Guaranteed muscle (Part 2) Back exercises
By Richard Baker
Copyright 2012 Richard Baker
Smashwords edition
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Table of contents
Chapter 1: The main back muscles
Welcome to part 2 of the guaranteed muscle guide, hopefully you have studied part 1 which covers the basics in extreme detail. You should now understand in fine detail how to lift weights in order to get maximum muscle growth and how to arrange and alter your workouts. You should even know about repetition ranges and how to build strength, size or both. I wish you good luck in your weight training endeavors and hope you enjoy this complete exercise guide for the back muscles. Bear in mind that I am an average guy, I don’t take any drugs, and that being the case if I can get fantastic results with my methods you will too. I have helped many people over my time and you are about to start growing some serious strength and size.
In my opinion the back is one of the most neglected areas of the body when I see people working out in the gym. Legs are also neglected, but this seems to be changing thankfully due in part to a mass influx of new machines especially for legs. All of these machines allow you to work the legs and other body parts from many angles. Of course you don’t need machines to work the back, pull ups and deadlift exercises will build incredible backs and this is just 2 exercises with free weights. It goes without saying that most young males you hit the gym and spend too much time just working out arms, they should be letting the arms rest and get on with building the rest of the body, for example the back muscles. The back muscles consist of many groups each with specific and complimentary jobs. Once resistance trained for hypertrophy (muscular growth) they take on a large hulking appearance, especially the upper trapezius muscles (rear and side of neck) which grant the bodybuilder a thick meaty neck area. Also I find that proper development of the upper back area is extremely useful when performing heavy squatting movements (this is done with a weighted bar positioned behind the neck). This is due to the fact that the development of the upper back and traps grants you a strong thick shelf of muscles where you can comfortably sit the bar when squatting. Another important point I would like to make you aware of is that resistance training the back increases the width of the upper body. Especially at the top position and under the arms, this then makes the waist in comparison appear smaller. Think of this as a way of looking slimmer than you actually are due to comparison. You may see certain female fashion garments include shoulder pads, why would they do this if women don’t want to look like they have large muscles? The simple answer is that it increases the apparent size of the upper body; therefore in comparison the waist looks smaller. For this reason working the back helps to create a stunning midriff once you diet down to a six pack stomach. And in regards to back health, remember that a well developed back from the lower back near the waist all the way up to the top of the neck will help defend from injuries when trained correctly. The back skeletal muscles have a big job to do and just like the arm on a crane if the arm is weak then this will break before the cable does. Of course there is also bad news, consider the fact that most people fail to do back exercises with correct form, the number one thing that I cringe at is people working the back with a forward dominant lurch, this posture rounds the spine, this is the worst possible thing you can do to your back. I will try to explain this in more detail by first making mention of the arch formation. An arch in architectural terms is a fantastic load bearing shape, its simplicity lies in the way it takes its own mass and spreads that load evenly and to the sides. In other words compressive forces are taken away from the center to the side supports, and due to its interlocking sectional nature, it also proves its own support. Each interlocking section squeezes together under the force of gravity, truly an ingenious design.
The reason I mention this is due to the fact the human spine has to do a similar job when you bend forwards to pick up a weight, also the human spine is constructed with interlocking sections called vertebrae, just like the sections on an arch in architecture. The obvious weak point of an arch is when you remove one of the side supports. If you do this the entire thing will collapse, so then why does the human body not do the same? Imagine the legs as one side of the arch support and the spine as the arch. In the bent over position connective tissues and skeletal muscles help bear the load. The problem is that the loads can be better distributed and moved to the muscles if you make your spine form its natural position. The natural position I am referring to is the natural in and out curve seen in any medical text drawing of the human spine. If you look at the human spine from a side on position it is not a straight line up and down from the hips to the head. The human spine naturally curves slightly inwards at the bottom then slightly out at the top. The reason for this is not just to allow more space for organs and mass. It also helps distribute in an effective manner loads when standing up straight, and it helps with the more stressful movements such as bending forward. For this reason if you take the time to watch professional weight lifters and the really big guys at the gym, you will hopefully be able to see that before they do a squat or a dead lift they induce this natural curve. They do this before they even start to engage on a heavy lift to move the weight. They then tense the body to ensure stability, and finally after they have done all these necessary steps they then they move the weight. If you let your back round forward you are going to cause incredible strain on the spine. Again I ask that you think of the example of an archway in buildings, or over a garden wall. If you remove one side of the lower supports then the arch is going to have incredible strain at its uppermost point of the curve. An arch with one side missing is an example of what the human body is doing when bending right forwards. Curving the lover back and keeping straight allow you to effectively angle compressive forces towards the hips as you raise weights.
