Saturday, April 23, 2011

PULLOVERS

My training partner was telling me that he had read an article arguing that pullovers do not expand your ribcage as the old timers claimed. I think there is some confusion regarding semantics. Ribcage vs. thoracic muscles, i.e. 

I am not a medical doctor, so I will not make claims that I am not qualified to make. (I will ask my doctor the next time I see her, if she thinks pullovers strengthen the thoracic area.) However, as I told my training partner, I think a lot of these folks are over thinking pullovers. After doing twenty rep BREATHING squats of my ten rep max, I feel like a compressed accordion. When I follow the squats with pullovers, it makes me feel "back to normal," uncompressed. And I can feel a really good stretch in a my thoracic muscles and connective tissues. For what it's worth, I wouldn't stop my pullovers after squats, because I can FEEL it working my rib cage. I'm a simple guy.  

Below I have posted an instructional video on pullovers and two articles (for and against):

ARTICLE 

ARTICLE 2

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