This Is How YOU BUILD A Massive Back

By the end of today’s article, you’ll not only have a killer NEW muscle building back workout to take to the gym, but you’ll also know EXACTLY why your workout consists of very specific exercises, so that in the future when you want to switch things up, you’ll have the foresight to pick exercises with similar movement patterns to ensure you’re still targeting your entire back.

Back 101: Understanding The Anatomy

Let’s kick things off with a little bit of “Understanding the Anatomy” of the major muscle groups in back, being that the back is a much larger muscle group than say, the biceps. Not only due to size but also in the number of different muscles that make up the back.

That’s why understanding WHICH muscles you’re training with specific exercises will give you more insight on HOW to train them properly and switch things up in the future.

The main back muscle group is the LATS or Latissimus Dorsi which are the long and powerful muscles that connect the bone of the upper arm to your spine and hip. So, in other words, every time you PULL, either horizontally or vertically, you’ll be engaging them.

Apart from the lats, you also have your rhomboids and traps which make up the mid & upper back and help give that thick look from behind. However, the main function of these muscles is to control your shoulder blades. So, expect to feel these muscle activating in any kind of ROWING or PULLING motion to help either stabilize or retract your scapula.

But what’s the point of knowing all this? Well, in short, the goal here is to help you understand that no matter what program you’re training with, in order to fully develop your back you need to include both horizontal as well as vertical pulling movements to properly train these muscles.

With all that out of the way, let’s take a look at the FOUR STAPLE BACK EXERCICES you should be doing to maximize your gains.

Back 101: The Exercises

Exercise #1 – The Pull-Up

The Pull-Up is a unique exercise and I want you to trust me when I say that if you could only do ONE back exercise for the rest of your life, the Pull-Up would be more than enough. Even if you can’t do ONE pull-up on your own, don’t sweat it. 

You can utilize bands to help you progress and get strong enough overtime to do them on your own. In fact, I already have a really good video that showcases several ways to progress with pull-ups.

But assuming you can do at least 2 or 3 clean pull-ups, I want you to focus on improving your form. You see, the pull-up is not just about going up and down and a subtle shift or wrong hand placement could bring more biceps engagement which isn’t “bad”, but not the best if the goal is to tear up the lats.

So, to properly engage your back, you HAVE to start from a DEAD HANG position.

This means shoulders up to your ears at the start of every rep! From here, with your elbows still locked, pull your shoulders down using only your lower traps.

Then once your shoulder blades are retracted and depressed, now you can start bending at the elbows and pulling with your arms to lift yourself up.

Be sure to keep your chest up with a slight arch in your back and if you still feel the movement more in your biceps and forearms, try bringing your thumb over the bar creating a hook with your hand.

Then, once you have the form down, add weight, even if it’s only 5lbs.

Progression is key with any exercise and remember that there is no rule that says the ENTIRE set needs to be completed with the same weight. So, if you are going for 8 reps and can only handle 4 with 25lbs attached, drop the weight after the first 4 and finish the set with your bodyweight.

Exercise #2 – The Bent-Over Row

There’s no avoiding this exercise!

However, you should know that YOU CAN place more emphasis on your lower back with an underhand grip and your muscles in your upper back with an overhand grip.

But regardless of hand position, if your lower back hurts when performing the movement, it’s because your set-up is wrong. The key to bent-over rows is sitting BACK with your hips and bending your knees, similar to a Romanian deadlift. So, if your feet are too close to each other, you won’t be able to sit back properly. 

A good stance for this exercise is just outside of shoulder width. Then from here, bend over until you’re upper body is parallel to the floor and now you’re ready to row, pain-free.

In my opinion, to maximize your gains with this this exercise, it needs to be explosive.

So, maybe when you first start out, you can focus on proper form with zero momentum to build your mind-muscle connection but once established, a little momentum with a bit more weight will go a LONG WAY in terms of results both in strength and building muscle.

ALWAYS control the eccentric or negative, but a little help on the concentric, or the way up is just fine.

By this point you might also want to start wearing a belt to help support your core. In fact, you can get a really high quality lever belt from my friends over at IronBullStrength and use my code MS10 for 10% off the entire site. 

Exercise #3 – The T-Bar Row

The third exercise I recommend is the T-Bar Row.

Most gyms nowadays have T-Bar row machines but you can easily “create” a T-Bar row on your own by anchoring a barbell if that’s what you prefer.

The main thing here is getting your hands as close together as you can with your palms facing in.

This is because a narrow grip will put you in the strongest position to move the most amount of weight out of all the back exercises.

 This means you will be able to REALLY overload your back for growth and you’ll be building some solid core, lower back and hamstring strength as you use these muscles to help stabilize your body during your reps.

Exercise #4 – The Face Pull

So, while the previous 3 exercises focus more on the mid back and lats, you always need to make sure you’re training your upper back and more specifically, your mid traps, rear delts and rhomboids and there’s no better exercise to do that than the Face Pull.

This is an exercise we’ve covered a lot, but let’s quickly go over it one more time.

The proper way to do a Face Pull is to integrate an external rotation into the exercise. This way you’re still getting the muscle-building benefits, but you’re also strengthening your rotator cuffs and keeping your shoulders strong and healthy.

To do that, you need to grab the rope with your palms facing each other.

Then from here, start pulling the rope to your face, while at the same time, rotating your arms OUT until your palms are facing BEHIND you.

From this point, hold the contraction for a second and then control the negative back to the initial position.

One more, quick tip here. If you have access to a seated cable machine, try increasing the weight and performing the face pull here. The elevated foot position will help give you a bit more leverage versus standing up.

Back 101: The Weight

So, now that you know which exercises you should be training with, how much weight is necessary to see gains? Well, form is definitely important but if you are TOO focused on it you’ll just end up holding yourself back.

Begin by using absolute proper form to understand the mechanics of the exercises and build a strong mind-muscle connection. But then as you start to progress and get stronger you’ll want to sacrifice perfect form for heavier weight.

Especially when it comes to rows, sticking to light/moderate weights will only get you so far.

But I’m not saying to completely disregard proper form and embrace ego-lifting. I’m just saying, cut yourself some slack and use a little momentum to allow yourself to handle slightly heavier weights while staying in control.

Back 101: The Workout

Now that we are clear on that, here is a free back workout you can start training with today and remember that MORE isn’t always better. Always keep your workouts simple with exercises that give you the most bang for your buck and if anything, just add MORE SETS to those exercises versus bringing in weird stuff you saw on TikTok!

• Weighted Pull-Up (4 Sets: 6 – 8 reps)
• Bent-Over Barbell Row (4 Sets: 6 – 8 reps)
• T-Bar Row (4 Sets: 6 – 8 reps)
• Face Pull (4 Sets: 12 – 15 Reps)

And as always, more good stuff coming soon!