Lats Help

If you want to widen your back, think wide grip. So, wide grip chins, wide grip seated pull downs and wide grip standing straight arm pulls are the absolute best.

One word of advice...don't ever pull the bar behind your neck...you're setting yourself up for rotator problems. The rotator cuff is not meant to have that much stress put on it and behind the neck movement put an incredible amount of stress on the rotator.
Always pull down to your chest.

just going to wide can be dangerous for the shoulders.. if you feel your shoulders sticking narrow the grip, don't try to work through it.

This advice has been great! I will try a variety of suggestions for a few weeks, I'll keep everyone posted :cardio:

If you have trouble getting all the way up with wide-grip chins, and have only meager free weight equipment, my advice would be find a physioband (or a power band) and attach to the chin up bar and then put a foot through the loop. The band will give you a little assistance with your chins, enough so that you can get a full range of motion, while keeping the body upright.

Another great exercise that I have found useful is using an EZ-curl bar and doing bent-over rows, pulling the bar to the navel in a t-bar rowing position. You can get a great contraction and grip the bar with a supinated grip for maximum pulling effect. The angle of the EZ-curl bar tends to be easier on the wrists and allows for a better pull too!

Gremster