a broad chiseled back is key to achieving that Greek god look but with over 15 different muscles training your back isn't as simple as your other muscles take me for example my Filipino genetics didn't bless me with a natural vaber and for years my back barely grew even with all the best exercises but recently my back has blown up it's broader and thicker than it's ever been and the crazy part is all it took was three key exercises that I guarantee will do the same for your back but only if you nail down the proper
form but before we dive into the exercises here's the problem with your back so when you train a single muscle group like your chest it's pretty straightforward you just need to get that muscle to activate but with the back it's a different story with so many muscles it's easy for your stronger ones to take over leaving your weaker ones underdeveloped so using our understanding of biomechanics I'll show you how to modify each exercise to ensure you're actually hitting the right parts of your back let's start with your lats the muscle that gives your back that
coveted V taper when this muscle is well developed you'll be able to do a lat spread flexing them as if you had wings a clear sign you've made some good gains fortunately the lats are usually one of the most underdeveloped muscles for us gim Bros take me for example after years of back training my biceps forearms and some parts of my back definitely grew but my lats barely noticeable to fix this you can't just train the lats as if they're one big muscle instead they should should be split up into two main areas the upper
and lower lats we'll start with the area most people struggle with the lower lats so most people's go-to for lats is a standard lat pull down but despite its name it's not actually the best exercise to really Target the lats we need to make some adjustments you see typically during pull Downs your elbows are forced to flare out like chicken wings which is great for the muscles around the shoulder blades but not as good for hitting the lats to work the lats more you want your elbows tight tight against your body as you pull but
if you're holding the bar too wide that's just not possible instead your hands should be about shoulder width apart and ideally in a neutral position because when you twist your palms inwards that naturally brings your elbows in so your best option is a bar like this but if your gym doesn't have that you can use a v bar and if you don't have that you can still make it work with a normal lat pull down bar but using an underhand grip while this will get the biceps more involved it's still more effective for the lats
than the normal overhand grip plus there's a way to reduce how much we use our biceps and Target our lats instead in fact you want to do this trick no matter which grip you use it's simple rather than pulling the weight straight down with your hands focus on pulling from your elbows visualize them moving in the slight Arc in front of your body and then back and down towards your hips at the same time pull your shoulders down away from your ears keep pulling until your elbows are in line with your to torso then control
the way up but here's a really important part at the top fully extend your arms and let your shoulders rise up for a deep stretch in the lats why well plenty of new research suggest that if you do reps without fully stretching your muscles you're missing not on a ton of gains but aside from just making sure your shoulders come up for that deep stretch there's another way we can use this study to grow our lats even more see the laat pull down like most back exercises it's hardest at the bottom and because you're a
responsible gym goer once you can't get the bar all the way down you stop rather than use bad form right but here's the thing that might actually be a mistake as we mentioned most of the gains seem to come from the top of the lap pull down when the muscle is stretched so once you can't do any more full Reps don't stop keep going by doing as many half reps as you can in that top stretch position okay on to the upper lats the most important area for creating that Vaper believe me once I finally
started hitting this area properly I noticed a huge difference in just how wide my upper body looked even wearing a t-shirt first I'll show you how to Target them using a cable rope and then I'll show you another really good option but with dumbbells now just like the pull down the way most people row hardly uses their lats at all often their biceps or their traps end up doing a lot of the work I'll show you how to fix this mistake but first there's a few other important changes to make let's start with your grip
again for the lats you IDE want to grip where your hands are shoulder width apart with the Palms facing in the VB bar can work if that's all you have but the dumbbell alternative I'll show you in just a minute is also an excellent choice the next tweak you want to make has to do with your torso instead of rowing upright brace your core and lean forward slightly this not only lines up the tension more with your upper lats but will also allow for a deeper stretch at the end of each rep next to best
Engage The Lots think about pulling the elbows back into down towards your hips similar to The Arc motion from the previous exercise but to prevent your biceps from taking over pay attention to your forearms the more they Bend upwards the less flats and the more biceps you'll end up using Instead try to keep your forearms parallel to the floor by focusing simply on pulling the elbows back and down once your elbow reaches your torso control the weight back fully extending your arms and letting your shoulders rise up to get as deep of a stretch in
your lats as possible now as as promised I do have an excellent alternative that you're probably familiar with dumbbell Rose but with two key adjustments instead of a flat bench incline it slightly lean one arm on the bench and then put your opposite back leg far out to the side this setup makes the exercise far more stable and just less awkward next brace your core and think about driving your elbow down towards your hips in that same arcan motion as before think about it as if you're sweeping the floor with the weight keep the elbow
tight to your sides and this time to prevent the biceps from taking over try to keep your forarm vertical as you pull now as you get closer to the top your body is going to want to rotate your torso to make it easier fight the Temptation keep your back flat pull until the elbow reaches your torso then control the weight back down lastly whether you use cables or dumbbells once you can't do any more full reps just remember to keep going by doing as many half reps as you can in that stretch position okay on
to our final exercise which will now focus on building your back thickness to do so we're again going to use a cable row but this time modified to hit the mid and upper back muscles your traps rhomboids and rear delts and don't worry again I'll show you an excellent dumbbell alternative and then also show you guys a special drop set technique that's personally helped me blow up my traps let's dive in so unlike the lats the mid and upper back muscles are better worked when the elbows are angled out from the body and you'll actually
see people in the gym try to do this but using a narrow grip so their elbows are kind of flared out but not enough to really work the mid and upper back so to fix this we actually need a wide grip a bit wider than shoulder width so in this case an overhand grip on the lat pull down bar works perfectly but to better Target the mid and upper back rather than the Lots this time rather than leaning forwards Lean Back slightly brace your core and pull the bar back and up towards your chest letting
your elbows flare out in an arrow shape squeeze your shoulder blades together at the end and control the weight back down but remember the stretch is super important for growth so open up your shoulder blades as wide as possible at the end of the rep to fully stretch out your traps now you can easily do this with dumbbells instead by using an incline bench as a chest support and doing the same Row in motion a t- bar row also is an excellent choice but regardless of what variation you use this's a special technique I've been
doing at the end of my sets that I honestly feel like is what made all the difference for my traps and it's simple after you can't do any more full reps continue the set with half reps just like I explained earlier but don't stop there once you can't do any more half reps rather than pulling with your arms keep them straight with your shoulder blades opened up then squeeze them together hard almost as if you were doing a shrug open up your shoulder blades again and repeat this for as many reps as you can until
the weight just won't budge it's intense but trust me you're going to feel the pump of your life and I guarantee your traps will blow up really quickly from this so here's a breakdown of the full workout now you may want to adjust the volume or even add additional exercises depending on your body and goals but rather than trying to figure all of that out on your own I'd highly recommend just following a simple science back program that takes care of all the guesswork for you these programs are incredibly effective and cover not just your
workouts but your nutrition as well to join today just head over to builtwith science.com and take our quiz is to find the best plan for you and your body but if you're looking for more free advice watch this video next for the workout that blew up my shoulders in a good way thanks for watching and I'll see you next time
