Master the underhand lat pulldown for a thicker back

You’ve probably seen a dozen people doing Lat Pull Downs every time you’re in the gym. It’s the go-to for building that classic V-taper. But what if a simple change—just flipping your grip—could unlock a whole new level of back thickness and even help grow your biceps?

That’s exactly what the underhand lat pulldown brings to the table. It’s not just another variation; for lifters serious about building a complete, dense-looking back, it’s a game-changer.

So, Why Does This Build a Denser Back?

At its core, the underhand lat pulldown is a vertical pull where you use a palms-facing-you (supinated), shoulder-width grip. While the standard wide-grip pulldown is fantastic for creating back width, this version is a specialist for adding muscle thickness, especially to the lower part of your lats.

It all comes down to the mechanics of the pull. The underhand grip lets your elbows travel lower and tuck in closer to your body. This gives you a longer range of motion and allows for an incredibly powerful squeeze at the bottom. Think of it less like stretching your back wide and more like carving deep detail into the lower half.

The Big Wins of Going Underhand

Honestly, this move has a permanent spot in my hypertrophy programs because the benefits are just too good to ignore. It’s also a perfect exercise for applying consistent, measurable overload while managing systemic fatigue.

Here’s what you can expect when you add it to your routine:

Serious Lower Lat Focus: That supinated grip naturally shifts the tension down, hammering the lower fibers of your lats. This is what helps build that full, powerful look from top to bottom.
A Deeper Contraction: Compared to a wide, overhand grip, you can simply pull the bar lower and get a much more complete contraction. You’ll feel this one deep in your back.
More Biceps, More Weight: The grip puts your biceps in a much stronger position to help out. This teamwork not only helps you move more weight to overload your lats but also gives your arms some extra growth stimulus.
Perfect for Progressive Overload: It’s a stable, machine-based lift. That makes it incredibly simple to add a little weight or an extra rep each session—the absolute key to forcing muscle growth over time.

This guide will walk you through exactly how to do it right, program it for gains, and track your progress so you can see measurable results, week after week.

The Science of Grip: How It Changes Your Pulldown

Flipping your grip from overhand to underhand on the lat pulldown does way more than just feel different. It completely changes the mechanics of the lift and shifts the muscle focus from building back width to carving out serious thickness, especially in your lower lats.

Think of the standard, wide-grip overhand pulldown as your go-to for building those “wings.” It’s all about stretching and hitting the upper and outer parts of your lats. But when you switch to an underhand lat pulldown, you’re using a different tool for a different job—this one is for adding density and depth.

A New Path for Your Elbows

The biggest difference you’ll feel is where your elbows go. With an underhand grip, your elbows aren’t flaring out to the sides anymore. They stay tucked in front of your body, allowing them to travel much further down and closer to your torso.

It’s like your elbows are on a set of tracks:

Overhand Grip: The tracks are wide, guiding your elbows out and away. The pull usually stops when your upper arms get near your torso.
Underhand Grip: The tracks are narrow. This lets you drive your elbows straight down toward your hips, giving you a much longer range of motion.

That extra range is gold for muscle growth. A larger range of motion through the lengthened position is a key driver of hypertrophy. The underhand grip lets you pull the bar all the way to your upper chest, which means you can get a much deeper, more complete squeeze in the lats.

Biceps Jump In to Help

Another thing you’ll notice is your biceps get in on the action. With an overhand grip, your biceps are in a pretty weak position. But when you supinate your grip (palms facing you), your biceps are in a much stronger line of pull, and they start contributing a lot more.

This isn’t a bad thing; in fact, it’s a huge plus if you play it smart. The extra help from your biceps means you can often lift heavier weight than you could with an overhand grip. More weight equals more mechanical tension on the lats—and that’s what triggers growth. The trick is to make sure you’re still initiating the pull with your back and just using your arms as assistants.

The point isn’t to turn this into a sloppy, heavy bicep curl. Use the stronger position to overload your lats. Focus on driving your elbows down and back, not just yanking the bar with your hands.

The science backs this up, showing the underhand grip is fantastic for hitting the lower lats and getting a powerful contraction. This grip lets you get a better squeeze at the bottom by bringing the bar all the way to your rib cage. While overall lat activation is pretty similar across different grips—around 45-50% of max effort—the underhand version gives you about 10-15% more emphasis on the lower lats. This makes it a perfect choice for anyone using the Strive Workout Log to build a thicker back and some bigger arms at the same time. You can read more on grip-specific activation here.

Perfecting Your Form: A Step-By-Step Execution Guide

Knowing how to do an exercise and mastering it are two different things. Just yanking on the bar will give you a workout, sure, but nailing the technique is what actually builds a bigger, stronger back. Think of this as your go-to checklist for turning every single rep into a meaningful step toward your goals.

