THE BEST BACK WORKOUT TO BUILD YOUR BACK (FAST)

Photo by Edgar Chaparro

Originally Posted On: https://www.templegymuk.com/the-best-back-workout-to-build-your-back-fast/

Building a great back and V-taper isn’t easy. In fact, it is not uncommon for some gym trainer’s to workout for years without ever really achieving any substantial muscular development in their backs. You have to nail your back workout. The problem is that the muscular anatomy of your back is very complex and is comprised of a vast array of muscles, including:

• Latissimus Dorsi
• Trapezius
• Rhomboid Major/Minor
• Teres Major/Minor
• Erector Spinae
• Infraspinatus

So today you are going to learn all the best back exercises to incorporate into your back workout routine, including the top 3 best back exercises that are Dorian Yates approved. The best part, by including these exercises into your bodybuilding routine, you will soon be able to build every part of your back, including your upper back, middle back and lower back areas.

Not to mention, you’ll be able to reap additional benefits from your new V-taper; upper-body strength and a physically wide back make men more attractive in the eyes of women [1].

Let’s get started

This is quite hard to get into if you’re a beginner, but the reward is well worth the effort. It’s one of those things you’ll have to acquire a taste for, since this exercise has a good bearing on all major back muscles and several smaller ones that help stabilize your scapula and shoulders during natural movements. More importantly, it ensures a harmonious development of the major back groups, while also being a functional movement.

With a little help from resistance bands, you can work your way to 6, 8, and maybe even a good 10 wide grip chin-ups. Then, you can start adding a plate to your belt or hold a dumbbell with your legs. For maximum back activation, do them pronated (which is to say with the palm of your hand facing outward as it would when you’re riding a motorcycle) and use a thumbless grip (which means that your thumb is placed next to your index finger, rather than underneath the bar).

Some people get better back activation with a supinated grip (palms facing towards your body), so it might take a bit of trial and error, as well as individual awareness, to figure out the best type of pull-up for your back. An easy rule with pullups is: if your biceps and chest are doing most of the work, it’s not your back that’s getting wider.

Although not as amazing as the Chin-ups in terms of back activation, lat pulldowns are a great way to target both your upper and your lower Latissimus Dorsi and is one exercise you definately need to incorporate into your back workout. These muscles are actually the key to maximize your back width, so this exercise is a great complement to the first. It may not be as functional, but it gets the job done.

To ensure you use as much of your back as possible, use the same wide, thumbless grip to prevent your biceps from helping out. The front variation of the exercise, i.e. where the bar comes down to your chin, is not only the best, but also the safest way to perform a lat pulldown [2]. Ideally, you’ll want to lean back a little and aim for an angle somewhere in-between 130 and 140 degrees.

Put away that silly V-bar and don’t try funky business with the bar behind your neck. This variation will put your shoulders in a compromised position and expose you to serious injury when you’re trying to increase the load.

Much like the chin-ups, deadlifts are another compound movement you should absolutely include in your lifting routine. Although they require nearly all of your back muscles to be performed (aside from the quads, of course), your erectors, traps and your lats will benefit from this movement the most.

Form is paramount with these, so don’t hesitate to get a trainer to help you out in the beginning. If you don’t do them correctly each and every single time, you risk serious injury. Even if you are feeing invincible wearing some of our Temple gym clothing, you cannot afford to be sloppy with your form when deadlifting. Don’t be afraid to start out with assisted, power-rack deadlifts, especially if you’re recovering from unpleasant past experiences.

When done properly, deadlifts will strengthen your core immensely and offer one of the fastest ways to grow your back’s width, since they’re easy to overload. Another underestimate aspect of this exercise is the confidence and satisfaction you get from lifting progressively heavier weights.

I’d recommend incorporating deadlifts into your back workout, right at the end. The reason being two-fold.

1. Deadlifts completely annihilate your spinal erectors (the two strips of muscle that flank either side of your spine). Your erecters act as the foundation of your back, holding you steady. If you hit deadlifts too early on in your workout, your erectors may become too fatigued to lock your spine into its natural position, if you upper back starts to arch then your lats cant properly contract.

2. Heavy deadlifts can put your whole body under an immense amount of pressure, so by performing them at the and of your back workout, you are forced to lift less. This is smart training and helps prevent againt injury and over-stressing your joints.

As you can tell from the most-targeted groups of muscles, we’re moving on to the upper-side. This will offer your lower-back a much-needed respite, while adding handsome volume to your shoulders. You’ll never pass up the opportunity to wear a shirt or a three-piece after a couple of weeks on them.