Study the following pictures to understand the difference between good and bad form for most bent over back exercises. First we see dangerous rounding of the spine which is extremely bad. The vertebrae are pulled apart and are under strong pulling forces.
Next is a picture demonstrating ideal form, this time the rounding is gone and the back is slightly curved in at the waist with a stable back position. The Vertebrae are ‘stacked’ and close together. Compression is being pointed towards the hips as much as is possible.
As a point of fact it’s interesting to know that top level power lifters even after using safe form for example, can be found to have smaller discs between the vertebrae of the spine after years of training than those who lead a sedentary life. This shows the incredible forces pushing towards the ground when using back muscles with extremely heavy weights. For this very reason I insist that before you do any back exercises you first try the motions I am describing with no weights at all. Also ensure that you can put your body in a comfortable safe position before you even attempt to lift a weight. One last important matter is to mention that you should never, under any circumstances, resort to using jarring, jerking movements to cheat because you have chosen a weight far too heavy to work with. Think it won’t matter? Dead wrong! Imagine that you have a loose thread on a shirt, how do most people get rid of it? Do they hold the thread then slowly pull it out? No, the best way to break the connection is to hold the thread, then use a sharp, jarring pull to snap the thread. Imagine this is your tendon and think about this example the next time you use a weight far too heavy and use dangerous jerking, jarring movements to move the weight with horrible form.
Chapter 1 the main back muscles
Without giving you a boring anatomy lesson I just want to make sure you can identify the main muscles of the back. Let’s face it if you ask most people where the Supraspinatus muscle is you will most likely get a blank look. This is not a problem for the general public but if you are trying to work a specific part of your back and you can’t even say where it is you’re probably not going to work it correctly. You need to know where to feel that muscular exertion and pump. The main issue is not just a failure to understand where muscles are but even worse is what I call beginners lack of muscle location. What I am referring to is that most people’s muscles are so underdeveloped that they are extremely hard to pump up and burn. This means if I ask a beginner to do a set of rows (bent over pulling motion) for the back they are likely to feel it in the arms, but they will feel nothing at all on the back. They just don’t have any meaningful development in the back yet so the arms take the brunt of the exercise. This situation means that it’s almost impossible for them to feel the intense fatigue in the lats (the big back muscles at the sides). A first step towards identifying where you should be feeling an exercise is to study the pictures I have included in this back exercise book. There are other methods to enhance awareness of muscles, but I can only do this by hands on manipulation of people I train, it becomes hard to describe something like this in a book. However it may be useful to do the following drill now as this may help you identify the muscles and the feeling of having them contracted (tensed up).
