What Needs Improvement on my Back Development ? (See Pic)

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
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What’s good fellas? Long time reader, first post here :). I’m a month out from a bodybuilding show I want to do, and I notice that my back looks like it might be needing either more, or less of something. I feel the upper, lateral portion needs better development, but I am unsure if I am doing the correct exercises for that portion of my back.

For the sake of argument, I am not going to post what I currently do (not yet at least) because I would like to hear unbiased feedback. I feel that if I post what I am doing, someone’s gonna say that by doing what I am not doing will bring up that portion of my back. Aside from the fact that you cannot build muscle as a natural this close to an event, I am simply trying to plan the off-season rebound I have ahead of me.

Any feedback/constructive criticism is welcome.

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I would say lats, traps, and more mass all over.

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It would be helpful to see a picture of the back relaxed. At your bodyweight, I would just go heavy on a all-around back program. Lats (chins or close grip pulldowns), middle back (some sort of row, db or low pulley with a wide grip), and something for traps and rear delts of course (facepulls+shrugs for example). Don’t forget the deadlifts for that x-mas tree on the lower back!

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frame looks good!
I would say Yates heavy rows (or tbar with 20’inch lenght rope to have a full range of motion aka blades in) for central back,traps and rear delt and pulldownz for lats.
imo, don’t do a lot of excercises; choose one (or two) and pull it to death,when you think you are dead ,rack the weight ,take a 30’ rest ,hold the bar and die enother time :slight_smile:
each session try to beat your last PB on that excercise; do enother rep a/o add weight a/o do a longer isometric, take the intensity higher you can.
and rest,rest until you feel full of energy to HIT the weights; 3/4//5,one week, no matter.
IMO

Mike

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sorry, forgot this:

EAT LIKE A WILDBOAR OF 300LB!

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Buzza- you hit the nail right on the head. Chest supported T-bar rows are something that I haven’t been doing for the past few months, and during my last back session, I put them in there first and I felt the muscles I wanted to improve on at work. I’d like to experiment more with the Yate’s barbell rows with a pause up top, at the squeeze. Usually I do my barbell rows, well, like if I’m rowing a boat. I dont use much hip english, and I like to keep my shoulders in-line horizontally with my hips, so its actually closer to a pendlay row, than a 45 degree row. And as always, I prefer overhand, with a grip outside of shoulder width, and I aim to hit my upper belly / lower chest on all repetitions.

Liv92, while I appreciate your constructive criticism, I feel your input did not offer too much. You say I need mass all over, in which of course you are right, but I feel putting it in the RIGHT places (i.e. lagging body parts / muscle groups) can help get a physique closer to aesthetic potential.

desolator - I do indeed do deadlifts, conventional style when I am in the offseason. Due to decreased abdominal girth, I find rack pulls from just below knees much safer, and I usually get a bit sore and tight for the next couple days on my lower back. Being a month out from a show (and weighing 170), I still pull 405 for a set of 6, and again for a set of 5. I do them first, and then continue with my back session, usually alternating between a vertical/horizontal/vertical one week, and the next week I usually do horizontal/vertical/horizontal.

Which is why I like buzza’s advice on picking only 2 movements and working them like there’s no tomorrow. I usually do high volume and around 4 rowing movements, and finish with a pull-over if I have energy left.

My question is, which two movements would be ideal to hit that area of my back? I will experiment with T-bar rows as replied, and Yate’s rows…oh, and a caloric surplus from clean foods with occasional planned cheats :smiley:

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First of all, due to biomechanics, the angle of your elbows is more important than if the pull is vertical or horizontal. A v-grip low pulley row will hit mostly the lats, while a wide grip hands pronated one will target the middle back more. In the same fashion, a close grip pulldown will target the lats, while a behind the neck wide grip one the middle back. The role of your lats is when your upper arm is straight in front of you, to pull it towards you. Practice doing a virtual chinup and a btn pullup. Can you feel the difference?

As for the question which 2 movements would be ideal, unfortunately there is no answer to that, as each person has his own leverages and preferences. Just be sure to pick one movement for lats and one for middle upper back (don’t pick 2 that do the same job). The important thing is to not jerk the weight and use your back to move it, this sadly takes time.

