Upper and middle back The best exercises for your upper back (lats) are: wide-grip pulldown behind the neck, mid-grip pulldown to the chest, V-bar pulldown to your middle, and kneeled one-arm cable pulldown. The latter one is definitely the best lat exercise that I know as it allows an incredible great range of motion, especially when you rotate your torso 90° during the movement. The best exercises for your middle back (lower lats and trapezius) are: barbell row, T-bar row, one-arm dumbbell row, and seated cable row. Since my lower back injury I stopped doing bent-over barbell rows, T-bar rows, and seated cable rows, and replaced them by seated machine row, and lying T-bar row because these machines support the chest so that the stress comes off the lower back and legs. This way these exercises also become more of an isolation exercise rather than a compound power exercise, which allows you to put more of your energy in the targeted muscle group. While training your upper and middle back, it is very important to realize that you are training your lats and trapezius, and not your biceps. Therefore you should focus on arching your back, pulling backward and downward your shoulders, and pulling together your shoulder blades during the up-phase of your reps, in order to obtain a full range of motion for your lats and trapezius.
Posted on: Mon, 02 Sep 2013 12:58:38 +0000
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