[quote]Bauber wrote:
What I suggested did wonders on thickening up my back. Lowered my weights by a good margin and really focused on hitting the muscles.[/quote]
What part of the Sip are you in? That gym looks really familiar. Looks like a place I trained at in Southhaven a few years back. [/quote]
Haha you nailed it bro. It is the DAC on goodman road.[/quote]
Thought so. How long you been lifting at that placee? I used to train with some MMA guys in there about 2 years years ago when I was working on a pipeline project in North MS. They got me hooked on some crazy crossfit type shit for working on cardio that I still use. Nice gym.
[quote]Bauber wrote:
What I suggested did wonders on thickening up my back. Lowered my weights by a good margin and really focused on hitting the muscles.[/quote]
What part of the Sip are you in? That gym looks really familiar. Looks like a place I trained at in Southhaven a few years back. [/quote]
Haha you nailed it bro. It is the DAC on goodman road.[/quote]
Thought so. How long you been lifting at that placee? I used to train with some MMA guys in there about 2 years years ago when I was working on a pipeline project in North MS. They got me hooked on some crazy crossfit type shit for working on cardio that I still use. Nice gym. [/quote]
Off and on since I was in high school, so about 10 years. Honestly I think the gym is okay, but the owner pisses me off. He told me to my face and I quote, “Here we are not trying to cater to people like you.” I guess that means letting a 120 dumbbell break and 2 years later still not replacing it. Dumbbells also only go up to 130. I will give it a good rating for eye candy though.
I can’t complain too much as my membership is free, but it is more a bar/ family gym. There are other gyms I go to on certain days that are more geared for people who really want to lift.
You seem to have fairly high lats genetically, as do I. Thats always gonna be tougher to add mid back width.
The fat you’re carrying around your waist hurts the look a bit too, if you leaned out a bit you’d have a much more tapered look. Obviously this doesnt serve the interest of gaining mass in your back right now though.
I agree with bauer that lighter weight, focusing on form with a good stretch in the lats and holding the contraction for a second or two will make a huge difference. I would do this for ALL your rowing movements for a while and see how it feels. I’d also say most of your back workouts should be made up of rowing movements rather than pulldowns or pullups, as your upper back has some good thickness (again, high lats)
And if you’ve never tried em, start doing Meadows rows (one arm barbell rows). Going fairly heavy on those with good form stretches my lats and targets them like nothing else, and I dont know anyone who has tried these and doesnt make them a staple of their back workouts.
Hope some of this helps a bit. That back double Bi will look awesome if you can widen up a bit.
[quote]Bauber wrote:
What I suggested did wonders on thickening up my back. Lowered my weights by a good margin and really focused on hitting the muscles.[/quote]
What part of the Sip are you in? That gym looks really familiar. Looks like a place I trained at in Southhaven a few years back. [/quote]
Haha you nailed it bro. It is the DAC on goodman road.[/quote]
Thought so. How long you been lifting at that placee? I used to train with some MMA guys in there about 2 years years ago when I was working on a pipeline project in North MS. They got me hooked on some crazy crossfit type shit for working on cardio that I still use. Nice gym. [/quote]
Off and on since I was in high school, so about 10 years. Honestly I think the gym is okay, but the owner pisses me off. He told me to my face and I quote, “Here we are not trying to cater to people like you.” I guess that means letting a 120 dumbbell break and 2 years later still not replacing it. Dumbbells also only go up to 130. I will give it a good rating for eye candy though.
I can’t complain too much as my membership is free, but it is more a bar/ family gym. There are other gyms I go to on certain days that are more geared for people who really want to lift.
[/quote]
Yep, never really thought that place was much of a true powerlifter friendly gym. Agree on eye candy. That place has some scenery.
Just realised that i been doing way too many pullups, pulldowns, and not enfough rows…partially all the gyms here in india have one precore row machine which sucks…
Besides that theres what, bb rows, db rows, meadows rows?
Arent db rows and meadow rows basically the same?
I really miss the seated cable row machine that you could change the grip on…
Been to every golds gym here looking for that
[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:
Do you use wrist straps? If not, do so.
2nd the advice given, good luck.[/quote]
I do but only for bb rows and deadlifts…
Are you saying use it for my whole back workout? If so why
[/quote]
Wrist straps will definitely help take your arms out of any pulling movement and it looks like you could use that.[/quote]
x2 EVERY BACK MOVEMENT except maybe straight arm pulldowns which you really dont need them for. You are not trying to strengthen your grip.
You want a bigger back. If straps help you get ONE MORE rep than without (and they will) thqt leads to a bigger back. Andd mmc. You dont need a foremarm pump doing pulldowns.
From 2009 to 2012 my back improved a good amount. The two changes i incorporated were deadlifts and utilizing straps on every back movement. I firmly believe straps had more to do with the improvement than the deadlifts.
