If you like this Post, Please Re Share / Re post: Basic Bodybuilding Training Principles that Everyone Should if you want a Complete Back By Jeff Behar, CEO of MuscleMagFitness, MyBestHealthortal./net, Health, Fitness and Bodybuilder Author, and NPC National Bodybuilder Competitor More often than not, back development separates a good bodybuilder from a great bodybuilder. Follow these Important Training Principles and the workout plan and you are sure to development a complete dense back that you can be proud of. Disclaimer: The pictures of me below are me at 49+ Summer 2014. The pictures were taken after two surgeries and BEFORE Implementing the Principles below. I have had some setbacks: 3 leaking lumbar discs, 1 leaking cervical disk, arthritis, a umbilical hernia has kept me out of the gym consistently and also from being able to do many of the principles below, however, I am going to have a go at it to the best of my abilities, considering my physical limitations, so stay tuned in the coming months for my progress photos see the changes in my physique as I try to use the principles I am suggesting below. 1. Focus on Basic Compound Exercises Most people do not know what a compound exercise is, let alone making them a backbone of their mass building routines. Instead many people have been brainwashed that isolations exercises are the way to that dream body. So let me bust that myth once and for all. If you want muscle, focus on compound lifts! Use isolation movements as finishing and supplemental exercises. So what are compound exercises and why is Jeff Behar so adamant about using them as the core of your mass building routines? A compound (multi-joint) exercise utilizes multiple joints with free weights. This means maximal muscle recruitment, high nervous system activation, and more of a stimulus for growth. Compound Movements Stimulate More Growth A major benefit of using compound, or multi-joint, exercises is the systemic stress compound, or multi-joint, exercises exert throughout the target muscles and neighboring muscle groups (in the case of squats and deadlifts, the whole body is forced to work systemically, thus producing a system-wide, or total-body, effect). This raises GH and free testosterone levels which in turn stimulates more growth to ALL areas, not just the target muscle. This is an important point. So conversely, when systemic stress is low, our muscles fail to benefit from a hormonal cascade (a rise in GH and testosterone levels) conducive to enhanced protein synthesis and greater muscular growth. Compound Movements are More Efficient Another reason for emphasizing compound movements over isolation (single-joint) exercises is that compound movements work more muscles overall, thereby eliminating the need to include excessive isolation work. This saves time and maximizes efficiency in the gym. More major muscle groups can be hit with a smaller number of exercises. While many gym-goers tend to prioritize isolation work over mass building movements (for example, front raises, bent laterals and side laterals may take precedence over overhead presses and incline presses), the smart ones favor compound lifts to save time, stimulate more muscle fibers and enhance recovery. Compound movements, with their emphasis on pushing, pulling, squatting, pressing and lifting, more closely resemble how our muscles function in real life. As such, they more effectively help us to produce practical, useful strength, which we can then be used to complete our daily tasks with greater efficiency, and compete in sports which require a solid strength foundation and an ability to coordinate multiple muscle groups simultaneously. And because the big lifts require an abundance of energy to complete, and leave us feeling exhausted and depleted, our heart is forced to work harder than when executing isolation movements, and our metabolic rate is significantly elevated. Thus our cardio respiratory systems and fat burning machinery are beneficially altered to promote overall health gains and a lean, muscular physique. While isolation movements certainly have their place in any good training regime (they allow us to target individual muscles, to accentuate specific areas of our physique), compound movements are clearly king. In the following article I will overview the five best compound movements needed to cloak your physique in thick layers of muscle and provide a training plan, complete with workout protocols, to save you time while kick starting the growth process (additional, effective, multi-joint basics will also be included). Best Compound movement working the entire back: Deadlift. This is absolutely the most complete exercise that you can imagine, because it involves a full body workout. It trains your upper body and lower body like no other exercise available. Quads, glutes, hamstrings, back, lower back, forearms, traps, rear deltoids, core...almost every muscle group is worked with this exercise. Think of deadlifts as a squat, only the barbell is in your hands instead of being on your shoulders. Plus much more. The deadlift is a heavy compound exercise that will stimulate the release of growth hormones, and force the back (and whole body) to grow. Sometimes its even hard to explain which is the primary muscle that is worked when you execute deadlifts, because it is such a full body workout. Deadlifts bring great results when it is performed correctly with particular care to the movement, but its also risky because if you make a mistake and injury your back it can be painful, dangerous and long to recover. The better the result the higher the risks, as always. Next Best Compound Movements: Pull-ups. Pull up (favorite). Pull ups are very effective to increase the width of your lats and give you the classic V-shape look. They also work the upper back and traps if the angle is correct. T Bar Rows. Primary muscle worked are the Lats; the secondary muscles worked include: Rear deltoids, traps, lumbar, rhomboids, quads, glutes, biceps, and Abs. T Bar rows are very effective. I feel my back all swollen after this back exercise. My lats especially, but the whole center of my back grows fast with rows. There are many other similar exercises that are more or less as good as this, such as heavy barbell rows, reverse grip bent-over rows. The best options you want to consider if you dont do T Bar rows would be: Bent over barbell rows, Bent over dumbbell rows, One arm dumbbell rows and One arm cable rows. Cable Seated Row (Low Pulley Row). Cable seated row is a compound exercise where the primary muscle trained is your back, precisely lats and the middle and center of your traps. It’s also known as low pulley row because you execute it at the low pulley machine, using a V-bar handle that allows you to hold it with palms facing each other. Its one of my favorite exercises to gain strength and size in my middle/center back. Reverse Grip Bent-Over Barbell Rows. This compound movement creates tension through the entire body (the coveted systemic effect) to create a complete, massive look. Because it is difficult to perform, this movement, like most multi-joint lifts, is often passed over in favor of the easier seated rows and lat pull downs. However, for a thick, massive back – from traps to lower lats – and full biceps development, it cannot be ignored. 