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Top 5 Tips for Growing your Back

Top 5 Tips for Growing your Back

Are you struggling to grow your Back?

Here’s my top 5 tips that with some applied consistency and hard work your Back will have no other option but to grow and improve!

1 INCORPORATE STAPLE MOVEMENTS

Complete beginners only need to start with one or two movements and then progress to more following several months of progressive training.

Providing you are injury free and can safely perform them, include the following ‘bread and butter’ exercises into your program –

Deadlifts (from the floor or a power rack set with pins just above the knees)

Rows (free weight & machine)

Pull Ups or Pulldowns (close grip, underhand grip, shoulder width & wide grip variations
and not necessarily all in one workout)

Pullovers using a Dumbell (or using a machine) are great finishing exercise due to the extra stretch from the movement

**Including movements that work the back from different angles and body positions vertical (pull-ups/pulldowns and horizontal planes (various rows) will have you covered.

2 PUSH YOURSELF!

Progressive overload i.e. adding reps and/or weight over time (without comprimising technique) will provide stimulus to the working muscles.

Whilst it can be difficult to progress on every single exercise (and it is more difficult to progress each week for advanced lifters) you must get out of your comfort zone to change your physique.

Use a log book to keep track of progress.

3 WORK THE MUSCLES PROPERLY

**exercise tips**

Rows – Although there are various rowing movements you can perform a general rule of thumb is to ensure the lats get a good stretch and then retract the shoulder blades back,whilst ‘pushing’ your chest out and ‘squeezing’ at the top of the movement.

**Rowing tips**

Rowing towards the hip area will engage the lats a little more.
Towards the chest will engage the mid/upper back musculature a little more (traps, rhomboids, teres major & minor)
Rowing too wide will engage the Rear Deltoids a lot more (as it’s a smaller group taking the load) and your lifts will likely be weaker in comarison to shoulder width or narrower that will ensure the larger muscles are taking more of the load.

**Pullups/Pulldowns**

Again,get a good stretch and then lead with the elbows that pulldown (imagine your arms are just hooks) someone retract the shoulder blades back,whilst ‘pushing’ your chest out and ‘squeezing’ at the top of the movement.

4 USE STRAPS

Invest in some good quality pulling straps.
Whilst it’s great to naturally improve gripping strength from the big lifts, the last thing you want is your grip giving in before your back
muscles do.

5 FUEL YOUR WORKOUTS

Two hours prior to the workout I personally like to eat a meal containing approx 50/60 grams Carbohydrates with some Protein and a little fat.

This meal is usually 3 slices of Ezekiel Bread with 100g Extra Lean Steak mince.

I’ll then consume 30g of Carbohydrates during the workout in the form of Cyclic Dextrin, which is a fast acting energy source and will not cause any gas, bloat and digestion issues (as it bypasses the gut and goes into the bloodstream quickly).

Some may prefer eating a little closer to training.

** Individual calorie requirements differ from person to person, however for optimum muscle growth and recovery you must be eating enough calories day in day out.

I hope you found the article useful, give the post a like, share and tag friends who may pick up a tip or two from reading this.

Thank you