Popping pecs, a broad pair of shoulders, sleeve tearing arms, … these are the first things people think of when they imagine a muscular body of someone who regularly spends time in the gym pumping the iron.
More often than not, we focus on what we see in the mirror and not what’s out of sight. Therefore, what many people forget is that one of the most important aspects of building an incredible physique that not only looks amazing, but also is capable of amazing athletic feats, is the back musculature of the human body.
Developing a muscular back actually contributes a whole lot to the look that we consider to be ideal. I bet you that every physique you admire wouldn’t look as amazing if they lacked a muscular back, even if you see a picture of the front side only. Shrink the musculature of the back of people with an amazing physique, and no matter how well-developed their other muscle groups are, their physique wouldn’t be as impressive as it is now.
The most important back musculature that is vital to transform your body into that of a Greek God consists of the latissimus dorsi, the traps, rhomboids, teres major, teres minor and even the rear delts. The latissimus dorsi – or the lats- are the most important back muscles for overall back size and if properly developed, will give you that masculine V-taper look that is a big part of the ideal proportions for the ideal male physique. The traps, rhomboids, teres major and minor and rear delts are located in the middle and upper back and need to be properly developed to create that thick, powerful look.
We now know that a big, powerful back is a vital part of creating your ideal physique. But how do we develop these muscles to their fullest potential and how can we do just that in the most efficient and effective way?
ALL HAIL THE KING OF UPPER BODY PULLING MOVEMENTS – THE WEIGHTED CHIN UP
If you could only do one single exercise for the rest of your life in order to develop the posterior chain of your upper body, you would be a very wise man if you pick the chin up.
The chin up is the raw representation of upper body pulling strength and simply is the best lat builder of all time. If done properly from a dead hang, it trains the lats through a full range of motion, which is not the case with rows and certainly not the case when it comes to deadlifts. In fact, the deadlift is not a great mass builder at all, since most of the musculature involved in the deadlift only gets a trained in a static way and not in a dynamic way through a full range of motion.
Once you pull yourself with your chin over the back, your entire back musculature should be contracted, causing you to effectively hit your middle and upper back musculature as well. A nice extra is that the biceps is heavily involved in both chin ups and neutral grip chin ups. So not only is the chin up THE posterior chain exercise that gives you the most bang for your buck when it comes to overall back development, besides forcing your lats for optimal growth, your traps, rhomboids, teres major and minor and rear delts all get hit effectively as well. At the top part of the exercise, the contribution of the biceps gives you the amazing side benefit of building a rock-solid hard biceps.
Once you can perform 10 solid body weight chin ups with proper technique, it’s time to step up your game. This is the time to invest in a proper weight belt and to graduate to performing chin ups with additional weight attached to the belt. Many people make the mistake of trying to perform endless amounts of pull ups or chin ups per set when trying to build a big back. While the hypertrophy rep range is large, it’s better to work strategically by keeping yourself attached to a more practical rep range for applying progressive overload over time. Doing this will allow you to continue making strength and muscle gains in an effective and efficient way.
Once you attach weight to the belt and are able to rep out sets with a decent amount of weight in the 5 to 10 rep range, you will undoubtedly experience your lats flaring out and having a more pronounced six pack, especially when your body fat percentage is on the lower side. The extra weight added to the belt heavily involves the ab musculature and will sculpt your mid-section incredibly well.
Another benefit of chin ups and especially weighted chin ups is that they are plain hard work. You don’t see a lot of people performing chin ups for 5 to 8 reps with 50% of their body weight attached to a belt. That’s because they are hard work, and most people are not willing to do the work. However, push through the grind because it will teach you what hard work is. Over time as you progress to performing chin ups for 5 reps with 50% of your body weight attached to the belt, your back, biceps and abs won’t lack in size. Becoming good at weighted chin ups is going to give you the most bang for your buck in terms of building the most amount of back size with one single exercise.
Just as a side note, if you currently are unable to perform chin ups or any form of pull ups due to lack of muscle mass and/or currently being at a too high body fat percentage, start by performing lat pull downs and performing body weight negatives. As you become stronger and lose body fat, you will then progress to performing body weight chin ups. Once you can do 10 proper chin ups, start performing weighted chin ups by adding 5 pounds attached to your waist and gradually increase the poundage as you become stronger and more muscular.
COMPLETING THE WHOLE PACKAGE – ACCESSORY EXERCISES
The number one key exercise which should be the foundation of your back training is the (weighted) chin up. Doing chin ups alone will already sculpt an amazing back that most people dream of. However, to perfect our craft, we will slide in a couple of accessory exercises to complete the picture and develop every area of the back to its full potential.
CHEST SUPPORTED ROWS / INVERTED ROWS
The first exercise is the row. While chin ups take care of full lat development, rows are an amazing accessory exercise for the middle and upper back musculature. To give the rhomboids, traps, rear delts and smaller muscles in the upper and middle back are involved in the chin up, it won’t hurt by giving them a little more direct volume by supplementing our resistance training with rows. This will allow them to grow to their full potential and add to that back thickness that will make your physique look strong and powerful.
To succeed in our quest to trigger the maximum amount of muscle growth in the middle and upper back, forget about the traditional powerlifter barbell rows, as they have a lot of limitations. Choose to include chest supported rows (machines, dumbbells, barbells) and inverted rows instead.
Chest supported rowing movements and (weighted) inverted rows allow you to perform your rows with a full range of motion and to stimulate the middle and upper back musculature without the limitations of stabilizing the weight and having gravity working against you.
The best rep range to perform any of these rowing variations is the 8 to 15 rep range, as it will allow you to contract and fatigue the targeted muscles optimally with proper technique.
LAT PULLDOWN
Lat pulldowns are a fantastic way to supplement your weighted chin ups during a higher volume phase in your training program or as a preparation to perform chin ups. After a couple of heavy sets of chin ups, you may be too fatigued to continue performing them with proper technique or even being able to do them at all without causing excessive fatigue.
This is where lat pulldowns come into play. Lat pulldowns essentially train the same musculature as pull up and chin up variations. The only difference is that your pulling the weight towards you, instead of pulling yourself to a bar. If you can’t complete enough sets of chin ups is your desired rep range, perform your others sets for the lats with the lat pulldown as a substitute for pull ups in your desired rep range.
To incorporate more sets during a higher volume phase, lat pulldowns can provide supplementary volume to stimulate more lat growth without compromising on technique and bringing along excessive fatigue.
If you tend to have imbalances in muscle size or strength, one arm lat pulldowns can help you deal with that as well.
Lat pulldowns are a great tool to prepare yourself for chin ups if you’re currently not strong enough to perform chin ups properly. Since your lats and other pulling muscles will grow from progressively becoming stronger on lat pulldowns, they will provide you with the muscle mass required to be able to perform your first chin up. Once you’re able to perform chin ups for reps, switch to chin ups as a primary pulling movement.
If possible, perform lat pulldowns with a neutral grip, as they allow you to go through a larger range of motion and more biceps activation.
FACEPULLS AND REAR DELT FLYES
Facepulls and rear delt flyes are excellent exercises to target the upper back musculature without causing excessive central nervous system fatigue. These come in handy when you’ve already performed your heavy work such as a couple of tough sets of weighted chin ups, yet still want to supplement your main movement with direct upper back work in the same session.
Don’t make the mistake of using too much weight here. I sometimes see people performing rear delt flyes, or at least attempting to perform rear delt flyes, with weights that are far too heavy for them. Performing these movements with horrible technique won’t only cause the muscle stimulating effect you hope for, it will also buy you a one way ticket to a full blown neck injury.
These movements are best performed in the 10 to 20 rep range and are a fantastic accessory movement to the big compound lifts such as chin ups and rows.
These can also be extremely effective in a rest pause fashion where you perform a set of 15-20 reps all out, followed by 3-5 sets of 4-10 reps with very little rest in between. The first set is the activation set where all muscle fibers are activated and due to the use of extremely small rest period (10s), the muscle fiber activation stays maximized as you perform smaller following sets. This has shown to be extremely effective to stimulate muscle growth in a time effective manner. However, I would only use this on small isolation exercises to crank out extra volume, not as a way to get stronger on your big key compound movements.
BACK TRAINING MUSCLE GROWTH GUIDELINES
In order for muscles to grow optimally, one should aim to become progressively stronger. This concept is called progressive overload and is the key to gaining muscle mass and strength.
Focus your back work around chin ups and perform them weighted once you become stronger. Stick within the 5 – 10 rep range for your primary weighted chin up work and over time, aim to hit sets of 5 to 8 with 50% of your body weight attached to your waist. Once you’ll be able to do that, you won’t complain about a lack of back size.
Supplement your chin ups with rowing movements in the 8 – 15 rep range to maximize upper back size. Start with a weight you can perform 8-10 reps with and work your way up to the top of the rep range. Once you’re able to do that, add weight and repeat the process.
If you’re new to lifting, start with a lower volume approach around the 10 sets per week mark. Once you get more experienced and you’re already pretty strong, you’re probably going to need a bit more volume in order to stimulate more growth. Gradually work your way up between 12 – 16 sets per week. This will take care of most of your volume you’ll need.
Truly advanced lifters who have already gained 90%+ of their maximum muscular potential can make use of specialization phases where they temporarily crank it up to around 20 sets to specialize and maximize back growth. This amount of volume probably won’t be sustainable in the long term, but can be used in phases of about 3 months to gradually squeeze out those last gains.
Everyone has muscle groups that are naturally more pronounced than others. If you notice that some muscle groups are lagging, add in assistance work like facepulls or rear delt flyes for the upper back or lat pulldowns to throw in extra volume for the lats.
Follow these guidelines properly and I can promise you, that you will have no problem building an amazing back that will leave people amazing when you take your shirt of. It’s a major contributor to an aesthetic and athletic male physique that a lot of people overlook. Don’t skip on your back training, apply this advice and you’ll be rewarded for your hard work.
Kevin Mahjoubi