weight in 10- or 15-pound increments. That’s manageable (although not ideal) with two arms—if you’re pulling 160 pounds total, a 10-pound increase is only about a 6% jump.

Switch to one arm, though, and the same 10-pound jump from 80 to 90 per side becomes a 12% increase. This makes the exercise much harder to progress over time.

Many people also think the single-arm lat pulldown is inherently better than the regular version because it evens out muscle imbalances.

Hypothetically, that’s true, but personally I’ve met very few people with noticeable muscle imbalances that needed to be corrected. If you’ve been doing lat pulldowns, pull-ups, chin-ups, rows, and other pulling exercises with proper form, there’s probably no visible disparity in muscle size between your arms.

If you feel differently, then of course there’s nothing wrong with switching to single-arm lat pulldowns, but I want to caution you against looking at the single-arm lat pulldown as a solution to a problem you may not have.

How to Add the Single-Arm Lat Pulldown to Your Routine

The single-arm lat pulldown fits best on a back, pull, or upper-body day in place of any vertical pulling exercise (e.g., pull-up, chin-up, or regular lat pulldown) you already have in your training.

I generally recommend you use a moderate rep-range of around 6–12 reps with this exercise, but you can also do 4–6 reps or 12–15 reps.

Here’s what a pull workout incorporating the single-arm lat pulldowns could look like:

Barbell Deadlift: 3 sets of 4–6 reps with 2–3 minutes rest

Single-Arm Lat Pulldown: 3 sets of 6–8 reps with 2–3 minutes rest

One-Arm Dumbbell Row: 3 sets of 6–8 reps with 2–3 minutes rest

EZ-Bar Cable Curl: 3 sets of 6–8 reps with 2–3 minutes rest

Generally, it’s best to do this as an accessory exercise after another one, such as deadlifts or pull-ups (on a pull day or back day) or bench press (on an upper body day).

Want More Content Like This?

Check out these articles:

How to Do the Lat Pulldown: Form, Benefits, & Variations
How to Do the Close-Grip Lat Pulldown for Back Mass
How to Do the Dumbbell Pullover for Lats and Chest Size

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