Question
What is the best upper body movement for growth?
Answer
Simple answer, the pullover….
In July of 1970, a groundbreaking article appeared in the then excellent magazine IRONMAN – penned by the late Arthur Jones. It’s title, “The Upper Body Squat”. Jones shrewdly pointed out that the largest muscular mass in the upper body is found in the lats or back. There was a problem to though, and the problem is this – you can’t work them directly, because in order to hit the lats, you had to work the arms. Given the arms are much smaller and weaker muscles, they represented the weak link in the chain. The pullover gets around this problem, calling the lats, pecs and other musculature into play as primary movers.
The growth potential of the lats is enormous, and virtually nobody comes close to realizing it given the limitation I just spoke of. More importantly, if you could tap into that kind of growth, it would have an incredible “knock on” effect in terms of stimulating growth ALL OVER the body. The seemingly magical combination of hard and heavy leg training followed by pullovers has been discussed before. Those of you who’ve read the book, “Super Squats” by Randall J. Strossen know exactly what I’m referring to. Few combinations can hold a candle to this duo, and I’d encourage you to combine them.
I hope you’ll consider this movement vs. the bench press, at least for a short period of time. The growth stimulation far exceeds that of any other upper body movement, and the all important lats (which are the antagonistic muscle groups usually lagging – in people who bench for years on end), can finally be brought into balance. In one movement, you’ll stimulate growth in the pecs, dets, lats and the ENTIRE upper body.
Honorable mention here goes to the dip, so when it’s time to switch things up, you’ll know what to do next!