Lats identification
First I want you to find your lats (Latissimus dorsi), to do this sit or stand upright with a straight back, now take either your left or right hand and place it under the armpit of the opposite arm. Make sure your fingers wrap around to the back of the body, your hand should be pressing on your side. Whilst you do this I want to take the other arm and press it on the front of your leg. Now apply pressure with the arm on the leg, do this in an on and off fashion, you should be able to feel a contraction under the skin of the hand under your arm. This is only a small part of the lat muscle but it helps you locate one part of this large muscle. This muscle also stretches right back to the center line of your back and down to the waist. The easy way to remember which exercises work this particular muscle is to think of anything pushing away as a chest exercise, and anything pulling towards the body is a back exercise, manly the lats. Again anything pulling towards the body some form of back exercise, this simple rule is a good one to remember. Pull-ups and chin-ups also work the back, although it may look like an arm exercise. When you perform a chin up the arms pull down and the biceps of the arm bring the hands towards the shoulders but more importantly the only way the elbows are brought to the waist is by using the strong back muscles. This is one reason I sometimes tell people to ignore the arms when doing back exercises and chin-ups, I tell them to imagine the arms are merely hooks on the bar and only concentrate on pulling the elbows down and into the body as hard as possible.
The following picture shows the main mass of the lats, but bear in mind that the lats extend up to the top of the arm bone and spread down to the waist area. The following picture is a simplistic generalization for ease of understanding.
Traps
The next part of the back I want you to become familiar with is the traps (Trapezius). The traps are often overlooked but I feel they are essential for any bodybuilder, firstly they give that classic powerful-neck look, they widen the neck and prevent you looking like some pencil necked desk jockey. Secondly having developed traps is in my opinion essential you enabling you to do very heavy squats. I have already mentioned in the foreword that thick traps help accommodate a heavy bar when squatting. I have always found people who complain about heavy squat bars hurting always have extremely small traps. Rather than work the traps they either blame the bar or buy silly pads for the bar which look like plumbers lagging for cold weather pipes. Unless you are a power lifter or into exotic training techniques then I would suggest you should not need a bar pad for squat type exercises. The same can be said of lifting straps, people use them with heavy deadlifts and pull ups. I won’t bore you with lifting strap strategies at this point but will cover this later in the book. Below you can see an image showing the location of the traps.
Notice that the traps are not just a muscle located at either side of the neck, although it can be hard to see otherwise unless you look at someone who is super developed or super ripped. The traps are something of a kite shape and reach right down to the middle of the back where they end up passing the rhomboids.
Teres (Major and minor)
The next back area I want to show you is the Teres major/minor and infraspinatus. Very complicated names and rather small muscles, or its more accurate to say they are hard to notice muscles. In fact ask most people where they are or what they do and you will be given a blank expression and a shrug of the traps! The following image gives you a vague idea of where I’m talking about but you need to understand what these muscles do.
First let’s look at the teres major, this is the muscle that stretches from the top of the humerus (arm bone) to the bottom of the scapula (shoulder blade). Although this muscle is there to do many jobs, such as rotation of the arm bone and importantly stabilize the shoulder, its other function is to bring the arm down and towards the body. To make sure you understand this I want you to sit or stand and raise your arms up just like the previous image, imagine you are in the surrender position, elbows out to the side and hand pointing upwards. Now if you pull your elbows down and to your sides, this is achieved with work from the teres major. I’m sure you will have seen in gyms people sitting on what is referred to as a pull down machine; they sit on a bench and pull on a bar with weights attached to it via cable. This machine will sometimes be called a lat pull down due to the fact most of the work done on this machine is done by the lats, depending on grip and if you use a wide palms away grip or a close palms towards yourself grip, but you get the idea I am talking about I’m sure. Now let’s move onto the other teres muscle now we understand some of the functions of the major. The first question you may be asking is: what is the point of the teres minor? Is it a tiny backup for the teres major? Well yes and no, this smaller muscles position and the way it attaches the top of the arm bone allow it to make some unique movements and it forms an extremely important part of the rotator cuff. I will explain its functions then go onto tell you what the rotator cuff is. The teres minor is used for movements such as rotation of the arm bone, when I say rotation I don’t mean spinning the arms around in a circle; I refer to the inwards or outwards rotation of the arm. Do the following example to understand what I am actually talking about here. Stand up and place your arms at your sides. Let them hang down naturally. Now rotate your hand so you can press the back of your hand on your leg, you have just internally rotated your entire humerus bone (the top arm bone). Now rotate the hand the other way so your palms face the front of the body with the thumbs pointing out to either side, you have just externally rotated the arm. This is done by lengthening and shortening the teres minor (along with other muscles). Now I just want to give you a quick idea of what the rotator cuff is before we move into the small but important infraspinatus muscle. To understand the rotator cuff muscles I need to explain the shoulder socket in some detail. First think about the upper leg bone, this bone fits nice and snug into the hip socket and allows for some mobility whilst being a rock solid stable joint. Now in comparison to the legs snug hip socket the upper arm bones need to have incredible mobility in many directions, the top of the entire bone needs to rotate in the socket, inwards rotation (arm moving towards the chest) and external rotation (arm moving away from the chest). How can this one joint supply such incredible mobility? Well the only way to do this is by having a smaller socket that is less enveloping on the humerus (upper arm bone).
