Back and Lat Machines

About

Back Machines for Sale: Every Angle You Can Pull From A back machine holds the weight for you and gives you a handle to pull. Some run on a cable and a pulley, and the path from there is largely yours. Others are plate loaded or work through a fixed arm, and the handle travels the same way on every rep. This page covers the whole back category, sorted by the direction you pull from: down from overhead, in toward your torso, or around in an arc over your chest. Do You Need a Pulldown, a Row, or Both? Both, or at least one machine that opens up both. A back session wants a vertical pull, where the load comes from above your head, and a horizontal pull, where it comes from in front of you. They train different parts of the back and neither stands in for the other. Overhead work is what a lat pulldown machine is for, and it builds the width across the top of the back. Pulling horizontally is what a seated row machine does, and it loads the middle of the back and the muscles that hold your shoulders where they belong. Whether that is one machine or two depends on the room. In a gym they are usually separate stations, so two people can use them at once. At home, one machine commonly covers both: the Body-Solid GLM85B runs a high pulley and a low pulley on one frame, so a pulldown and a row happen without changing the cable over. A functional trainer gets there another way, with pulleys you set at any height. What matters is having both directions available, not how many machines it takes. Our comparison of the lat pulldown versus the seated row goes through what each one does. The Back Workout Machines That Come Next Once both pulling directions are covered, the machines worth adding are the ones that reach an angle the first two do not. In a gym they are separate stations. At home they are usually the third machine in, bought once the pulling is sorted. A T-bar row machine sits between a barbell row and a seated row, usually with the chest supported so the lower back is