I just read an interview with Dr William Wong, I'd like to know your opinion about his statement on correct pull up grip: "
Wide grip pull downs or any pulldown with a pronated (palms away from you) grip. These movements are not only bio mechanically inefficient they murder the rotator cuff killing mostly the supraspinatus and terres muscles. Most folks quit the iron game when their shoulders get trashed out somewhere after 35. On the improper biomechanics: The lats have 160 degrees of range of motion when worked in the sagittal (front to back plane), to do that your palms need to be facing you to properly position your elbows. Turn your palms away from you and all of a sudden you are working on the transverse plane where the lats have only 60 to 80 degrees of ROM. Not only that but with out the bicep in the action your weak little elbow flexors will give out before the lats are saturated with exercise so the loss is doubled. The old wives tale of the lats having to work harder to make up for the biceps not being in the work would be true if the lats were connected to the elbow but they are not, they attach at the shoulder so that often told exercise pointer is absolute biomechanical hogwash!" full article can be found here: Conversation with Dr. William Wong - Mahler's Aggressive Strength
Let me see if I get this right.
Yeah the lats have roughly 180 degrees of ROM in the sagittal plane. That means, moving your hands from overhead to down by your sides, all in front of your body.
And yeah, they have about 75 degrees of ROM in the transverse plane. That means pulling your hands from straight out in front of you, to retracted with elbows behind you (like the top of a row).
What makes absolutely no sense in my mind is how hand changes that whatsoever. I can get similar ROM in those two movements, regardless of where my palms are facing.
I guess his point is that if you did a pull-up with overgrip, then it'll be more like a row (you'll arch and it'll work the transverse plane), and that if you switch to neutral grip, then
suddenly you'll be able to stay upright, and work in the sagittal plane. Did I get this right?
To which I say:
A) I can get whatever form I want, regardless of grip. I can arch a lot, do a BB-like Pull-up, and resemble a row... regardless of grip. Ditto for the tactical pull-up. I can stay upright just fine with an underhand grip.
B) Even if somehow grip dictated how much you end up angling the ground... how is that a good argument that one causes injury? The ROM is limited if you arch back yeah (which is why you can only do a Muscle-up while upright), but that doesn't mean it'll cause injury.
Bodybuilder-like Pull-ups get a bad rap. I don't know why. I think it can have its place in training. The Pull-up trains vertical while the Row trains horizontal pulling. The BB Pull-up trains the in-between. I think of it as the Incline Bench Press. Yeah, it shouldn't be the bulk of your training, but it certainly has value in my eyes.
Meh, just my 2 cents. Maybe I misinterpreted what he was saying.