In this article we'll cover how to bulk up the growth of your lats and back muscles with the close grip lat pull down.  As with most pull down exercises these exercises target your lats.  They also hit your teres major and biceps.  Additionally your middle and upper back muscles are involved to varying degrees, assisting in the movement or acting as stabilizers in most versions of the exercises. 

When it comes to any back exercise the question is often raised of whether or not to use hand straps.  Any back movement that you do whenever you use hand straps you're going to be able to focus less on the hand grip and forearms and more on the back which is good, but the number one way to strengthen your grip is to do back exercises without hand straps. 

So what I've found to work really well is to do half of your back exercises with hand straps and then do the other half without.  The best thing to do is use the hand straps on the last half or the set when your grips starts to go but don't use them the first half. 

For this exercise use just a typical close grip handle attached to a cable pull down.  To get started you'll sit down nice and low, make sure your hips are moved in and you're locked underneath the machine.  While you're in the bottom position you'll be looking down and leaning forward and pull your stomach back away from the machine and feel a nice stretch.  To start the movement you'll take a nice big breath in while looking up and you'll drive your stomach out.  Then you'll exhale and pull the weight down towards your chest and pause for two seconds once you reach your chest.  Getting a stretch is a very important part of any back exercise. 

A common problem people have is that they think they are trying to pull the handle down to their chest.  To get the full benefit of the lift work on driving your chest up towards the handle as you push your stomach forward and pull the handle down. 

If you have trouble feeling the tension on your back there is sort of a weird visualization that you can use which is imagine that you dont have any forearms or hands and your arms end at your elbows, then each time you look up work on driving those elbows down towards the ground with each rep. 

When it comes to which weight to use, find a weight that makes it very difficult to get through the last two or three reps.  You'll want to be around the fourteen rep range for the first set and then up the weight and try to get to around 12 reps for the second set.  By focusing on quality over quantity you'll be able to add the bulk you're looking for to your lats in no time.