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Tuesday, 3 September 2013

3 Exercises to help kick your upper back development in the right direction.


1 - Lat Pulldown to the chest.

People like to bad mouth lat pulldown but for my money it is by far one of the most effective upperback movements it's just most people perform it poorly.

1 - Take a slightly wider than bodywidth grip
2 - Initiate the movement by swinging back ever so slightly.
3 - Pull the bar into your collar bone / upper chest leading with the elbows
4 - Try and pause with your shoulder blades pulled in and together at the bottom.
5 - Let the bar back slowly and to a FULL stretch.

You want to perform this exercise for 4-6 sets of 8 to 12 reps 2-3x a week with a weight you can move well for all reps.  Maybe heavy enough to fatigue at the last few reps of the last few sets.


2 - Underhand Chest to Bar

Instead of just thinking of doing a chin up thing of pulling your chest to touch the bar using a chin grip.  The extra range of motion you will create by doing the exercise this way will greatly increase the need to pull your scapula back and made it much more of an upper back exercise.

You probably want to perform this early in your workout and build the weight up on it something such as the following.

Work out 1 - 3 x 10
Work out 2 - 3 x 8
Work out 3 - 3 x 6
Work out 4 - 3 x 4
Work out 5 - 3 x 1 - 3

Keep your form as strict as you can and keep touching your chest to the bar!


3 - Chest Supported Dumbbell Row

Take a neutral or slightly angled grip and pull the dumbbells up in a straight line.  As you get your elbows up to your body height really squeeze those shoulder blades together!  Hold that position for a 1 or 2 second count and bring the dumbbells back down to a full stretch under control.

Your looking to perform this exercise 2-3x a week for a moderate volume - 2 to 4 sets of 8 to 12 reps.

How about an upperback routine?

Monday

Chest to bar - follow outlined loading pattern (wk 1 3x10, wk2 3x8 etc)
Chest Supported DB Row - 3 sets of 8
Lat Pulldown - 4 sets of 8

Wednesday

Chin Grip Pull down - 3 sets of 6 (heavyish)
Chest Supported Row - 4 sets of 8
Lat Pulldown 4 sets of 10

Friday

Chest to bar - 4 sets of body weight to failure (be strict!)
Chest Supported row - 3 sets of 12
Lat Pulldown - 5 sets of 10

Weekend Off

They key to building up your back is keeping your form strict enough to let the muscles of the upper back act on the weight.

Marc

1 comment:

  1. Great post! I really like this your blog andback exercise, thank you for sharing...

    ReplyDelete