The 6 Mandatory Angles for a Big Back

Building a big back takes a willingness to work hard, lift heavy, and train smart. Most lifters have the hard work and heavy lifting parts down. But to get full development – that chiseled topographical map of muscles – you need to train smarter. Simply hammering rows and pulldowns from the same angles every back workout isn’t going to cut it. You’ll see some positive changes, but you won’t maximize your potential. To do that, you’ll need to: Know what muscles you want to hit. Know what angles work what muscles. Know what exercises hit those angles. Know how to program those exercises. So first let’s cover the movement patterns and exercises (the fun stuff), then we’ll look at programming, and finally we’ll geek out and break down the anatomy. Movement Pattern 1: Low to High Pull By setting up the cable unit at your feet and pulling towards your chest as you’re hinged forward (and then pulling over your forehead as you stand up) you’ll create an upward motion that allows you to load up heavy. Use a wider neutral grip bar to maximize your retraction capability while also allowing for a great stretch of the lats after each eccentric (negative) rep. You’ll hit the lats, mid and lower traps, rhomboids, and posterior deltoids (and thus teres major). Check your form: Use a strong stance with feet driving into the ground. Use a proper hinge that loads the glutes and puts a small stretch on the hamstrings. Brace your core by engaging your midsection like you’re preparing to take a punch. Take a small step away from cable anchor to avoid slamming the weights back into the stack on each rep. This also allows you to go into a bit of an eccentric loaded stretch during each rep. Use a neutral grip with an emphasis on driving the elbows behind and “around” the back. Use a controlled eccentric/lowering phase with a small protraction reach at the end of each rep. Movement Pattern 2: High to High Pull This exercise is called an overhead banded face pull. The face pull doesn’t get as much love from hardcore lifters because you aren’t able to load it up like you can other back movements. This lift significantly limits the amount of weight you can handle at the end range. This will hit the external rotators, the posterior delts, the middle and upper traps, and a bit of your lats. Check your form: Use a strong stance with feet driving into the ground. Lean back slightly into your hips with a tall spine. Brace your core to resist the bands desire to pull you over. Pull your arms towards your eyes, elbows wide, until you reach ideal depth. Rotate your fists behind you as though you’re making a “field goal is good” hand motion. Hold this top squeeze for a two-second count and slowly release back to the start. Movement Pattern 3: Isometric Wide Grip Hold While it may seem sort of contradictory to have an isometric contraction on this list, our muscles don’t need to create movement in order to be worked, become exhausted, and require recovery that can lead to hypertrophy. In fact, isometrics done in the right way can actually help enhance our growth potential by targeting specific ranges of motion, and thus muscle fibers, that are weaker or underdeveloped. Anything like a farmer’s carry, a deadlift, or even an isometric row hold will do wonders hit the outer lats, the rhomboids, posterior delts, and traps. Technically you could accomplish this doing the snatch-grip trap bar deadlift, which was something I learned from Dr. Joel Seedman here. Or try my personal favorite carry variation – the cowboy carry: Your execution on both emphasizes the lat squeeze caused by actively depressing and downwardly rotating the scapula. As Tony Gentilcore has said, “imagine squeezing an orange in your armpits and making orange juice.” Movement Pattern 4: Horizontal Pull All rowing variations are horizontal in relation to your torso, and I like the one-arm row because it allows you to pull in a J-shape manner. While the one-arm row is a classic move in most programs, it can usually be done better by pulling with this J-shaped trajectory. One concept in muscular anatomy that’s often overlooked is the direction that fibers run. Muscles contract along the lines of fibers within them. So, muscles only contract in the direction those fibers run. In the case of the lats, the fibers run a bit diagonally from the shoulder joint down towards the lumbar spine. So it’s important to use those fibers that are high up in the back (and diving into the shoulder joint) by letting a weight travel in front of us during rows. This adjustment has been making a huge difference for my clients for years, and Lee Boyce has touched on it too. Check your form: Get one knee on a bench with the same-side arm directly underneath the shoulder joint. Your off-bench leg should shoot out wide to “get out of the way” and create a pocket for the elbow. Engage your core and brace to keep your spine level (tabletop back). Let the dumbbell begin
Origin: The 6 Mandatory Angles for a Big Back