Voluntarily Engage/contract the lats?

Does anyone know how to do this? And or the lower/mid traps? aren't pullups supposed to work the lats?

Do you mean use them or flex them? Because flexing them is easy, and to contract them you just grab something and do the same movement with them.

I don't think the OP is being facetious here as I believe that your average gym-goer has almost no voluntary control of specific muscles in their upper back (or back in general). Through a combination of seated, sedentary lifestyle and poor athletic programming most folk lose the "attachment" to those muscle groups. Watch someone in the gym do pull ups and you will see that their back involvement is "dead", using, mostly, their biceps and arms. Also, since you cannot stand in front of a mirror and see what you are doing to your back I think most people simply ignore it.

As to the question on how to "reengage" the back muscles there are a few ways. First, get yourself an underarmour heat shirt (or similar "tight" construction. The idea is that the tight shirt moving across your back allows you to really feel what is going on back there. This will replace the mirror. Similarly, you can use a band, holding an end in each hand and wrap the band around your arms and upper back then do sets of lat contractions and expansions. The bands allow you to feel what you are doing back there as they rub along your back.

Second, there are a number of movements that will help. Planche/plank leans while doing lat contractions (you can also use the band for this). And the hanging pull with lat contractions. Hang from a bar, hands comfortable width apart, while keeping the shoulders depressed raise your torso through lat contractions. The idea is to take the shoulders and arms out of it to concentrate on the lats and back. Less involved would be your basic cat/cow back rounds. (same as above but with your knees on the ground.)

jl5555 said:

I don't think the OP is being facetious here as I believe that your average gym-goer has almost no voluntary control of specific muscles in their upper back (or back in general).

Excellent point.

For me personally, this has been one of the most challenging aspects in bringing the Gymnastics Bodies program to the general public; the necessity of beginning nearly from scratch in teaching fitness enthusiasts how to take control of their own body. Which muscles are where and how to consciously activate and deactivate specific muscles in terms of contraction, extension, flexion, protraction, retraction, depression, elevation etc at will.

Scapular control in particular seems to be a very difficult concept and 'feeling' for them to grasp. However this is something that we have had great success in addressing within the hands-on environment of the GB Seminars.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer