Building your back makes your waist appear smaller and brings your overall physique to the next level. An effective workout routine needs to incorporate exercises to strengthen your back, including the four predominant back muscles: the latissimus dorsi, trapezius, rhomboids and the erector spinae.
Below, we share top weight training tips for gym-goers looking to develop a sculpted back.
6 Exercises to Strengthen Your Back
1. Include in your routine a variety of exercises that target the four major back muscles. Choose exercise such as pull-ups or pull-downs, bent-over rows, shrugs and hyper-extensions for a well-rounded back. Aim to train your back three days a week with a day of rest between workouts for muscle recovery. You can dedicate one day for back training or combine it with another muscle group such as shoulders or biceps.
2. Change the angle of your pull-over exercises to provide workout variety and stimulate muscle growth. If a pull-over is one of your favorites and you always perform this from a face-up position, change the angle and try it while seated or standing. For example, attach a straight bar to the top cable pulley. Stand facing the bar and grasp it with your palms down and hands wider than your shoulders. Keep your arms straight and push down the bar until your hands are at your thighs. Slowly release to the starting position.
3. Add rowing exercises to increase the thickness of your back. Grab your weight lifting gloves and perform these with a variety of tools such as barbells, dumbbells and exercise machines. Also, try a number of positions—seated, standing, bent-over or lying—to target different muscle fibers.
4. Perform one-handed exercises to create equal muscle development. These exercises can include such variations as a one-armed standing row and a single-arm pull-up. You can also add uni-lateral exercises into the mix to target the smaller back muscles, such as internal and external dumbbell rotations.
5. Use body-weight exercises when equipment is not available. You can strengthen your back using only a stability ball. For instance, perform back extensions for your erector spinae while lying face down over the ball, or complete ball roll-outs to strengthen the lats.
6. Stretch your back at the end of your workout to maintain flexibility and help reduce injuries. You can reach overhead as you gently lean to one side or place both hands on a wall at waist height and bend over to stretch lats.
We hope these top exercises to build and strengthen your back will help motivate you to push yourself during your next workout and get the results you want.
