The only machine that even the most basic gym will have is the lateral pulley machine. A long bar with angled ends for grips, it has become almost a must-have machine for an acceptable gym. Easy to master with enough help from the machine’s cables, the pulldown is the first weight most people lift in a gym, even before their own bodyweight. Which makes it the perfect exercise to add variations to if you feel too comfortable with the conventional lat pulldown.

Today’s variations fall into three categories: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. This list does not include variations with different grips, and gym goers typically switch from wide to neutral to narrow grip. Instead, the list features new exercises to try to make your pulldown better and more challenging for your back muscles.

The lat pulldown, while a fairly easy move, can be intimidating for novices. The overhead bar is heavy, the seat adjustment can be awkward, and pulling weights while keeping your back straight can take some training.

For those who are struggling with these issues, try doing a banded lat pulldown first. Using a mini band or a long band will help you practice the movement of the back. “The light pressure from the mini band will make you focus on spreading your arms apart as you lift them up and down. This will teach you to engage your back instead of pulling with your arms during the pull,” states an article on barbend.com titled 11 Lat Pulldown Variations for a Stronger, Wider Back. Disconnecting the strength of your arms to pull weights is a muscle memory that will help you master other pulling exercises as well.

Once you’ve mastered the back engagement portion of the exercise, it’s time to move on to the more intermediate (but still beginner-friendly) single-arm pulldowns. Again, this is achievable with both long bands and a conventional pull-up machine, and this exercise doubles as a great core trainer. TO musculosyfuerza.com article, called 7 Lat Pulldown Variations for Serious Back Developmentsuggests that constant tension on one side of the body will also help correct imbalances.

But let’s add another challenge to this: try doing the single-arm lat pulldown on a basic cable machine (used for biceps and triceps and chest crossovers) in a kneeling position. “Doing this will increase the range of motion, so it makes these already effective moves even more effective. You also have to control your body more and stabilize yourself, which represents a greater challenge,” says the musculosyfuerza.com article. You can also do it in a half knee position as shown in the video below.

Another popular variation is the straight arm lat pulldown. This is not a full overhead pull, because the range of motion is designed to initially pull on the cable, before pushing the bar down to isolate the lats. You can read more about lat isolation exercises in this article I wrote for Lounge a few months ago, but this particular exercise is a must as you progress through your back workouts.

You can also use a rope attachment and a long resistance band for this. The unique advantage of this exercise is that it will make your other compound lifts stronger. “As a lat-dominant exercise, pulldowns will strengthen the muscle, which means more power when deadlifting. If you’ve hit a deadlift plateau, put them aside for a few weeks and focus on pulldowns instead,” says one oldschoolabs.com article titled Lat Pulldown with Straight Arms for Muscle Dominance.

And finally, here’s a variation that uses both ends of the cable machine: The crossover lat pulldown is a fun variation that adds some rotation to the exercise. It also helps you get into the habit of coordinating both sides of your body. Sometimes during a conventional lat pulldown, one can feel one side working more than the other on the final reps. This imbalance can be corrected with the crossover pulldown where you use your left hand to pull the cable back on the right side and vice versa.

As the video above shows, it’s a standing exercise and you need to keep your knees soft, your back straight and engaged, and pull the cables with the right muscles. Add these variations to the day before to beat the repetitiveness and increase those gains.

Pulasta Dhar is a football commentator and writer.