Back Exercises

 

The back is a complex area that covers a huge variety of muscles and movement patterns.

You'll find exercises that target the Latissimus Dorsi (the lats), the Teres Major, the Rhomboids, the Trapezius and the Erector Spinae.

 

Close Grip Pulldowns

Close Grip Pulldowns

This exercise primarily targets the lats with a vertical pulling movement. You'll take an underhand, close grip on the bar, which also involves the biceps in the exercise.

 

 

Wide Grip Front Pulldowns

Wide Grip Front Pulldowns

Another version of the pulldown, this variation involves more of the muscles of the upper back (rhomboids and teres major) than the close grip version.

 

 

One-Arm Dumbbell Rows

One-Arm Dumbbell Rows

Learn proper form for one of the best back overall back exercises you can do. You'll discover a simple foot-position tweak that will allow you to use more weight and keep better balance.

 

 

Seated Cable Rows

Seated Cable Rows

This is a classic machine/cable exercise for the back. It's one of the first exercises beginners learn how to do....yet proper form is not always obvious. Learn the tricks of the trade for how to perform it better.

 

 

Chin-Ups

Chin-Ups

Chin-ups are a key exercise for strength and muscle development in the upper back. Learn how to perform them properly here.

 

 

Pull-Ups

Pull-Ups

Pull-ups are an excellent bodyweight exercise for targeting the upper back. Learn proper technique for getting the most out of them here.

 

 

Inverted Rows

Inverted Rows

This bodyweight back exercise takes up much of the load of your body by allowing you to train at an angle, with your feet on the ground. You can make it as hard or as easy as you want with a simple change in bar height.

 

 

Barbell Deadlifts

Barbell Deadlifts

One of the best overall exercises you can do...PERIOD. The deadlift is a key exercise for building total-body mass and strength.

 

 

Bent-Over Barbell Rows

Bent-Over Barbell Rows

Rowing is one of the basic exercises you need to learn to maximize your back development and improve back thickness and strength.

 

 

C-Clamp Pull-Ups

C-Clamp Pull-Ups

This is a home-gym variation of the pull-up that allows you to use a neutral grip for the exercise (palms facing in). You'll need an open ceiling and rafters to make this work.

 

 

Corner Rack Pull-Ups

Corner Rack Pull-Ups

This pull-up variation puts MASSIVE tension on the outer aspect of your lats just by changing WHERE you do the pull-ups and how you hold your hands.

 

 

Decline Lying Pulldowns/Pullovers

Decline Lying Pulldowns/Pullovers

You'll put a great stretch on the lats with this isolation-ish compound exercise for the back. It's a pulldown-style movement that works more like a pullover in terms of tension.

 

 

Full-Range Pulldowns

Full-Range Pulldowns

Hit both the vertical and horizontal movement patterns of your back with this one single exercise. It requires only a small adjustment in body position along the way.

 

 

Hand-Over-Hand Chin-Ups

Hand-Over-Hand Chin-Ups

This dynamic chin-up exercise variation will challenge your entire upper body, placing almost your entire bodyweight on one arm at a time during the movement for massive strength and muscle stimulation.

 

 

Hybrid Cable-Dumbbell Shrugs

Hybrid Cable-Dumbbell Shrugs

The traps don't work just straight up and down...you need to attack them from a variety of angles as well. This combination exercise uses cables to add a diagonal component to the shrug for maximum stimulation.

 

 

Lateral One-Arm Pull-Ups

Lateral One-Arm Pull-Ups

This is a challenging exercise for advanced trainers that puts most of the load of your bodyweight onto just ONE arm/lat at a time. The angle of the bar allows you to put this focused tension on the lower lat area, which is usually tough to hit.

 

 

One-Arm Chin-Dips

One-Arm Chin-Dips

This combination exercise works your back and your chest at the same time by working a chin-up with one arm and a dip with the other arm simultaneously. It's looks insane but it works incredibly well, and develops excellent neuromuscular coordination at the same time.

 

 

One-Arm Side-Cable Back Extensions

One-Arm Side-Cable Back Extensions

To target the small stabilizing muscles of the spine, you need to introduce lateral resistance...but without spinal rotation. This exercise accomplishes that with a simple cable or band.

 

 

One-Side Loaded Barbell Deadlifts

One-Side Loaded Barbell Deadlifts

This deadlift variation puts massive torque on the core and lower back by loading just one side of the bar. You'll work all the stabilizing muscles in your lower back as you lift this unbalanced weight.

 

 

Seated Lean-Forward Barbell Shrugs

Seated Lean-Forward Barbell Shrugs

This exercise uses a slight lean to target more of the middle traps, an area not hit by normal vertical shrugs. Middle traps are critical for back thickness and shoulder stabilization.

 

 

Stiff-Arm Pushdowns

Stiff-Arm Pushdowns

There are no true isolation exercises for the lats...however, this is one exercise that comes the closest. You'll use a high pulley a movement similar to a standing pullover to put tension almost exclusively on the lats.

 

 

Suitcase Style One-Arm Deadlifts

Suitcase Style One-Arm Deadlifts

This deadlift variation puts major single-sided tension on the core, in addition to strongly working the lower back and grip.

 

 

Suspender Band Deadlifts

Suspender Band Deadlifts

Be ready to get some strange looks with this one...you'll be using bands looped on your body to get help out of the bottom while keep the full load on you at the top. Strange but very effective.

 

 

Typewriter Inverted Rows

Typewriter Inverted Rows

This variation of the Inverted Row utilizes lateral body movement to cover a wider array of muscles and muscle fibers during the exercise.

 

 


Back Exercise Tips, Tricks and Training Techniques

 

2-Up 1-Down Seated Cable Row Negatives

2-Up 1-Down Seated Cable Row Negatives

Negatives are excellent for building strength and this version of the Seated Cable Row allows you to perform negative training very effectively on your own.

 

 

How to Brace Your Core for Deadlifts

How to Brace Your Core for Deadlifts

If you want to lift heavy weights in the deadlift, you need to learn how to properly brace your core. Because if your core folds with a heavy load, your lower back rounds over and you either fail the lift or you hurt your back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In-Set Supersets of Bent-Over Rows and Deadlifts

In-Set Supersets of Bent-Over Rows and Deadlifts

By utilizing two different exercises for alternating reps, you'll challenge your lats and upper back with massive tension from multiple angles in one set...very effective for muscle growth.

 

 

Bent-Over Row and Deadlift Supersets

Bent-Over Row and Deadlift Supersets

This is a "normal" version of the superset, using the same two exercises as the previous method. With this, you'll be pre-fatiguing your back with the barbell rows, then moving straight into deadlifts for massive lat overload.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---
Home
-> Exercise Library -> Back Exercises


     Site Search

 

 

Click "Like" to Get New Exercises and Tips EVERY DAY!

 

 

 

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel Here...

And see every new exercise and training technique the moment I load it up!

 

 

Recommended For You...

Time-Volume Training

Time-Volume Training

Build muscle and strength like clockwork, even with very limited equipment, or NO equipment at all. This unconventional approach even builds muscle with light weight, saving your joints and nervous system from overload while you build mass fast.

Build muscle like clockwork now...