We’ll break the movement down into five key phases. Run through these in your head during each set to make sure your form is dialed in from the moment you sit down to the final stretch.

Phase 1: The Setup

How you start determines how you finish. First things first, adjust the thigh pads so they lock your legs in tight. You want to be completely anchored to the seat—this stability ensures you’re pulling the weight, not lifting yourself up.

Next, stand up and take a shoulder-width, underhand grip on the bar (palms facing you). This grip width is the sweet spot, putting your lats and biceps in the strongest possible position to pull effectively.

Once you’ve got your grip, sit down and slide your legs under the pads. Lean back just a hair—about 10-15 degrees is all you need. This slight angle creates a straight path for the bar to travel to your upper chest and aligns the pull perfectly with your lat fibers.

Phase 2: The Initiation

This is the most important part, and it’s where most people go wrong. Before you even think about bending your elbows, the very first move has to come from your back. It’s all about depressing and retracting your shoulder blades.

Think about tucking your shoulder blades into your back pockets. This single cue is a game-changer for getting your lats to fire right from the start.

If you initiate by pulling with your arms, your biceps will take over. If you feel your shoulders creeping up toward your ears, reset. Keep them down and locked in place.

Phase 3: The Pull

With your lats engaged and shoulder blades set, it’s time to pull. As you exhale, focus on driving your elbows down and back, guiding the bar toward your upper chest. Here’s a cue that helps a ton: think of your hands as just hooks.

Your hands are only there to connect you to the weight. The real work is done by your elbows. By picturing yourself driving your elbows toward the floor, you’ll keep the tension squarely on your back instead of turning it into a glorified bicep curl.

Phase 4: The Squeeze

This is where you make your money. As the bar touches your upper chest, squeeze your back muscles as hard as you can for a full second. Puff your chest out to meet the bar and actively try to pinch your shoulder blades together.

Rushing through this peak contraction is like leaving free gains on the table. This momentary squeeze stimulates a huge number of muscle fibers and ensures you’ve completed the rep with purpose. For a deeper dive into the muscles doing the work here, check out our guide on the primary and secondary muscles worked in the lat pulldown.

Phase 5: The Controlled Return

The way up is just as critical for muscle growth as the way down. Don’t just let the weight stack slam back up. You need to control the ascent, fighting the resistance all the way. This is the “negative” or eccentric part of the lift, and it’s a powerful trigger for hypertrophy.

Aim for a slow, 2-3 second return until your arms are almost fully extended. You should feel a deep stretch across your lats at the top. This controlled negative keeps the muscle under tension for longer and perfectly sets you up for the next quality rep.

Common Mistakes Sabotaging Your Back Growth

Putting in the work on underhand lat pulldowns but not seeing the back growth you expect? You’re not alone. It’s a fantastic exercise, but a few subtle mistakes can completely derail your progress, turning a great back-builder into a whole lot of wasted effort.

If you feel more strain in your lower back or a bigger pump in your arms than your lats, it’s a dead giveaway that your form needs a tune-up. Let’s break down the most common culprits and get you back on track.

Using Momentum and Swinging Your Torso

We’ve all seen it. That person at the gym loading up the stack and then heaving their entire body back to get the bar down. This is the classic ego-lift mistake, and it’s the #1 reason your lats aren’t growing.

When you swing, you’re using momentum—not muscle. You take all the tension off the target muscles and put a ton of unnecessary stress on your lower back. The goal isn’t just to move the bar; it’s to make your lats do the work. Your torso should stay solid, with maybe a very slight lean back (no more than 10-15 degrees).

The Fix: Drop the weight. Seriously. Lock yourself into the seat, brace your core, and keep your chest up. Focus on pulling with your back and driving your elbows down and in, not rocking your body.

Letting Your Biceps Take Over

If you finish a set and your biceps are on fire but your back feels like it did nothing, you’ve just done a very inefficient bicep curl. While the biceps will always help in a chin-grip pulldown, they should never be the star of the show.

This usually happens when you start the pull by yanking with your hands and bending your elbows right away. You’re completely bypassing the initial, crucial step of lat engagement.

The Fix:

Lead With Your Scaps: Think of every single rep starting with one move: pulling your shoulder blades down and back. This “pre-activates” the lats.
Think Elbows, Not Hands: Forget about your hands. Imagine they’re just hooks. Your entire focus should be on driving your elbows down towards your hips.

Cutting the Range of Motion Short

Partial reps are a progress killer. This happens in two ways: not pulling the bar all the way down to your upper chest, or not letting your arms extend fully at the top. Either way, you’re cheating yourself out of the best parts of the exercise.

