Over the last couple years, I have become a real fan of the barbell high pull. It really is an effective exercise and I believe it stands on equal footing
overall with rows, deads and cleans. This is not an attempt to prove it is the best back exercise on the planet, but to give some of my thoughts on why it is
a worthy tool in the training toolbox.
When I refer to the high pull, I simply mean grabbing a bar with an overhand, shoulder width (usually) grip and pulling it up somewhere between the waist and the head without flipping the bar back at the top as with a clean. Though I have read some good articles on form in some old issues of Milo and other publications, I keep it pretty simple.
Some nifty advantages of the high pull are: it is probably the heaviest lift you will ever contract your arm with. Though, I don't know that it's a prescritption for herculean biceps, it sure does strengthen all that connective tissue and forearms. Slowing that heavy weight as it comes down with accumulated force on the negative puts a serious load on the grip, traps, and back.
It's easy to push past failure, in a sense, on this movement. With cleans and deads, you either get it or you don't. With pulls, when you can no longer pull chest level, you can continue pulling to waist level, etc.
The variety of heights allow for some specificity. Higher pulls can really work the shoulders with a weight superior to what anyone can do upright rows with. Heavy lower pulls can be used to build explosive power off the bottom, not to mention the obvious physique building benefits.
For conditioning, it is a fluid, continuous exercise. With cleans, there is a pause at the top (not that that is necessarily bad). Pulls, especially with a weight lifted high, can be used for higher reps with really no pause at all in the movement and really rev up the cardio. There is less opportunity to coast on the negative portion than there is with one arm snatches (db or kb). There just isn't that circular pattern and tension is more continuous. (Once again, this is not an either/or statement. Both lifts work.)
It's a simple lift with plenty of real world carryover.
Love to hear some thoughts on it from some of the serious Olympic lfters in the forum.
Todd
When I refer to the high pull, I simply mean grabbing a bar with an overhand, shoulder width (usually) grip and pulling it up somewhere between the waist and the head without flipping the bar back at the top as with a clean. Though I have read some good articles on form in some old issues of Milo and other publications, I keep it pretty simple.
Some nifty advantages of the high pull are: it is probably the heaviest lift you will ever contract your arm with. Though, I don't know that it's a prescritption for herculean biceps, it sure does strengthen all that connective tissue and forearms. Slowing that heavy weight as it comes down with accumulated force on the negative puts a serious load on the grip, traps, and back.
It's easy to push past failure, in a sense, on this movement. With cleans and deads, you either get it or you don't. With pulls, when you can no longer pull chest level, you can continue pulling to waist level, etc.
The variety of heights allow for some specificity. Higher pulls can really work the shoulders with a weight superior to what anyone can do upright rows with. Heavy lower pulls can be used to build explosive power off the bottom, not to mention the obvious physique building benefits.
For conditioning, it is a fluid, continuous exercise. With cleans, there is a pause at the top (not that that is necessarily bad). Pulls, especially with a weight lifted high, can be used for higher reps with really no pause at all in the movement and really rev up the cardio. There is less opportunity to coast on the negative portion than there is with one arm snatches (db or kb). There just isn't that circular pattern and tension is more continuous. (Once again, this is not an either/or statement. Both lifts work.)
It's a simple lift with plenty of real world carryover.
Love to hear some thoughts on it from some of the serious Olympic lfters in the forum.
Todd