If you compare the hip socket and shoulder socket you see that the shoulder socket is more of a depression than a safe and snug fitting socket. Make note of the following image of the area I am describing here.
The actual socket is called the glenoid fossa, as seen in the previous image; you can clearly see that the socket is remarkably shallow and small. In order to therefore give good strength and mobility the body has to place and keep this joint stable by means of many smaller muscles, many of which attach to the top of the shoulder area and spread backwards across the top of the scapular area (shoulder blade). These include the following muscles; some of which I have already mentioned in this chapter: Infraspinatus, teres minor, sub scapularis, supraspinatus. Rather than draw an elaborate over confusing diagram try to imagine the rotator cuff muscles as follows. Imagine the scapular (shoulder blade) is a hand, and from this hand extends fingers, these fingers wrap around the back of the top of the arm (shoulder area) to rotate the arm backwards and forwards as well as keep it in position. At the front of the arm you have muscles doing the same thing in reverse such as the end of the pectorals, by having muscles on the front pulling and maintaining the front of the upper arm bone and a series of muscles on the back doing the same thing the arm bone is held in place and balanced. The main issue here is the muscles at the back very rarely get a good workout. The teres minor is not going to be used much working at a desk or watching television put it that way. I mean let’s be honest here ask yourself this, when was the last time you heard of a bunch of guys going to the gym and boasting about having done a really hard work out on their chest? I hear that sort of comment all the time. Conversely when was the last time you heard them say they had just really worked their teres minor? I’d bet money that you have never heard this in any gym. The teres minor and the other important muscles of the rotator cuff are both small and out of sight and so people generally don’t bother to work them. What can then happen is that you can get a serious imbalance; the strong large internal rotators like the chest eventually win in the tug of war between the front and back of the body, the arms then start to rotate inwards all the time. What then tends to happen is in order to stop the chest for example from becoming loose the human body adaptively shortens the muscles, thus setting this internally rotated position in place. The only way to get back to a more balanced position is to stretch the internal rotators out whilst strengthening the rear external rotators (in other words do the exact opposite of what got you into the position in the first place). You will often see people who are chest dominant who have a curled up look to them, arms coming across the chest somewhat. This is especially apparent with people who do too much bench press and fly exercises all day long. In fact what also does not help this imbalance is spending all day bent forwards over a computer or a desk job in general, this compounds matters again. I hope I am making myself clear here when I say that working the external rotators is essential to your ability to perform resistance training over the long term (10 or more years). If you fail to have balance more likely than not you will end up in a terrible state. There are those who this will not be an issue for however, but this is a small proportion of people I would argue. I hope I have given you enough insight into the teres minor, realize even though its name suggests its ‘minor’ role it is actually very important indeed!
Infraspinatus
I am really trying not to make this book over technical so I will make this simple, the infraspinatus is something of a helper muscle for the teres minor, and it stretches from the top of the humerus (top arm bone) to the scapula (shoulder blade). It fixes to the shoulder blade right along the scoop shape of the bone and is usually one of the muscles that gets somewhat injured when you hear people say that they have an injured rotator cuff. The rotator cuff muscles in general do a great job until you do something out of the ordinary or you hammer them with overhead movements. I have known people irritate these muscles from something as simple as an all-day decorating session, painting walls/ceilings for example. You may have even seen or know of someone who has had the dreaded ‘frozen shoulder’ condition. This is linked to rotator cuff muscles being damaged. You may notice in the guide that I have exercises where I refer to working the ‘upper back muscles’, when I say this I am in a simplistic way referring to muscles like the infraspinatus and teres minor.
One last thing I think worth mentioning is that if you want to do specifically targeted exercises for the rotator cuff I provide many in my shoulder book, the shoulder exercises book forms part of the complete guaranteed muscle guide.
It is now time to get some weight and build an impressive back; following are more than enough exercises to help you do that. Remember the reason I am giving you so many options is so that you can keep changing your weight training body building sessions. It’s no good just doing the same set of exercises over and over. But you should already know that if you have read part 1 of the guaranteed muscle guide where I go into minute details in this regard. So before you move on ensure you have read and understood my lengthy basics guide. If you don’t have part 1 of the guide I seriously encourage you to go get it as you won’t gain as much muscle if you fail to do so.
Follow my instructions carefully and always try a new exercise by using no weight at all, call this a dry run where you learn the form and movement before you risk using weights.
Good mornings
Take a bar and place it behind the neck in the same position you would use for a squatting exercise. For those unfamiliar with this setup you need to place the bar on the bottom of the neck, the bar should be sat in a position where it won’t slip down the back at all, see the images following to get an idea of this position. Grip the bar, take a deep breath and consciously tighten and tense your stomach muscles to provide good torso stability. Bend forward, and unlike a deadlift you will need to push your buttocks backward to help counter balance the weight on the bar, keep the back straight and feel the pull in the hamstrings (the back of your legs). If the pulling is painful then either ease off the range of motion or bend the legs at the knees ever so slightly (not too much though or the back takes over this exercise). Don't dwell to long at the lowest point of this movement as this is the most vulnerable position of the entire movement, once you reach down as far as you can go move back to the starting position. Although this is a back exercise it also heavily works the back of the legs, the straighter you keep the legs the harder they get worked.
Things I recommend are ensuring you counterbalance yourself by pushing your buttocks backwards, if you fail to do this you are in a very unsteady position. Also if the weight is high enough you may fall forwards, or at the least start moving from a flat footed safe stance to a dangerous forefoot only stance. Secondly don’t pause at the lowest point of the bend for more than 1 second and think about a straight back at all times. When you start to move back to the upright position start as slowly as possible, the bottom most position has muscles under extreme tension so you do not want to use jerking movements, I don't care who tells you explosive movements build strength, this is not an exercise where you should be doing that. Also avoid holding the bar too high up the back as this causes a horrible guillotine effect on the back of the neck at the lowest point. If you feel any sharp or shooting sensations or pains at any point in this exercise then stop immediately the bar is more than likely causing compression on one or more nerve sites.
Bent over dumbbell rows (elbows to hip)
Take 2 dumbbells in hand and bend over so your torso is at least a 45 degree angle bend, preferably you need to have it parallel to the floor. However if you are an absolute beginner this will feel uncomfortable for some and you may start to round the back (you must avoid rounding the back). It will help if you bend the legs and concentrate on a straight stable back. Lift the dumbbells towards the body and the waist area only, think about your elbows and try to bring them to the lower stomach/hip area and bring them as far behind your back as you can go.
It sometimes helps to imagine your spine like a hinge and the sides of your back as the long thin blades of the hinge mechanism. You often see people using weights so heavy that the elbows barely reach the hip area, when they do this it just becomes a strange biceps movement and won’t do much good for the back. It also helps to imagine your arms as hooks attached to the weights, ignore your hands and arms and concentrate on your back and where the elbows are going. A stable straight back at all times is essential for this exercise. If you are an absolute beginner I recommend doing this movement with no weights for a few sets, try to get the elbows as far behind the body as possible. Squeeze the back muscles; hold this position for a few seconds then slowly lower the hands. The reason I am asking you to hold and squeeze is to enforce the feeling of the back being used, it will take some time for you to be able to feel any hard pump in the back until you build some muscle there.
Bent over dumbbell rows (elbows to side)
Take 2 dumbbells in hand and bend over so your torso is at least at a 45 degree angle to the floor, and preferably parallel to the floor. Beginners may find this position difficult to maintain with a perfectly straight back but persevere, bend your legs to help achieve the correct position and hamstring (back of the legs) stretch. Now straighten the back and unlike a standard elbow to hip row you need to keep your elbows in line with your shoulders and neck area. This is an upper back exercise rather than targeting the large lats. So this helps work some of those small but essential rotator cuff muscles. Begin by lifting the dumbbells to the sides of the body; you should be trying to press your shoulder blades together. Ignore the biceps in the motion and ensure you keep the dumbbells parallel to your neck and shoulders area. Try to lift the weights as high as you can whilst aiming to nip the shoulder blades together, if you can’t bring your elbows to at least parallel to your head you are probably using too much weight. I myself don’t use much weight for this motion to help facilitate excellent range of motion. I sometimes do this motion seated backwards on a chest fly machine in a gym, although some gyms will have what is called a reverse fly machine which can do the same. However don’t get confused with a upper back row and a reverse fly a reverse fly has the arms out by the sides which forces the rear head of the deltoids to contract. This is not what we are solely aiming for here; we are specifically interested in the upper back muscles and using them in as much isolation as possible.
When doing this exercise think of your spine as a central pivot point, you want to bring the shoulder blades together as close as possible. Don’t be tempted to use massive weights for this or in fact a bar, I don’t recommend a bar for beginners as this not only encourages the use of far too much weight but stops full range of motion. The elbows need to come back as far as possible and a bar will sometimes stop this unless you have perfect form and have been training for some time. I do however recommend using a bar for this motion if you are on a bench as this helps focus on the movement and remove the need to stabilize the body. Throughout the exercise think of your hands and arms as hooks attached to the weights, concentrate on a straight back, also concentrate on where your elbows are going, keep the elbows parallel to the neck and shoulder area. As soon as the elbows drop down further towards the waist this turns the exercise into a traditional row motion for the lats.
Bent over one arm dumbbell rows (elbow to hip)
Standing bent over one arm dumbbells rows are exactly the same as the 2 arm type described in previous pages but where they differ is in the stance, see the picture to see the slight difference. Also I find one arm rows allow for much more movement in the back, it allows and facilitates a slight twist with the back towards the floor at the lowest position and a twist at the top giving great back range of motion. Also one arm rows can be used to move more weight and I have always found them superior for gaining size for that reason. Never at any point let the back become rounded in shape by bending it forwards towards the floor, a slight twisting at the bottom and top positions of the movement are natural. Although don’t use jerking twists to lift a weight, this is a sure sign you are using a weight far too heavy, a one arm row should be slow and smooth. Never bang the weight off the floor, I always aim for a smooth upward motion with a slight pause at the upper most position, I then lower the weight and let it make a very small touch on the ground (as I feel a stretch in the back) the sound should be barely audible, if you are making huge clanging and banging noises you are not moving the weight under proper control. In fact as you progress you should aim for only allowing a full stretch of the arm and back as the weight reaches the lowest point. Beginners do extremely well when they have an easily defined start and end position to work from and the slight touch to the floor is a good way to enforce this, without allowing a silly elastic band type rebound movement, which in turn enforces a jerking almost rolling of the back up and down.