Back Building

The back is probably the most powerful part of your upper body. You may think the opposite considering you cannot pull as much weight towards you as you can push away, but there are some things that your back does that your chest simply cannot do.
   Also, this is a post for weight lifters, so if the thought of iron plates and a long metal bar makes you faint at heart, you can still read this post.

Looking at the shape of your back, and how defined it becomes from exercise, and how powerful it looks, and the progression from it, is pretty amusing at times.

   You may not be too concerned about it, but when you think about it, you may not be able to see your back, but everybody else can. So why not work on it? There's plenty of reason to work on your back.

   Let's talk about aesthetic appeal first. When you work out your back, it gives you a powerful appearance, a large back will also result in a powerful look, and substantial pulling strength since the muscles in your back contract to make you pull.

   There are a series of exercises for you to do with a barbell that will make your back become large. Also, working out the back works out your rear deltoids and your biceps. So larger shoulders and biceps, every man wants that! And the occasional power lifting woman. You thought I was going to leave you out, didn't you?

   A large back ads to your upper body girth, thickness without having a big gut, and a powerful look. You also looked more balanced out with a strong back.

   Now let's move on to the actual results and requirements for a large back and building one.

   To begin, your back is built up out of multiple muscles. If you look at your chest, you have two muscles, and those are pectoralis majors. Excluding your arms of course. But I'm only talking about the chest right now.

   Your back has about sixteen major muscles in all that work together to pull things and hold them in place. And different ones work in different positions.

   So lets go from the bottom up. First off, you have your lower back. How do you work that out? Dead lifts and squats! And lots of them! As well as rows. Pretty much any kind of exercise where your upper body has to support weight while it's bent over. 

   The main exercise that works out your lower back is dead lifts. Your lower back doesn't get very big to begin with as of it just becomes incredibly powerful because it's a very dense muscle compared to others, it's the one that controls about half of your hip movement  if not more.

   Now to your middle back, that's also worked out with squats, but best with dead lifts and rows. If you ever look at weightlifters or bodybuilders from the side, they have a middle back from their various exercises that require support of serious weight.

   Now to get to the latissimus dorsi. There are some great exercises for that muscle. You have bent over rows, pull ups, lat pull downs, reverse dumbbell flies, T bar rows, and a number of other exercises. Your lats are triggered by three motions if I'm correct. Being bent over and pulling up towards your body, pulling down towards your body with your hands above your head, so either lat pull downs or body weight pull ups, and pushing downwards with with your arms. So that body weight lat pull up exercise I gave in one of my previous back workouts post, is a great exercise for that.

   Next you have your shoulder blade muscles. Not quite sure what to call those other than their commonly used name. Those are mainly triggered by the arms being pulled back and extending the pectoralis and contraction of the back muscles. Obviously. Also by the pulling motion done in pull ups.

   Then you have your traps, also known as the trapezius. This is one of the strongest muscles in your body to think about it. It's what holds your shoulders aligned and on your body when you are picking up heavy objects such as a barbell in a dead lift. So they can be worked out with shrugs, dead lifts, rows, and a number of other fun exercises.

   I would say that the reason the traps are so incredibly strong is because of how strategically they are placed compared to all of the other muscles in the body. For reasons of remained compact and not being hideous shapes and blobs of muscular structuring, the muscles in the human body are illogically placed, but made so incredibly strong that they can perform the challenges they are required to stand up to. But the trapezius is placed right on the shoulders, and contracts for a pulling motion bringing things upwards resulting in immense power.

   So just some thoughts on back workouts, enjoy!

The Fitness Cookie.