The expression you used to hear a lot when people would use their arms more than their back muscles was to “pull through your elbows.” What that means is that if you’re really focusing on the muscles of your back contracting, you won’t need your arm to flex fully. I’ve always found that shortening my ROM on certain movement helped to really apply tension to the target muscles.
ie. Bent Barbell rows - By performing these to your hips as Bauber mentioned, you will not be able to utilize your arm muscles for that last bit of ROM you would have had if you rowed the bar higher on your torso. It should feel almost like your doing a shrug, albeit in a more horizontal plane.
ie. Pulldowns - Sure you’ll hear about peak contraction and squeezing the hell out of a muscle at the end of the movement, BUT I’ve always felt that I got a much better back workout when I abreviated the motion to keep tension solely on my lats, and not the bottom 1/3 of the movement where the arms come into play. If you perform these, stopping and reversing the bar at the point where it is in front of your face, you can get a nice hard contraction in your back, without that last little bit where so many trainers use their arms to yank it all the way down.
There have been a lot of great suggestions, but I think the biggest issue will always be your ability to engage the muscles of your back without your obviously dominant arms taking a good part of the stress.
[quote]Cron391 wrote:
Just realised that i been doing way too many pullups, pulldowns, and not enfough rows…partially all the gyms here in india have one precore row machine which sucks…
Besides that theres what, bb rows, db rows, meadows rows?
Arent db rows and meadow rows basically the same?
I really miss the seated cable row machine that you could change the grip on…
Been to every golds gym here looking for that[/quote]
It sucks that you dont have any HS row machines or a cable seated rows that you can change the grip on. You should still be able to get by no problem though.
Both of those rowing variations are fantastic. I used to be all about heavy DB rows but honestly since i started doing more one arm work with the barbell and seated cable rows, i dont really touch DB’s for back anymore.
Bent over BB rows, or yates rows in particular are great heavy weight movements that will destroy your entire back. T bar rows with varying grips are great too and allow you to really stretch the lats.
I like to perform 5 back exercises, 4-6 sets depending on the movement. I do 3 rowing movements per workout with 2 pullup or pulldown exercises in between those rowing exercises. I would say definitely focus more on rowing than pulldowns, based on your current back development.
What Stu said about really driving with the elbow is very important too, when i first heard this it was a light bulb moment for me. Instead of pulling with your arms, really think hard about keeping your elbows in tight and driving back with them.
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
ie. Pulldowns - Sure you’ll hear about peak contraction and squeezing the hell out of a muscle at the end of the movement, BUT I’ve always felt that I got a much better back workout when I abreviated the motion to keep tension solely on my lats, and not the bottom 1/3 of the movement where the arms come into play. If you perform these, stopping and reversing the bar at the point where it is in front of your face, you can get a nice hard contraction in your back, without that last little bit where so many trainers use their arms to yank it all the way down.
S[/quote]
Stu - Have you done much with playing with the speed of the reps with pulldowns? I guess I’m alluding to “tempo” without wanting to say it…
I’ve been experimenting a little with a little shorter range of motion, similar to what you describe (coicidence), but exploding down to torso to engage then, slowly (not real slow, but slower) back to stretch position-- rather than just ‘bunny fucking’ the reps.
I don’t know if it’s doing much at this point, it’s just different and I definitely feel my lats more.
Related: I know changing ROM with DB Rows so that the db was more angled toward hip rather than straight up off the floor helped me. The weights went down a little at first but came back up over time. Definitely felt the lats engage in a different place. Now, having said that, I’ll still do ‘kroc row’ sets where it’s monkey-fucking-a-football style sets
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
Stu - Have you done much with playing with the speed of the reps with pulldowns? I guess I’m alluding to “tempo” without wanting to say it…
I’ve been experimenting a little with a little shorter range of motion, similar to what you describe (coicidence), but exploding down to torso to engage then, slowly (not real slow, but slower) back to stretch position-- rather than just ‘bunny fucking’ the reps.
I don’t know if it’s doing much at this point, it’s just different and I definitely feel my lats more.
[/quote]
It’s actually something I started consciously doing about 5 years ago. I picked up used copies of Fred Hatfield’s books (and some older articles), and read up on Compensatory Acceleration Training (C.A.T.) Basically by acclerating a less than maximum weight, you muscles will perceive a greater work load, and you will stimulate a training reponse without having to handle such heavy poundages on your joints. Thibadeau also wrote about this a bit over the years.
Combining this understanding of ‘perceived stress’ with the slower eccentric portion and an abbreviated ROM to maintain mroe stress on my intended target muscle really allowed me to bring up weaker points, and certainly take my physique where it needed to be competitively at a (relatively) older age.
It’s been said by many competitors over the years, but lifting weights doesn’t build champion caliber physiques, using the weights in an intelligent manner does.
Tons of great info from all.The only thing I can add Is that I pre- pump my lats with light bands,tnt cable’s etc. before my back lifts and even In between the sets as well.Learned that from JM and CT.I wrap them around a post,weight rack and pull with straight arms down towards my side’s with my torso leaning foreword a little.I’ll move foreword or backward until I feel It hits the lats the best.Hope that makes some kind of sense.
