the back is such an important part of what makes an impressive physique but with literally hundreds of different back exercises out there it's hard to tell which you should do this is why I got Betty a muscle activation measuring machine today we're using her to test the most popular back exercises on four different people to find which exercises might be best for you at the end we'll use the results to create a perfect back workout you can trust will get you the muscular powerful looking back your Raptor before we get to testing let me explain
what we'll be testing so the back isn't just one muscle and different back exercises will Target different back muscles the slight problem however is that Betty the muscle activation machine I mentioned earlier only has four sensors so we first have to figure out what back muscles are worth putting sensors on to measure in the first place after talking with a few of our researchers and coaches here's what we decided the two main features of a well-developed back are thickness and width most thickness comes from the mid and upper back muscles to represent this area we
put a sensor on the mid traps but we also put a sensor on an extremely important muscle right below the mid traps the lower traps you'll learn why we did this later on now the main muscle responsible for widening your back and building your V taper is the lats this is the largest muscle of the upper body because it's so large we're putting two sensors on it one on the upper lats and one on the lower lats after testing we're going to see which exercises come out on top for these two areas but I'll also
run an extra analysis that determines what exercises might be best as overall back Builders as well next subjects in our past chest and shoulder experiments we use three subjects myself and Coach Alex the more experienced lifters and Raza are operations manager who although is learning quite a bit throughout the series is still a beginner this time although it would add even more work I wanted a female subject as well because they tend to be underrepresented in Fitness research and the more subjects the more reliable the data so we recruited Tommy yeah the love of my
life who was out last experiment because of a shoulder injury luckily she was open to it but to show her some love comment below thanks Tawny as I'm sure she'll appreciate it it'll be interesting to see how the results compare between the different types of subjects as for the wager after last week and the Damage it caused yo we decided to take a break to give everyone a well-deserved rest plus it was costing us way too much to send Raza to trauma therapy after recruiting it was time to prep the experiment there's three variables you
had to control for first the more challenging an exercise is the more muscle fibers you use and the higher activation better will read to try to control for this a few days before testing we all spent a day in our gym to figure out how much weight we'd use on each exercise to make them equally as challenging and flex your back what like this oh yeah the goal was to find the ideal weight that if we did five reps with we'd only be able to do three more before we reached complete failure but something unexpected
happened I'm gonna lie this Hit me hard I've lifted with these wrist traps for years since the beginning of my journey so these are my lucky wrist straps we are cutting it close here and no matter how close they were to Breaking they never let me down I may have been smiling but on the inside I was crying but I'm taking it as a sign that I've reached new limits and I'm ready to move on from the old rest in peace buddy if you're going to happen to be used by ziz and many other gym
gods next sensor placement as some of you know from our last experiments we need smooth hairless skin so the sensors stick and can read well usually Raz is the only one who needs a good waxing but to my disappointment there is only a small patch of hair on his lats that needed removing finally before testing there's one last variable we need to control some people may be able to activate their back better than others this is why we need a measurement known as MVC or maximum voluntary contraction push push push push come on let's go
harder basically for each subject we need to figure out the maximum activation our back muscles can reach by gathering this before we start testing we're able to then accurately compare the exercises we do against each of our own maximum values to see how well they work for our individual back muscles foreign experiment we used an ultra heavy bench press for back however we had to get a little creative with all that done we're ready to test we're sticking to a similar design as our past experiments by doing one set of five reps and then taking
at least a five minute rest before moving to the next exercise we also rotated between horizontal and vertical pulling exercises to avoid overly fatiguing the same muscles all right guys I have all the data I'm going to spend the weekend processing it with some of our researchers so far we've tested chest we've tested shoulders and now we've tested back but we're testing glutes next and we want to give you the opportunity to vote on what exercises you think will make it on top all entries get a discount code for a build science fitness programs and
anyone who guesses at least five out of the six correct you get a free built with science program you can vote over at builderscience.com vote I'll also leave a link in the description box down below good luck okay so before we dive into the winners just keep in mind that Betty and EMG research in general has its limitations there's many instances where more activation does not lead to more growth and there's many other variables to consider when trying to determine how well an exercise is a building muscle this is especially true for back where you
have to be extra careful about correlating activation with growth that said after averaging the data across the four of us I did find some very interesting insights that aligns with other research out there let's first talk about overall back Builders these are exercises that consistently across all four subjects show very high activation in all the muscles that we measured there's two exercises that came out on top the first one actually came as a bit of a surprise to me in fact most of you guys voted this exercise to come in almost dead last for the
