Latissimus Dorsi - a perplexing challenge.

What do we know of latissimus dorsi and why does it become such a big deal to training? How can we activate it better? Why are we dependent on heavyweights to really develop our lats? 

Well, firstly it's a very difficult muscle to push to its capability without making great efforts to do so! In normal situations, we aren't activating our 'lats' very much. If we think about the movement that our latissimus is responsible for, it is relatively low-key during regular daily life activities. The dynamic action of our lats is to bring the arm down towards the body from an elevated position, rotate it inwards and bring it back behind the body. But let’s just think about that. As humans, we are usually upright, whether sitting standing, walking or running. If we bring our arm down towards our body, then the muscle groups we are using are those that work eccentrically - this means the opposite muscles to the lats (deltoid for instance) are paying out - elongating under resistance - to slowly lower the arm against gravity. While all this is going on, latissimus is busy sleeping soundly...... Ultimately our resting arm position is one where our lats are also at rest. And therein lies the problem!

Waking the sleeping giant

We know our latissimus are the widest muscle in our body - they are a bit of a giant - but are our lats the laziest muscle? Absolutely not. They are always engaged to keep our posture upright and back engaged, recruiting the endurance Type I muscle fibres. But what of the Type II fibres? Since our lats are mostly composed of Type II 'power' fibres, (Paoli et al, 2013) we know that in order to maintain and develop these, we need to provide heavy resistance for our lats to work against. Therefore we are constantly having to use either bodyweight or high physical weight as resistance which means we are putting abnormal load through our shoulder joints. Last week we blogged about the vulnerability of the shoulder joint and explained why we should be careful not to overload the already unstable shoulder without having the rotator cuff muscle tone to support this, (see https://shop.dipulse.com/blogs/blog/shouldering-the-burden), so what do we need to do to get our lats going more safely?

Lats in motion

Let’s firstly think about the type of activities that use our lats naturally as part of the sporting movement. Clearly, swimmers are developing good latissimus Type II strength - and for those able to swim using butterfly stroke, the lats are being very well challenged.

Rowing is another key sport for the lats, along with many martial arts. Pulling motion is a great movement to recruit these muscles but bearing in mind, these are all exercises and sports where the lats are working against resistance, be it water in swimming or rowing, or bodyweight in martial arts. The classical gym exercise for developing lats is the chin-up (palms facing towards you) - but again this places a great burden on the shoulder joint - all well and good if your shoulders can take it!

But does this mean we can only challenge our Type II lats fibres with heavy resistance? Not necessarily - there is a simple solution. One of the benefits of combining NMES with active exercise is that we can reduce or eliminate the physical load we place on our bodies but still recruit the same amount of muscle fibres (or more!). NMES demands more from muscles than exercise alone, facilitating the recruitment of those hard-to-target latissimus Type II muscle fibres.

The solution is diPulse!

You must by now know that the advantages of using diPulse for physical development are huge and using the lats is a great example. Stimulating the motor nerves which create a muscle contraction in the lats while exercising is the absolute way forward in ensuring you get the most out of your training while still protecting your joints. 

The diPulse SMARTSHIRT houses anatomically placed carbon electrodes at the motor point of latissimus dorsi, so there's no excuse! In the Sports and Fitness categories on the diPulse app, the Hypertrophy program targets Type II power fibres, ensuring muscle growth. Or perhaps choosing the Body Building program which similarly encourages strength development in a gentler way to muscle growth without using high loads.

Let’s not forget about the SMARTBELT which can be used strategically and conveniently to cover all core and trunk muscles - including those on the side of the body.

Why not try side planks with the SMARTBELT in situ on the side of the body facing the floor? We guarantee you will feel more muscle activation than doing side-planks alone! Whatever your goal for your latissimus, it remains a core stabilizer and therefore a key player in all activities. Without a strong core, everything else falls away. So whether your goal is core stability, muscle growth or a more powerful swimming stroke, we can promise that diPulse has you covered.

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References:

Muscolino, j (2020) Latissimus Dorsi (Lat) at www.welearnmuscles.com accessed at https://learnmuscles.com/glossary/latissimus-dorsi-lat-4/

Paoli, A , Pacelli, QF, Cancellara, P Toniolo, L, Moro, T, Canato, M,  Miotti, D and  Reggiani, C (2013) "Myosin Isoforms and Contractile Properties of Single Fibers of Human Latissimus Dorsi Muscle" in Biomedical Research International, PMC3736486 

Sylejmani, Gentrit (2020) Swimming image

Tokuyama, Munetaka (2013) Chin-up image