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Of course, training your back is said to be a ‘thinking man’s muscle group’. I should of been more specific with my descriptions instead of using the umbrella terms vertical/horizontal pulls. Generally I like to stress either upper back dominant day, or lat dominant day. As you already know, a vertical pull can be either lat dominant or upper back dominant depending on the angle of the elbow. Much like Larry Scott said, “The back muscles do not know where the hands are, only where the elbows are.” I have a good foundation of studying human anatomy, and specifically I want to bring out more of the teres major, although to isolate it is impossible, seeing as to it works in harmony with the lat, and their attachment on the humerus is very unique (I believe there is a half-twist before the lat inserts to the humerus, whereas the teres inserts in-line). In either case, I value all feedback, and if anything was looking forward to another meat-head pointing me in the right direction :). Thanks for your input, greatly appreciated and will be applied

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great lats&elbows explication!
when I was younger (15/16) I just wanted wide lats so worked hard on lat machine pulldownz,my lats get wider but…unfortunally i felt pain im my shoulders joints when i train chest and shulders.
big pain,only way to remove it was to do a light set (50% of my 1rm) of pulldown just after the all-out set of bp/mp.
I went to sport doctors&orthopedics but -after xray, tac etc etc- they said to me that my joints were fine.
then an experienced bber told me “boy, don’t train just the mirror muscles”.
so I took off puldowns and did heavy rows.
in 2 months my shoulders joints pains ended and I never feel them again.
as delts are part of both anterior cinetic chain (front delt) and posterior cinetic chain (rear delt) -very personally- I would concentrate on rows/tbar (overhand-neutral-underhand grip, rotate…) first THEN on pullz.
if you wanna save a bit your lower back do dbs row with knee&hand on the bench, then hyperexntesion with some plate behind the neck.
deads are fine but -imo- hit mainly lower back (so rows/tbar but as you are using arms also middle back&lats… ) maybe I think so for my morphology (long torso,short legs).
just my opinion.

Mike

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Your arms completely overpower your back and even delts a bit.

You need A LOT more thickness and width. It doesnt really look like your lats are trained at all. They also insert very high so you need to put in plenty of work if you ever want your back to match up

Triceps need a lot of attention too.

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Triceps and Lats. You have decent definition in the delts, bi and mid back, but that’s not too difficult when you’re so lean. Lack of thickness in the lats is probably the most obvious issue. Whether your arms overpower your lats, or whether your midback takes the brunt of the work in chinning type movements, you need to address it.

S

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Nothin’ personal, but you really do just need size everywhere on your back. It looks half decent because of your current level of leanness, but add a couple% bodyfat, And it wouldn’t really look like you train back. If I had to pick ONE section, I would say rhomboids.

Like buzza said, heavy BB and DB Rows to fix this.

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what did your offseason back routine look like(exercises and numbers)?

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Definitely, definitely lat width and thickness both.

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To make things simple, heavy heavy chin ups and heavy heavy db rows will jack you up. Also for back, there are some exercises that don’t work for many people while they are good in theory. For example the barbell row.

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You look really ecto, so it’d be nice to dedicate some time building overall mass. Emphasize back width and thickness, and 20-30 pounds from now I don’t see a problem.

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[quote]desolator wrote:
To make things simple, heavy heavy chin ups and heavy heavy db rows will jack you up. Also for back, there are some exercises that don’t work for many people while they are good in theory. For example the barbell row.[/quote]

m8,
what is wrong with bb row?
personally I prefer rows"ish" movements to any pulldowns/chins because they worked better for me , can you explain -pls- why rows don’t work for many people???

Mike from Italy

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First of all I didn’t say all rows are bad, cable-hammer strength-dumbbell-tbar etc are very effective. For the barbell row, you stress your whole body to stabilize yourself, put stress to lower back and hamstrings. Compared to the dumbbell row, you get a lot less time of tension and range of motion, two important factors for growth. If you try to get more range of motion (like a pendlay row), the poundage you can use is severely limited.

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yes ,I agree but if you put the bb in a corner and use it as a t-row , position is far more stable and confortable,yes bbs row more rom but using the “bb t-row” with a rope long enough to make hit your hand to the gut rom is much wider than a standard bb row.
two hours ago I did bb t-row and I felt -compared to a standar bb row- less tension on lower back and more contraction on back aka more rom…

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I disagree, 2 days ago I did 405x6b Pendlay Rows…