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Lat pulldowns are a staple for most people in the gym. The lat pull helps fitness and bodybuilding enthusiasts grow a wide back without the added fatigue of doing pull-ups. Doing it with straps also isolates the back muscle, further prioritizing back growth. However, it all depends on doing the movement correctly, something which the boy in the video in question wasn’t.

Instagram user Rostas Elisei Emanuel uploaded a video of a boy doing lat pulldowns. However, there was no indication that the boy in the video was Emanuel himself. The boy in the video looked no older than a teenager and was pulling seven plates. Yet, it was clear from his terrible exercise execution that he didn’t have the strength to pull seven plates. The fitness enthusiasts who saw the video knew it too.

During a lat pulldown, the legs remain locked, and you lean backward slightly to engage the lats and the back muscles before pulling the cable down. However, the boy in the video leaned back using momentum to nearly lie flat at the bottom of the movement, with minimum arm movement. Such inaccurate exercise execution put the entire load on the kid’s lower back.

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Using momentum to pull the cable down also introduced a sudden jerk in the movement, and that force also stressed the lower back. Doing this long-term may result in severe lower back or spinal injury. The boy in the video was only concerned with moving as much weight as he could. However, the fitness enthusiast’s technique defeated the purpose of the exercise itself.

The technique the boy used didn’t engage his lats, back, or core stabilizer muscles. Interestingly, the profile that uploaded the video hasn’t uploaded any other posts. The fitness community saw what the boy did and realized it was all wrong.

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Fitness fans didn’t even try to point out the mistakes

The online fitness community often advises form corrections in the comments section of such videos. However, the video became the butt of the joke because the boy did everything wrong. “Boy’s doing windshield wiper till failure,” joked one Instagram user. “Blud ain’t making any muscle like that,” commented another individual.

“No gain, only pain,” commented one user, tweaking the iconic “no pain, no gain” slogan. “Everything is a lower back exercise if you do it wrong enough,” joked one fitness enthusiast. Meanwhile, one user wrote “Lat pulldown” and put an ‘incorrect’ symbol beside it. However, he added “Self pulldown,” and put a green tick mark beside it.

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Although the fitness community thought the video was hilarious, the boy risked serious injury by doing the exercise incorrectly.