A couple of questions about Stage 1

[carmel]

I'm about 3/4 of the way through Stage 1 and have queries about a couple of the exercises - sorry if these have been asked before or if the obvious answer is to do everything exactly as it says in the book...

My first question is about cable pull downs - is there a particular reason for including these rather than assisted pull ups? I was doing pull ups in my previous routine and in my head the pull downs feel like a bit of a 'step back' for some reason.

Secondly, I'm doing lunges with 12kg dumbbells which I find really ungainly and hard to keep a grip on. Today I tried using 12kg kettlebells instead and found it much easier, not just because of the grip issues but also I think because of the natural momentum of the kettlebells. My question is, is this 'cheating' and should I stick with dumbbells and work on my grip?

Thanks...

[Lisa~]

What do you mean by momentum of the kettlebells? If you're holding them down at your sides, just like you'd hold DBs, then there should be no momentum created. It wouldn't matter source of load you held. But if you're changing the movement and creating momentum, then yes, that'd be cheating.

If you can do bodyweight pull-ups, then do them instead of the lat pulldowns. If you were doing assisted pull-ups, then do heavy lat pulldowns during this stage of the program. You'll get to pull-ups later.