Similar to the deadlift, both kinds of rows require you to steady your back in place, while the arms lift the weight. To prevent them from actually doing most the work, it’s helpful to think that you’re lifting with your elbows, rather than your hands. During each rep, focus your attention on back activation as much as possible.

Rowing movements might not be the first thing that comes to mind when most people think of back exercises, but EMG analyses show they elicit comparable muscle activation to the lat pulldown, while being just slightly less effective than the pull-up [3]. There are two variations of the seated row you can use to target your back:

1. Elbows Angled Out (Rhomboids and Traps). Allow your elbows some distance from your torso and focus on squeezing your shoulder blades as you pull the V-bar towards you. This form will put your upper-back to work.
2. Elbows Tucked in for Lats. Keeping your elbows as close as possible to your side, while pulling the bar slightly lower than before will activate your lower back more.

As with the deadlifts, you can move your way down the weight stack pretty easily given the type of movement. These two variations of the rowing movement not only complement one-another, but they also provide easy and fast growth to the width of your back.

You can do shrugs with dumbbells, barbells, or even the plates themselves. From a biomechanical perspective, the barbell seems to be the best way to go. The bar keeps both your hands anchored in the same place, allows you to keep a steady, wide grip, and makes it harder for your arms to help out in the movement.

Try to think of the movement as “up and back” rather than just up and down. Basically, you want to squeeze your shoulder blades together as you move up. With dumbbells or plates, you run the risk of rotating the shoulders, whereas the bar makes it impossible, since it’ll have to go through your legs for that to happen.

You’ll thank me when the base of your neck is flanked by a set of full upper traps on both sides.

Although this is one of the best back routines for fast growth and width, as shown by individual muscle activation, you’ll see absolutely no progress if you don’t foster your muscle building with appropriate nutrition, supplementation, and rest. A healthy, whole-foods diet is the foundation of your future wide back. Lately, plant-based eating has taken the spotlight in terms of the best fuel for our bodies, plant nutrients are absolutely essential; there is a LOT more to nutrition than just chicken and rice. The Game Changers documentary even got Kai Greene to go plant-based for a change.

That said, although plant foods do contain protein, including the essential amino acids, dairy proteins and in particular whey proteins, are superior for athletes due to their amino acid profile and ratios that consistently get top marks in all protein evaluation methods.

The next essential aspect about getting a bigger back is adequate supplementation. To sustain the additional nutrients required for muscle synthesis, you’ll need to supplement with a bit of protein and make sure you have all the vitamins, minerals and antioxidants in check.

Lastly, but definitely not least, a good 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night are mandatory. You need quality, restful sleep that has enough REM and non-REM cycles to actually improve your physique. You might think that lifting and sweating is everything you need to do, but if you don’t benefit from good non-REM slow wave phases during your rest, nothing’s going to change. This is when your body repairs broken muscle tissue and releases natural growth hormones to stimulate tissue development. Aside from aiding recovery from intense workouts, a proper sleep schedule has an abundance of health benefits, including fat loss and maintaining your immunity.

With this back workout, as well as the pre-requisites I’ve mentioned above, you’ll be well on your way to strengthening your back and building a massive V-taper. Also bear in mind that in order to get that aesthetic look of harmonious muscle development, you need to regularly go through all of these exercises and ensure that both your lower and your upper sides get enough attention.

If you don’t have much time on your hands, focus on the major compound movements, such as the pull-ups and the deadlifts, to target your back muscles. Ideally, multi-joint exercises should be the core of all your workouts, since they guarantee more activation and, theoretically, more growth than single-joint ones.

This back workout is recommended for strengthening the backs of both men and women, so don’t be discouraged by men’s obsession with an awesome back. If you’re not looking for width, all you have to do is keep yourself from frequently overloading (for instance, don’t increase your weight on a weekly basis) and focus more on exercise variations that require your bodyweight to be performed.

References:[1] Strong upper body and wide shoulders make men attractive to women: Study Says
https://www.deccanchronicle.com/lifestyle/health-and-wellbeing/141217/strong-upper-body-and-wide-shoulders-make-men-attractive-to-women-study.html [2] Electromyographic analysis of three different types of lat pull-down
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19855327 [3] ACE-SPONSORED RESEARCH: What Is the Best Back Exercise?
https://www.acefitness.org/education-and-resources/professional/certified/april-2018/6959/ace-sponsored-research-what-is-the-best-back-exercise