OK but that's not what you said before. If you had said that I probalby wouldn't have jumped on you
. I would, though, at all times, play to your strengths! If you are good at pullups but not quite so good at rows there could be worse things. Relative strength, your ability to handle your bodyweight and beyond that is a GOOD.
My take on "variety" is not so clear as saying you need to have each exercise brought up to a certain point relative to others.
This, I'm sure is something I would have pm'd you:
"I think that most people look at things like rows and lower back work in the wrong way. I see a lot of people trying to become row champions, for instance…a bad idea."
The whole idea about bringing up rows to bring up bench press comes from powerlfting circles so that's why I said it. Just keep in mind, as I've said about a zillion times, powerlifting is not concerned with "strength" per ce. Just NUMBERS on the big three competition lifts.
What I'm getting at is I see nothing wrong in general with the mindset of bringing up lagging exercises. But when it comes to these supportive things it is about progress over time. A tendency toward improvement.
My individual bias is that pullups are a STANDARD. I don't rate pullups and rows as the same. So that colors my responses of course.
But concentrating on bodyweight ANYTHING has never been detrimental to me, whereas concentrating on rows as a means unto themselves has been.
For lower back I focus on local muscular endurance and on core endurance and stabiblity in general. I don’t actually ever “move” my lower back though so I can’t be sure what you mean by that. I do row work in all rep ranges except not really singles and doubles. I of course don’t do “max” work on rows. But the bulk of it is in the 6 to 10 rep range. I switch rows when I plateau or stall out or just need a change. I do not plug away trying to progress on type of row for weeks on end.
And there is a HUGE powerlifting bias going on right now. Powerlfiting is great if you want to be a powerlifting but Westside has "over-marketed" itself, imho, and created a lot of strenght myths. I don't know why it is so hard for people to realize that we can learn things from their specialties without having to become "converts" to it.