[quote]GrindOverMatter wrote:
[quote]ebomb5522 wrote:
[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:
Impressive. Your lat anatomy is fantastic.
BBB[/quote]
Thanks BBB, means a ton coming from you.
I really ramped up my back training in the past year and it has really showed me the potential I have to grow there.[/quote]
can you give us an overview of what you did the past year for back?
[/quote]
Allright, here’s the scoop.
I have always trained heavy, since the beginning. When I trained for football or after my injury and for my first year and a half of college, I pretty much just trained bench, squat, deadlift, and other compound movements. Because of this, I built a pretty solid physique, but it wasn’t that balanced, just relatively dense. I started training more like a bodybuilder in the middle of my Sophomore year and included exercises like Kroc Rows and Hammer Strength row variations, but it wasn’t until the end of my sophomore year and the summer going into my junior year that I really switched entirely over to training like a bodybuilder.
I did a split that had me hitting back twice a week with pretty high volume. At this time, I was working with Layne Norton, and he had me doing a modified PHAT routine that had me hitting back heavy once a week and with higher reps the second time. The exercises I focused on branched out a bit, including pulldown variations, rows (dumbbell and barbell), Hammer Strength Rowing, Pull-ups (variations), and rack chins. These are still my staple exercises today, but I do things a bit differently with back now.
When I discovered John Meadows’ back training, this is when my training really changed. I adopted many of his exercises and techniques, specifically, Meadows rows, single arm barbell rows, dead-stop dumbbell rows, stretchers, single arm cable rows, and partial pulldowns. When I started including more exericses like these, this is when my back really started to get wider. I really only started training my back with the full spectrum of exercises (width and thickness) about 5 months ago, so I am excited to see how I can progress when this contest is over with the knowledge I have now.
Here is how I set up a back day now:
Pulldown variation (reverse grip, close grip): 5 sets, 8-20 reps, hard contraction on each rep
Barbell Row Variation (for weight, looser form): work up to 6-10 rep heavy set, then do one dropset of 10-15
Hammer Strength or Machine Row Variation: work up to 10-15 rep heavy set, then do 2-4 dropsets
Single Arm Pulldown, Single Arm Cable Row, SS w/Horizontal cable row…each exercise done with a 2-5 second hold at contraction: usually 2-4 sets of 8-20 reps
Barbell Deadlift or Rack Deadlift: work up to heaviest 2-10 rep set, then sometimes do a burnout at 385-405 x 15-20
I train back once a week and this routine really hits it hard from every angle. I sometimes like to employ techniques such as extended holds (up to 12-15 seconds each rep) where I will really focus on squeezing the lat as hard as possible. Using feel exercises are really important in my opinion because it helps teach me how to feel my back working on the heavier movements, something that is tough for some to do and something that I had a hard time doing at first as well.
If you want to see the specific workouts I was doing a year ago or so and compare them to those that I am doing now, you can check out my log here:
Any other questions, please feel free to ask.