dumbbell 'equivalent' of pull-ups?

Dnia 2007-01-12 Tom Anderson napisa³(a):
> On Fri, 11 Jan 2007 lemke_juergen RemoveThis @yahoo.de wrote:
>
>> I've been exercising for a couple of years now using a rope, dumbbells
>> and a bench. I'm happy with the different routines I've used over time,
>> but this setup doesn't allow me to do pull-ups. I have tried installing
>> bars in door frames, but my crumbling apartment can not support them
>> (last one fell three weeks ago). Which dumbbell exercises should I use
>> as a replacement for pull-ups?
>
> I don't think there are any which are a true replacement - you can work
> lats and biceps in other ways, but you can't generate the same pattern of
> stimulation without some sort of force pulling in the direction of your
> head, and since with a dumbbell all you have is gravity, unless you can
> hang from the ceiling to do it, that's out.

But, does one need to replicate this pattern? I know about scapular
deprssors, but how many people need to spend much time on training
them? Whole summer I did only one-arm lifts and some auxiliaries
(pullups too, occasionally, but not systematically), and nothing wrong
happened to my posture. Actually it improved quite a lot.

--
Andrzej Rosa 1127R

On Sat, 13 Jan 2007, Andrzej Rosa wrote:

> Dnia 2007-01-12 Tom Anderson napisa?(a):
>> On Fri, 11 Jan 2007 lemke_juergen.RemoveThis@yahoo.de wrote:
>>
>>> I've been exercising for a couple of years now using a rope, dumbbells
>>> and a bench. I'm happy with the different routines I've used over time,
>>> but this setup doesn't allow me to do pull-ups. I have tried installing
>>> bars in door frames, but my crumbling apartment can not support them
>>> (last one fell three weeks ago). Which dumbbell exercises should I use
>>> as a replacement for pull-ups?
>>
>> I don't think there are any which are a true replacement - you can work
>> lats and biceps in other ways, but you can't generate the same pattern of
>> stimulation without some sort of force pulling in the direction of your
>> head, and since with a dumbbell all you have is gravity, unless you can
>> hang from the ceiling to do it, that's out.
>
> But, does one need to replicate this pattern?

No, probably not - you can hit the same muscles in other ways. I just
thought i'd chip in with an idea about how to do pull-ups anyway!

However, it does seem to be that, as Pete remarked, the back is a
complicated thing, and pull-ups stimulate different muscles to rows - they
shift the emphasis away from the traps and rhomboids and all that, and
towards the lats. If you want to focus on the lats particularly, it's a
useful exercise.

And stepladders are handy things to have.

tom

--
an expertly crafted mix of practical decision-making and drunken shouting