For most aspiring lifters, it’s all about building a huge chest and arms. Week after week they slave away on endless sets of bench presses and barbell curls in search of the rippling muscle gains they want so badly. Not surprisingly, those gains never appear in any significant form.
A lot of guys in the gym neglect a really important group of muscles, Back. They maybe do that because it’s a muscle you will hardly see it in the mirror or maybe because it’s a more stressful training. Maybe just because the most of them don’t even know how important is to have a wide, muscular back.
70% of your upper body muscle mass resides in the back area! Nothing can replace the upper body thickening effect of big, bulging lats and a set of wide, tall trapezius muscles. That’s how important your back is. I am, of course, talking about the major muscles of the back: the lats, traps, spinal erectors, rhomboids and lower back.
If you want to succed and have a wide back, just follow these simple steps.
1) Deadlifts. I cannot possibly stress the importance of this lift enough. There is not a single exercise out there that can even come close to matching the effectiveness of a basic, bent-legged barbell deadlift. The deadlift will stimulate growth throughout the entire back complex and should be the cornerstone of your routine.
2) A vertical pulling movement. These exercises mainly target the lat muscles and will help you to attain that wide, v-tapered look from behind. You can try with lat pulldowns, v-bar pulldowns and chin-ups.
3) Horizontal pulling movement. There are a ton of different rowing movements to choose from: bent over barbell rows, dumbbell rows, seated machine rows and cable rows just to name a few.
4) A shrugging movement. While not quite as important as the above mentioned lifts, a shrugging movement should still be performed at the end of the workout to target the upper traps and develop that mountainous, diamond-shaped look from behind. A basic barbell or dumbbell shrug will do the trick.
So, all you have to do is to perform 2 sets of 5 to 7 reps of every single exercise i mentioned before. That will do the job.
It may not seem like a lot, but as long as you take every set to muscular failure and focus on quality rather than quantity, this routine provides more than enough stimulation for maximum back growth. I’ve used this same routine for many years and continue to see steady progress in both back size and strength.