On lat pull down, try to lean back a bit. More of a row type movement, instead of pulling to you chest, pull to your upper abs. It's still a vertical pull, dont have it coming it perpendicular to your upper boddy, but not parallel either, find a nice medium.
Also, this bit's hard to explain. I was telling a friend tonight in the gym about it and he understood as a martial art he done had the exact same principle I was trying to get him to use. When you sit down really think to yourself "What am I trying to activate?" Lats ofcourse, you want to take your arms out of it as much as possible while still getting the full ROM. When your arms are about 50% (right angle) contracted, focus of pulling through your elbows to tuck them in contracting you lats.
A lot of people I seem doing lat pulldowns are too vertical straining their biceps and rotator cuffs too much and not efficiently activating their lats. But same thing for every lift, think about what you're trying to activate and progressively overload it with tension.
My negatives where so slow today on Incline Press (about 4 seconds for each rep) could feel the tension all across my chest, was amazing.
-EDIT-
Completely forgot the main problem with people. They have too wide a grip on the bar thinking their activating the lats better, but really all they're doing is restricting their ROM and not getting the full benefit.
<message edited by Liddy on 25 January 2012 23:58>