2. Train All Your Back Muscles I know this seems obvious but most people do NOT train all the back muscles, and most people are pretty much unaware of the various muscles in the back and which exercises to use to target them. As a NPC judge for many many years I see many competitors which great lats but no middle back, or no lower back, no rhomboids, no rear delts or ties ins. It is actually quite common, and very rare to see someone with complete back development. To be able to have complete back development, you need to understand back musculature. The back houses the largest muscle of your upper body: latissimus dorsi. This muscle is the main determinant of back width. It runs from the back of your hip bones up to the front of your upper arm. The lats can be divided into an upper and a lower part. This is because the uppermost fibers run horizontally, while the lower fibers run vertically. A muscle fiber orientation, coupled with the point of origin and insertion, allow you to understand a muscles various functions. In the case of the lats, the upper fibers mainly allow you to bring your arms close to the sides of your body, while the lower fibers primarily let bring your arms towards the rear. Assisting the lats to do the former function is a small muscle in the outer upper back region called the teres major. For this reason, this muscle is often referred to as the lats little helper. The significance of building this muscle is that it helps increase the detail in your back. As you move towards the middle region of the back, you will notice a triangular muscle group called the trapezius. More specifically, you will find the middle and lower trapezius muscles, as the upper trapezius is a neck and shoulder muscle. The middle and lower trapezius extend from your upper to middle back and they allow you to retract your scapulae, or shoulder blades. This is the motion of squeezing your shoulder blades together. Assisting these muscles perform this action are the rhomboid major and rhomboid minor. The major is larger as the minor, hence their names. Both of these muscles lie underneath the middle and lower traps. Together, these four muscles contribute to the thickness of your back. If you want a bigger back, you have to learn to pull with your lats. If you’re not willing to work hard, isolate the lats and take every rep deep and controlled, your back will not develop the lats optimally. While it’s pretty much impossible to truly isolate the lats and upper back, due to their complex muscle fiber arrangement (the fibers run in several directions) you can choose specific movements that stress specific areas more than others. With back training, elbow position is crucial. If you flare your elbows out, you’ll activate more of your upper lats, traps and rhomboid muscles. If you drop your elbows in tight, you’ll see your lats grow in length, as this position tends to work the lower portion of the muscles. Regarding ROM, don’t sell yourself short by failing to get your chin over the bar on pull-ups or leaving space between your torso and the bar when doing rows. Additionally, if you keep your wrists pronated (palms facing away or down) you’ll reduce the work of the biceps, thereby maximizing lat involvement. To work out your back entirely you need to pick a couple of exercises for each are of your back so that you can train: When speaking of upper back the exercises that fall into this category are exercises that target that specific area of the back, mostly the lats and the upper middle portion of the back. So when picking exercises for the upper back you could choose from a wide range of high pulling exercises, pullovers, and pull-ups, exercises that work in this manner specifically target the upper portion of the back Middle back (center traps/lats, lower rhomboid) Examples: Cable seated rows (AKA low pulley rows). I love this exercise because it builds muscle in my middle/center back and it brings in the tie-ins to the rear deltoids and rhomboids; heavy barbell row (Heavy bent rows will really thicken the overall back but especially the lower lats and spinal erectors. When performing these I usually suggest to put a 45lbs. plate on the ground where you will be standing, doing this will provide you with a greater range of motion while performing bent rows), single-arm dumbbell rows (This exercise provides a much fuller contraction over a greater range of motion as compared to barbell rows. This is also an ideal way to isolate and focus on each side of your back, resting one as your motor through working the other), Squat rack row starting at knee level (This exercise strengthens the erector spinae that support your spine, as well as flaring your lats), close-grip lat pull downs, Horizontal lat pull machines. When speaking of specific lower back exercises you want to choose exercises that target the Christmas tree area (where the lower latissimus dorsi tie into the spinal erectors, like hyperextensions), and also the muscles that support the trunk area. Other examples: Hip Extensions, Weighted, Bridge; Superman Remember, using the compound movements identified above is an efficient way to cover multiple areas of the back with one exercise. 3. Separate Upper and Lower Back Exercises When training the back you should start your workout focusing on the upper portion of your back (trapezius & latissimus dorsi), then moving on to the lower part of your back. I feel that this is a very good concept that many bodybuilders are beginning to use when training the back. If you are using the deadlift in your back training I feel that these should be used in the early stages of your workout when you have the most energy to put into that compound exercise. When training upper back first, then moving on to lower back I do not feel you should use deadlifts at the end of your workout due to your energy output at this point. 4. Use Volume If you are targeting all areas of the back, it is not unheard of to take 45 minutes to one hour and a half to work all areas of the back completely (upper, lower, mid, traps, etc.). Now if you are not trying to be a competitive bodybuilder, 12 to 16 sets in 45 minutes should do the track, however, if you r goal is to develop a massive, dense, complete back, you will need to spend more time in the gym. The back is a very large and strong muscle and as such heavy work and volume is what is needed to exhaust these muscles. 5. Use Variety When training the back, I feel variety is key if you are using volume style training. As stated earlier, pick a core of compound exercises, than pick 1 or 2 isolation exercise for each part of your back. Conclusion Using these tips are sure to add mass and quality to your back. Like any bodybuilding program, give these principles enough time to work. Periodically take pictures and get a third party assessment so you can adjust the principles to target any lagging areas (like lower back vs, traps, etc.)
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 16:53:53 +0000
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