Failing to reach your chest means you miss the peak contraction, where muscle fiber recruitment is high. On the flip side, not getting a full stretch at the top robs you of the eccentric tension and lengthened-position stimulus, which are critical for triggering hypertrophy.

The Fix: Pick a weight you can control through the entire movement. The bar should touch or come within an inch of your upper chest on every rep. Squeeze there for a solid second. Then, control the weight all the way back up until you feel a deep stretch in your lats. Quality over quantity, always.

To make things even clearer, here’s a quick troubleshooting guide you can refer back to any time you feel like your form is slipping.

Underhand Lat Pulldown Troubleshooting Guide

Common Mistake	Why It’s a Problem	How to Fix It
Swinging the Torso	Uses momentum, reduces lat tension, and strains the lower back.	Lower the weight, brace your core, and keep your torso stable with only a slight lean.
Biceps Taking Over	Turns a back exercise into a less effective arm exercise.	Initiate the pull by depressing your shoulder blades. Focus on driving your elbows down, not pulling with your hands.
Partial Reps	Misses the peak contraction and the growth-inducing stimulus from the stretched position.	Use a full range of motion. Pull the bar to your upper chest and allow your arms to fully extend at the top.

Nailing down these details is what separates people who spin their wheels for years from those who see consistent, measurable gains. By focusing on how you lift, not just how much, you'll ensure every rep is building a stronger, thicker back.

Programming The Pulldown For Maximum Hypertrophy

Alright, you've nailed the form. Now for the fun part: programming the underhand lat pulldown into your routine to actually build serious muscle.

Your muscles need a reason to get bigger, and that reason is progressive overload. It’s a simple concept: you have to consistently challenge your body to do more work over time. That means adding a little weight, squeezing out an extra rep, or adding another set—all while maintaining excellent form.

The Hypertrophy Sweet Spot: Reps and Sets

For building muscle, current research suggests that taking sets close to failure is the primary driver. A repetition range of 6-15 reps is highly effective, as it balances mechanical tension with metabolic stress without being excessively fatiguing.

As for volume, most lifters will see optimal results with 3-4 hard working sets per exercise. A "hard set" is one taken 1-3 reps shy of true muscular failure. This volume provides enough stimulus to trigger growth without generating so much systemic fatigue that it hinders your recovery and performance in subsequent sessions.

How Often and Where Does It Fit?

Research indicates that training a muscle group twice per week is optimal for maximizing hypertrophy. This frequency allows for sufficient recovery between sessions while keeping muscle protein synthesis elevated.

As for placement in your workout:

As a Primary Vertical Pull: You can place it early in your back workout, perhaps after a heavy compound row. Your nervous system will be fresh, allowing you to focus on progressive tension overload.
As a Secondary Movement: It also works exceptionally well later in the workout. The stability of the machine allows you to safely push for volume and train the lats to failure even when fatigued from free-weight exercises.

It's easy to get caught up in just counting sets and reps. But what really matters is the quality of those reps. To go deeper on this, check out our guide on effective reps vs total volume for hypertrophy.

A Simple Plan for Forcing Progress

Progressive overload shouldn't be random. You need a structured plan. Here’s a simple, evidence-based method called double progression:

Establish a Rep Range: Choose a target rep range, for example, 8-12 reps.
Find Your Starting Weight: Select a weight you can handle for 3 sets of 8 clean reps, stopping 1-2 reps short of failure.
Add Reps First: In each subsequent workout, aim to add one rep to your sets. Continue this process until you can successfully complete all your sets at the top of the rep range (e.g., 3 sets of 12).
Increase the Weight: Once you achieve your rep goal, increase the weight by the smallest increment possible (e.g., 5 lbs). In your next session, your reps will likely drop back toward the bottom of your range (e.g., 8-9 reps).
Repeat the Cycle: Now, work on adding reps again with the new, heavier weight.

This systematic approach removes guesswork and ensures you are consistently applying the stimulus needed for muscle growth. For a more personalized approach, an AI workout builder can map out this kind of progression for you automatically. A structured plan is your guarantee that you're consistently giving your muscles a reason to grow.

Systematically Tracking Your Progress With Strive

You’ve probably heard the old saying, "What gets measured gets managed." When it comes to building muscle, I’d take it a step further: what gets managed grows. Perfecting your form is half the battle, but if you aren’t tracking your performance, you’re just guessing your way through your workouts. This is where a dedicated tool like the Strive Workout Log comes in, turning random effort into a clear path forward.

Think of tracking as creating a conversation with your body. Today's workout log is tomorrow's game plan. This is the simplest, most effective way to make sure you’re applying progressive overload—the undisputed king of muscle growth.

