Building Your Back

Building a bigger and stronger back can be one of the hardest things to do in the gym for two reasons.

• It is one of those muscles that you never really see.
• It can be difficult to really feel the benefit of back exercises because there are so many different points of motion before the pull fully reaches the targeted muscles in the back.

When you make a pulling movement to work your back, that weight is pivoting through your wrist, elbow, shoulder, and finally the contracting muscles in your back, which makes it hard to fully feel the muscle being worked. It is important to use a weight that you are comfortable doing many reps with and to hold the rep at full contraction for at least one second before slowly lowering the weight.

One more thing that you want to be sure to always do is keep your back straight. This will help you keep proper form and more importantly protect your spine from injury.

This being said, lets look at some back exercises to perform for your specific fitness goals:

Size Building

• •   Lat Pull-Downs (wide grip)          3 sets x 12 reps
• •   Lat Pull-Downs (Close Grip)        3 sets x 12 reps
• •   Cable Rows                                   3 sets x 12 reps
• •   Dumbbell Lawn Mower Pulls       3 sets x 10 reps

Strength Building

• •   Weighted Pull-Ups                        5 sets x 5 reps
• •   Lat Pull-Downs (wide grip)          5 sets x 5 reps
• •   Barbell Rows                                 5 sets x 5 reps
• •   Deadlifts                                        5 sets x 5 reps

Combination of Size & Strength

• •   Pull-Ups                                        3 sets x 6-8 reps
• •   Lat Pull-Downs (wide grip)          3 sets x 6-8 reps
• •   Cable Rows                                   3 sets x 6-8 reps
• •   Dumbbell Lawn Mover Pulls        3 sets x 6-8 reps