STOP, You’re Training Your Back Wrong!
November 20, 2024Are you training your back wrong? You are about to find out in this video on how to get a bigger back by implementing these back workout strategies that may be completely new to you. We look to anatomy and science to give us clues as to how we may want to switch up the way we do our back exercises in order to get a bigger, wider, and thicker back in the long run.
It starts with how you do your pullups wrong. Too often do I see people cut short the range of motion on pull-ups in order get more reps and there’s a very simple reason for this; cutting down the range of motion makes the exercise easier. When the exercise is easier, you are able to get more reps done and that makes it feel like we are doing something more for our lats. However, I implore you to explore the full range of motion of the exercise and let yourself go into a dead arm hang at the bottom of each rep.
That doesn’t mean you need to unpack your shoulders, as you can continue to keep stability in the shoulders by keep them packed. However, to get the most possible gains in your lats out of this exercise, you need to be going through full range of motion throughout.
The next thing you are doing wrong in pursuit of a bigger back is how you perform lat pulldowns. The issue I see with this exercise when people are trying to build a big back is that they are gripping the bar too wide. A wide grip will shift the focus of the exercise from the lats to a smaller muscle called the teres major. If you are looking to build bigger, wider lats, you will want to narrow your grip. This can easily be done by grabbing a triceps pushdown bar and using that attachment instead as it will force you into a narrower grip. This will make sure you engage your lats more than the teres major and work to give you bigger back.
Ignoring facepulls is your next mistake. Jesse will explain that doing the exercise correctly and consistently will lead to better upper back development as well as keeping your shoulders healthy so that you stay in the gym and continue training.
Next up, we have a superset that you have been ignoring in your back workouts that will unlock new muscle growth if you haven’t been doing it before. This comes in the form of performing a straight arm pushdown to failure and then immediately going to the lat pulldown. You might think that after going to failure on the straight arm pushdown, you won’t be able to do anything else, however, if you perform the lat pulldown the way I show in the video, you will be able to take advantage of the assistance of the biceps to help you eek out more reps than you thought possible, allowing you to take your lats to and through failure.
How else are you training your back wrong? You are not doing chest supported rows. Often times I see people, mainly beginners, getting the standard barbell row wrong where they start to stand upright and basically perform an upright row or they cheat their chest to the bar instead of getting the bar up to their chest. To eliminate momentum and keep stability in the lower back so that you can stimulate the most muscle growth in the back, you need to perform a chest supported row on a bench.
While not a back exercise, per se, you need to implement carries in order to train not just your traps, but your grip as well. Having a stronger grip will assist you in every pulling exercise you do and will help you to handle more weight to create more overload in the muscles of the back.
The next mistake you are making when it comes to your back workouts is you are not varying the elbow position on your seated rows. We know that if you manipulate where your elbows are in space while rowing, you can influence different areas of the back. Keeping your elbows low and closer to your sides will preferentially target your lats. However, if you want to hit your upper back and rear delts, you need to get your elbows high and wide while you row. Making these changes will give you the best back development possible.
How else are you training your back wrong? Watch to the end of the video to see what else you are doing wrong with your back workouts and back exercises so that you can make the changes necessary to get a bigger, thicker back.
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