Q: I'm reading your original X-Rep e-book [The Ultimate Mass Workout], and you have the Ultimate Exercises listed for each muscle. For lats, it's close-, parallel-grip chins. I have a hard time with chins because I weigh around 220 pounds. Can I do them on the pulldown machine instead?

A: Yes, do them on the pulldown machine for now; however, once you're strong enough, do the chinup-bar version…

We encourage moving the body through space and usually recommend other "free-weight" moves because there is more negative resistance than on a machine with a weight stack. On the pulldown machine, for example, the pulling-down stroke is actually heavier because of friction from the weight stack moving up the guide rods. Then, on the more important negative stroke, the resistance is less because of the friction as the weight slides down the guides.

In other words, on most machines, the resistance curve is ass-backwards—the positive is heavier and the negative is lighter. You're stronger on the negative stroke, so it should be the opposite…

With chins, the resistance is the same on both the positive and negative stroke. Research has shown that the negative stroke is more important for increases in muscle size and strength in the myofibrils, so you don't want the negative to be lighter as on the pulldown. In a perfect world, it would actually be heavier so you take advantage of the muscle's stronger eccentric capability...

That's one of the big reasons so many trainees find that free weights are better than machines—weight-stack drag makes machine work somewhat less effective at stimulating the muscle myofibrils. In fact, you fail a rep or two early because of the positive drag on machines with weight stacks. That drag doesn't happen, or is at least much less disruptive, on leverage machines like Hammer Strength and others…

One way to compensate—and to get more tension time for sarcoplasmic growth—on pulldowns and other weight-stack machines is with end-of-set pure-negatives. If you have a partner, do this: When you can't get any more reps, have them pull the weight down for you so you can do a few five-second pure-negative reps. Your partner pulls it down, you lock in, then slowly release back to the top of the stroke. Repeat for three to five pure negatives. That will help off-set the machine's less negative stress and give you more size-and-strength success.

Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.

—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com

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