Upper Lat Imbalance

This is from when I was a lot younger doing pullups. I remember one side always being stronger and feeling uneven during my reps. Long since then I've worked on depressing the shoulders before rows and pullups but my left side just doesn't seem to want to even out. My lower lats are great and have equal width, I'm talking about right under the armpit. One side has quite a bit of width when flexed, but the other is basically non-existent. Is this muscle only targeted by doing wide grip pullups or what's the deal? Having these imbalances bugs me and I know not everyone is symmetrical. On the other hand I had this problem with my left rear deltoid and was able to fix it, so I know this can be fixed as well and was only a result of bad form in my earlier years.

So, what really targets the UPPER lat muscles? 

Hy Brice, Front lever and Manna primarily. the part which gives volume over there it is the long head of the tricep pull the rotator cuff muscle.

Hmm, well I can hold an advanced tuck FL for about 12s right now and both sides are firing as they should. I haven't noticed any kind of width increase during my front lever training in the last 6 months at all so I'm trying to figure out what other exercise could've created the imbalance. Either that or just another exercise that might target that area to make it grow. Front lever hasn't been doin' the trick and manna is quite a ways off for me.

Have you ever visited chiropractor or manual therapist? There might be some frozen areas in your skeleton as a result of your imbalances which are difficult to release or fix just with exercises. For example, I visited chiropractor yesterday due to a little back problem (due to my long-term knee problem I had developed a little inbalance in my pelvis, which I was not able fix with daily mobility routine). A few minutes of cracking noise and I was a different man.

Yea I go to a chiropractor haven't heard from him that anything was off out of the ordinary. I basically just need to know what causes the upper lat to grow width. As far as I can tell I just managed to gain significantly more hypertrophy on my dominant side when I was young and my form was off pulling more with the right. My strength feels just about even on both sides, even during unilateral cable pull-downs they feel fairly even in strength.

Do wide grip pull-ups make that much of a difference to growing width compared to shoulder width or chin-ups? Is there anything else that'll cause width? I keep reading different opinions on it.

The wider the pull-up the more you work teres major and less the lats.

I don't think there's part in the lats that you can emphasise : it's just one big muscle, Allessandro may be able to tell us more.

Empirically : the only exercice that ever makes me feel the upper portion of my lat working harder than the rest is ...drum roll... supinated inverted row.. after a set i could really feel just the upper area of my lats being worked BUT that is jus my sensations.

I'm pretty curious about other opinion and experiences on involving the Upper fibers of the lats.

I want to re-iterate the confusion about wide grip pull ups - they don't work the UPPER FIBERS OF THE LATS but TERES MAJOR

42 minutes ago, Mouclier Victor said:

Empirically : the only exercice that ever makes me feel the upper portion of my lat working harder than the rest is ...drum roll... supinated inverted row.. after a set i could really feel just the upper area of my lats being worked BUT that is jus my sensations.

I'

 

Of course. Lats are an internal rotator. If you supinate your forearms, your shoulders externally rotate a little, therefore lats are "pre-lengthened" and have a longer distance (or more ability) to contract. Therefore, more work and you feel them more.

56 minutes ago, Nick Murray said:

Of course. Lats are an internal rotator. If you supinate your forearms, your shoulders externally rotate a little, therefore lats are "pre-lengthened" and have a longer distance (or more ability) to contract. Therefore, more work and you feel them more.

 

Yes but only if you flex the spine a bit. the common tendency when the upper arm it is externally rotated is that the spine tends to arch because lats it is stretched. in order to avoid that there is the necessity to hold a bit of spine flexion. this reflects exactly WHY all the front lever of the world are made with a spine flexion and partial protraction.

My mom said that electromyographic activity of the latissimus dorsi was greater in a retracted rowing movement than in any other pulling down exercice

7 hours ago, Alessandro Mainente said:

Yes but only if you flex the spine a bit. the common tendency when the upper arm it is externally rotated is that the spine tends to arch because lats it is stretched. in order to avoid that there is the necessity to hold a bit of spine flexion. this reflects exactly WHY all the front lever of the world are made with a spine flexion and partial protraction.

No argument from me! The mobility for RC/PE11 is a great way to experience this. Try it with all combinations of a flat back, upper back, over (pronated)/under (supinated) grip.

@Alessandro Mainente , so when performing RC/PE11 then, the forearms remain vertical -as you mentioned elsewhere - and it's OK to have the spine flexed a little to give more power to lats, even if the hips then go forward of the shoulders?

On 12/5/2017 at 6:21 PM, Mouclier Victor said:

I don't think there's part in the lats that you can emphasise : it's just one big muscle, Allessandro may be able to tell us more.

 

The Latissimus Dorsi (EXRX.net) 
As mentioned in the quoted post and shown in the exrx.net link posted the "Lats" do not have individual upper/lower portions like some other muscles.

6 hours ago, Nick Murray said:

No argument from me! The mobility for RC/PE11 is a great way to experience this. Try it with all combinations of a flat back, upper back, over (pronated)/under (supinated) grip.

@Alessandro Mainente , so when performing RC/PE11 then, the forearms remain vertical -as you mentioned elsewhere - and it's OK to have the spine flexed a little to give more power to lats, even if the hips then go forward of the shoulders?

You can try and see how it goes.