various muscles we tested what is it deadlifts now I always knew these worked back to an extent but I wasn't expecting to see such high activation in every single muscle but it makes sense your legs are mostly responsible for moving the weight but all of your upper and lower back muscles have to work hard to keep your body stable as you lift now although they aren't taken through their full range of motion and are only contractednessymetrically this is still a stimulus for growth especially because of a heavy weight used and the Deep stretch that some
of these back muscles experience and even though Alex and I use relatively heavy weight during our measurements Tawny used much lighter weight and an elevated platform and still experience very high activation across the board the same was true for Raza who was still just learning how to properly do them okay so before I reveal the second winner I'm curious do you do deadlifts on your back days or leg days personally I do them on leg days or in a separate day altogether but I might consider throwing them in with my back train but comment below
and let me know what you prefer now the second exercise is a classic bent over rows similar to the deadline lifts you're able to load it relatively heavy and your whole back including the lower back is helping you stabilize and move the weight now we tested this exercise with an overhand versus underhand grip the overhand grip led to more mid-back activation whereas the underhand grip likely because the elbows could remain tucked close to the sides let the slightly more latch activation primarily in the lower lats which is good to know depending on what area you
want to focus on the most that said although these two exercises as well as the t-bar row another big exercise we tested that performed well overall are efficient ways to work a lot of your back muscles at once they do come with a cost they're very fatiguing and demand a lot from your lower back muscles especially as you get more experience and can lift heavier weights they also don't work certain back muscles as well as other exercises do this is where some of the next exercises we measured come in handy let's first talk about the
mid and upper back only five percent of you successfully guess the exercise that came out on top the inverted row but when I took a deeper look into the individual data I noticed something interesting it led to the highest back activation for both Tony and Raza but didn't do nearly as well for both myself and Alex even after adjusting the setup to make it a bit more difficult so while it is a great bodyweight exercise that I'd highly recommend for most females and beginners as you get more experience you'll want to consider other movements that
you can start adding weight to or save this exercise for the tail end of your workout when your back is already quite fatigued as for the other exercises that came out on top generally research suggests that rows with the elbows can be kept angled out wide are best at targeting the mid and upper back I was impressed to see most of you guys predicted the same based on your voting but what did we actually find well wide grip seated cable rows and dumbbell chest supported rows with the elbows flared out and shoulder blades squeezed together
at the end both led to the highest activation after the inverted row and although we didn't test a chest supported machine row I'd expect to see the same thing as long as you use a relatively wider grip and keep your elbows angled up before we dive into the lats I want to talk about the lower traps although not on anybody's list of top 5 sexiest muscles it's an extremely important yet often overlooked muscle for overall shoulder health and posture so important that I'd recommend including at least one exercise in your routine that really focuses on
this muscle and the one that came out on top during our experiment doesn't even require any weight incline prone y raises after we go through the Lots I'll explain how exactly at Gobo added this into your back routine last but not least the lats generally vertical pulling movements are best to hit this region so it's no surprise all you muscle nerds voted for lap pull downs and pull-ups to come out on top but while these exercises did a pretty good job of activating the lats one move in particular led to higher activation than any of
those exercises the lat Focus row this is something I first got from coach casim with N1 training although it looks like a row it's very similar to a pull down because of the way you position Your Body by leaning forward slightly and keeping the elbows tucked close to the sides it puts the lats in a better position with proper coaching this exercise did very well even for tawny and Raza who had never tried this move before so it's a great move regardless of your experience to put a little bit more focus on the lats now
let's put everything we learned into a back workout that you can start using right away I'd recommend picking one exercise from each of the categories we went through and then adding in prone y raises to the end to give the lower trap some extra love I've also created a completely free downloadable workout PDF that puts us all together for you complete with sets reps and instructions for each exercise you can download this over at builtwithscience.com back workout honestly after testing chest shoulders and now back it's helped me realize that training doesn't have to be crazy
complicated the best exercises tend to be the most basic get these basic exercises have stood the test of time for a reason and help build many incredibly impressive physiques over the years so rather than trying to seek the next best exercise I urge you to stick to the basics and focus on consistency proper form and training hard as that's where truly most of your games will be made and for step-by-step science-based program that takes care of all the guesswork for you and shows you how to train and how to eat week after week to help
you build the body you deserve just head over to build science.com and take our analysis quiz to find the best program for you and your body and you can give this video a watch next to see what chest exercises came out on top during our experiment and I'll see you next time
