Train Your Back! My 3 Favourite Back Exercises
It might not be the sexiest thing to do, but training your back will help you in the long run. A strong back will help your posture and reduce your chances of getting injured. The more we can stay injury-free and in the gym, the more progress we can make over the long term.
If you’ve ever trained at APEX, you know that we like to spread our back movements over each session. I like this approach over the dedicated back day since most people aren’t training 5-6 times per week. On average, we see clients 3 maybe 4 times a week. Since there’s so much to get done each session, we add 2 dedicated back movements per workout. I’ve been using this approach for the last couple of years and I find this way gets stimulus to the posterior muscles more often.
Best Back Exercises
Before getting to what I believe are the best back exercises, I’m going to start by saying this list is based on two factors other than “what exercise hits your back the best”.
Factor 1, how difficult is it to accomplish.
This is very important, especially when dealing with beginners. I love doing chin-ups and all the variations associated with it, but if you can’t even hold yourself on a bar for longer than 5 seconds, this exercise is simply too tough for you based on your current training level.
Factor 2, probability of getting injured during this movement.
The bent-over and T bar row requires a lot of static lower back strength to perform. If the person loses that core tension, they could injure their lower back while trying to complete the exercise. I’ve witnessed this twice before and it was because the client lost focus therefore you won’t see those exercises on this list.
Seated Row
The seated row has to be an all-time favourite of mine. It hits your lats, rhomboids, traps and biceps. There is so much variety in the exercise as well given the ability to change the handles and that you can train each arm independently. Since this a cable exercise, you’re forced to control the eccentric portion of the movement which leads to greater hypertrophy of the back. Once thing I like to do is incorporate the seated row paired with push-ups as a warm-up for an upper body session. You get tons of blood flow to the upper body so it aids as a good warm-up.
Lat Pull Down
This is another top back exercise of mine for many of the reasons listed above. Like the seated row, you’re forced to control the eccentric and you have tons of grip variations. My favourite is the neutral grip because it’s easier on the shoulders and you can handle more weight than the overhand wide grip. I also like this exercise because there aren’t many vertical pulling movements you can do that already require a great deal of baseline strength. Chin-ups are amazing, but if you can’t even hold yourself on the bar, it will be tough to add this into your program.
One Arm Row
The one arm row has been a top back movement of mine since the start of my training. It’s not super hard to teach plus you get the added grip strength benefits since you’re forced to hold a dumbbell and fight gravity. I usually add this exercise on deadlift days to increase upper back strength. If your grip is too taxed during this exercise, you could use straps, but I tell beginners not to do this since it will work against you as you increase your strength and your grip falls behind. Straps can be used as a tool to save your grip but you shouldn’t be reliant on them.
Guide to Adding these into your Workout
Let’s say you make it to the gym 3 times per week (which is what most people usually commit to), you’d want to hit 2 of these per workout. You can vary the grips on both the seated row and lat pull down to add variety and change the reps and sets on the one arm row to keep things interesting while working out.
The main thing is... don’t forget about your back! You might not be able to see these muscles, but we do.