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5 Awesome Exercises for a Massive BACK

Pictured above is Dorian Yates.

He is one of my favorite bodybuilders.

This dude was the definition of ‘old school.’

I think he is my favorite because our training styles are very similar.

His workouts were very intense, short in duration, and were based on limited exercise selection.

That’s how I like to do things.

Dorian also had a HUGE back.

If you are reading this, chances are you are interested in building a huge back as well.

You’ve come to the right place.

Before I go any further let me point out that if you have shoulder pain and/or want to prevent shoulder pain then you should perform much more pulling then pushing.

That means that you should do more work for the back than the chest.

Do like a 3:1 or 4:1 pull-to-push ratio.

For every 1 set of chest, do 3 or 4 sets of back.

I just had to point that out.

So how do you get a big-ass back?

Get really good and strong at the following 5 exercises.

5 Awesome Exercises for a Massive BACK

1.  Pull Ups (variations)

2. Lat Pulldowns

3.  One-Arm Dumbbell Rows

4.  Seated Cable Rows

5.  T-Bar Rows

To develop a great back you need width and thickness.

To develop width you do vertical pulling movements like pull ups and pulldowns.

To develop thickness you do horizontal pulling movements like rows.

I suggest picking 1 vertical back exercise and 1 horizontal back exercise and focus on those to create your back specialization program.

Here is a back specialization program that you can do.

Monday – Back/Bi’s

Pull Ups  7 x failure

Concentration Curls 3 x 12-15 reps

Tuesday – Chest/Tri’s

Dumbbell Bench Press  5 x 8-12 reps

Dips 3 x failure

Wednesday – off

Thursday – Back

Seated Cable Rows  7 x 8-12 reps

Friday – Legs

Hack Squats  5 x 15-20 reps

Hamstring Curls  5 x 15-20 reps

Saturday & Sunday – off

As you can see, you don’t need a ton of volume to build muscle.

This split looks super simple, but if you bust your ass and take each set to failure, you will soon realize how tough it really is.

On Monday you are working on your back width with Pull Ups.

On Thursday you are working on your back thickness with Seated Cable Rows.

Record your workouts.

Each workout try to increase by 1 total rep.

Try to add 1-2 pounds of bodyweight each month.

Any more than that is pure fat.

Now go and make Dorian proud.

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Photo credit:  gringoboy_72

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Building Big Lats — Wider, Thicker, and Longer

Want To Build Big Lats? Here’s How

Big lats are a necessity on a well-rounded, symmetrical physique. Building the latissimus dorsi muscles, rhomboids, trapezius, and other supporting muscles of the back. There are only a few movements that you need to perform to build the muscles of the back.

The king of all lat work is the bent-over barbell row. Using an overhand grip, hands shoulder-width apart, bend slightly at the knees and bend at the waist with your torso slightly above parallel. Pull the bar to your lower ribcage, trying to use your hands and arms as “hooks” only, to maximize the effect on the lats. If you pull the bar higher up on the torso, like to the chest, you’ll involve the upper lats, rhomboids, and trapezius more. Pull to the waist, and you’re building primarily the lower lats as they taper into the waistline.

Follow the bent-over rows with lat pull-downs. Again, you can influence which area of the latissimus that you effect simply by pulling the par to that area. For example, if you’re trying to develop the lower lats, pull the bar down to your belly button. These are great for building thickness in the upper- to mid-back.

The trick to doing this exercise most effectively, is to lean back a bit so that your body is about 30-40 degrees from vertical. In effect, you’re doing a variation on the bent-over row you just performed, but you’re putting your lower back in a more advantageous position. Plus, you can use a lot more weight, especially if you use the part of the exercise machine that secures your knees, disallowing the weight to pull up your body.

You can also vary your hand position to effect a different part of the back. A wider grip will work on width, whereas a narrower grip will work on thickness.

A variation of the bent-over row is the dumbbell row. Doing these one arm at a time, you can really focus on feeling the muscles work, rather than focusing on getting the weight up. Let your shoulders drop as you extend your arm, and really pull back on the shoulder blades as you raise your arm.

An auxillary exercise you do, most often when trying to build the chest, is the bent-arm pullover. You may not realize this, but the muscles worked with this movement are the lats!

Couple the bent-arm pullover with the bent-over rows in a pre-exhaust superset. The pullovers fatigue the lats, and the rows blast them into oblivion! Repeat this superset 3-5 times, and you’ve gone a long way to building big lats.