Setting Up Your Underhand Lat Pulldown Log

First things first, let's get the underhand lat pulldown into your routine in Strive. It’s simple: just open up your back day, add the exercise, and you're set to log your first session.

For every set, you'll want to record the weight and the number of reps you hit. But if you really want to dial in your training, you need to track your Reps in Reserve (RIR). This is one of the most powerful features in Strive for a reason.

Reps: How many repetitions you completed.
Weight: The load you lifted for the set.
RIR: An honest guess of how many more clean reps you had left in the tank. An RIR of 2 means you stopped the set feeling like you could have ground out two more good ones.

Why bother with RIR? It adds all-important context. A set of 10 reps at 100 lbs with an RIR of 4 is a warm-up. That same set with an RIR of 1 is a true, growth-inducing work set. RIR tells you how hard you were actually working, ensuring you’re pushing close enough to failure to make a difference.

Turning Data Into Muscle Growth

After you’ve logged a few workouts, the charts in Strive become your best friend. You can see at a glance how you’re progressing and make smart calls on what to do next.

The goal is simple: make the charts go up. If your numbers are flatlining, your muscles have no incentive to grow. This is how you use data to smash through plateaus and keep the gains coming.

For the underhand lat pulldown, two charts are especially telling:

Volume Load: This is just (Weight x Reps x Sets), giving you a number for your total work. A steady climb in volume load over the weeks is a surefire sign you're successfully applying progressive overload.
Estimated 1-Rep Max (e1RM): The app uses your performance on your sets to estimate your top-end strength. Seeing your e1RM go up means you're getting objectively stronger, which is exactly what we want.

I’ve made it easy to build a template right in the Strive app. Let's say you completed 3 sets of 10 reps at 120 lbs with an RIR of 2 this week. Now you have a clear, data-backed target for next week: aim for 3 sets of 11 reps at 120 lbs. Using a digital workout progress tracker takes all the guesswork out of it and gives you an actionable plan for hypertrophy.

Answering Your Questions

Let's dig into some of the most common questions I get about the underhand lat pulldown. Getting these details right is what separates a decent back day from a great one.

Is The Underhand Pulldown Better Than Overhand?

Neither one is inherently "better"; they are different tools for targeting different aspects of the lats. Think of them as complementary, not mutually exclusive.

The underhand grip emphasizes back thickness, particularly the lower lat fibers, due to the increased adduction of the arm. It also offers a greater range of motion and significant bicep involvement. The classic overhand grip, especially a wider one, is superior for developing back width by focusing on the upper and outer lat fibers. A scientifically-designed, well-rounded back routine will strategically include both variations.

What Is The Best Grip Width For This Exercise?

For most individuals, a shoulder-width grip is optimal. This biomechanically sound position allows for the greatest range of motion and places the lats and biceps in their strongest line of pull, which is ideal for applying progressive overload for hypertrophy.

A grip that is too wide will shorten the range of motion and may cause wrist discomfort. A grip that is too narrow increases the demand on the biceps and can shift the focus away from the lats. Start with hands directly above your shoulders and make minor adjustments to find the position that allows for the strongest mind-muscle connection with your lats.

Can This Replace Chin-Ups In My Routine?

While both are excellent vertical pulling movements, they serve different functions within a hypertrophy program. The underhand lat pulldown is a stable, machine-based exercise that allows for precise loading and isolation of the lats, making it ideal for accumulating volume with low systemic fatigue. A chin-up is a more complex, compound movement that requires greater full-body stability, coordination, and generates more overall fatigue.

They complement each other perfectly. The underhand lat pulldown can be used to build the specific muscle mass and strength in the lats and biceps that directly improves chin-up performance. Think of the pulldown as the tool to build the muscle, and the chin-up as the skill to express that strength.

How Do I Stop My Biceps From Taking Over?

This is the most common technical issue with the underhand pulldown. The solution lies in refining your technique and prioritizing lat activation over moving maximal weight.

First, initiate every rep by depressing and retracting your shoulder blades before bending your arms. This "pre-tensions" the lats. Second, shift your mental cue from "pull the bar down" to "drive your elbows down and back towards your hips." Visualize your hands as simple hooks. Third, if your biceps continue to dominate, reduce the weight. Mastering the mind-muscle connection with lighter, controlled reps is a prerequisite for earning the right to lift heavier loads effectively.

Ready to stop guessing and start growing? Download the Strive Workout Log to track your underhand lat pulldowns with precision, see your progress visually, and make sure you're adding weight systematically. It's the best way to build the back you've been working for. Get it for free at https://strive-workout.com.