 Back is by far the largest muscle group on our bodies and for years when I started out I had Hardly any upper back development partially because I focused my time on heavy deadlifts and partially because my biceps and forearms were taking over those Heavy rowing movements after developing an understanding that I needed to feel the exercise in the muscle I was working I started avoiding that compound heavy traditional back routine So I used to start with deadlifts moving on to barbell rows Then usually dumbbell rows then two or three hammer strength machine exercises lap pull down Maybe some seated cable rows and it's safe to say the amount of weight I was using was likely as much of a problem if not more than the routine itself And I was the same as everyone else I was that meathead gym rat bro that looked forward to pulling big numbers on deadlift every Tuesday But always ask yourself, what's your goal? Are you here to build muscle or lift a lot of weight off the floor? Each of those things requires fairly different training styles for bodybuilding We need to take that back muscle to failure and since my problem was using too much weight and overworking my biceps and forearms I did the opposite. I started using lighter weight and chose exercises that didn't use my biceps as much Which is much more difficult to do for back than it is for chest But it can still be done to some degree. You know, even when I was only a few years in the gym I realized that imbalance So I was able to move to the lighter weight and remedy to the problem I mean, you know, it was pretty severe and I did waste a lot of time But it's better late than never the main goal here is once our back is big enough From doing that light weight then we can move to moderate to heavy weight. Think about it If the muscle isn't there if the muscle is very small, it's hard to flex it and stimulate it You know, you want to go to 200 pounds on lat pull downs the first day in the gym By all means you're going to be working your biceps your forearms your tendons You're not going to be working your upper back that much and if you continue to do that super heavy weight It's very unlikely you're going to develop that upper back muscle Was there a point where you were using lighter weight for a long period of time and you tapered up and developed that muscle If there wasn't chances are that could be your problem So let me show you guys the exercises that have helped me get to that point And these are actually the exercises that I base most of my routine around still the first exercise is a rope pull through And I originally saw Phil Heath doing these and this was the first exercise I ever did that moved out biceps completely for the most part So it's really simple and you could do this with a bar as well, but All we're essentially doing is contracting the back muscles while keeping the arms fairly stationary and static And right now I'm squeezing my you know mid To upper back my rhomboids But I can also squeeze my lats here if I want a couple reps with the lats And I can do a couple reps with you know the lower middle back And this is the main thing to keep in mind with back training Whatever row or pull through I do I'm able to focus and squeeze a certain part of my back So I don't like saying that you know a certain back exercise targets a certain muscle group You can use one back exercise to target you know those three areas of your back And and that's what I like to break it up between me You know the rhomboids the upper back You know the lower middle back and the lats and again, you know, I can do one Or two sets squeezing that upper middle back You know one or two sets squeezing that lower middle back And then one or two sets focusing on the lats depending on what I'm trying to work on so These rope pull throughs are a great starting exercise to get warmed up A great pull down exercise and just really something in general that should be a large part of your routine Because it removes biceps and allows you to focus on back our second exercise is another type of pull through and I don't remember how I figured this out I think I was trying to do some reverse flies and I started feeling it in my lats So it's very similar to a reverse fly setup. You get a relatively light amount of weight Here I have five pounds. Sometimes I do 10 or 15 and You know your arch your back you get in like the proper position all static and stuff and then really It's like you're growing without moving your arms. Try the exercise out, you know Try a couple different weights. We'll go up to 10 pounds here. See how it feels Again, these are removing the biceps Getting a really nice flex on the lats The negative on this exercise isn't that great But you do get a nice flex So I like using this as You know a cool down exercise mostly Because you don't get that stretch, you know When you're going down with the dumbbells There's not really any tension on the lats Or as with the cable there is still a great exercise still really like doing it My third exercise is dumbbell deadlifts and normally I like doing Hyper extensions on the machine But since I don't have that in my garage gym yet This is what I've been doing and I'll take some 50 pound dumbbells I found that's enough weight and depending on How heavy the dumbbells are that you have access to that'll dictate whether you're doing like 10 reps sets or 20 reps sets And I do two main things here that I focus on I flex My neck so I like I tuck my chin as I go up and when I go up with the deadlift I'm not like trying to flex my back. I'm not trying to pull I'm just trying to like tuck my chin and flex my neck back That's how I go up and then when I'm at the top I really flex my glutes. I'll do two or three sets of this however many reps I can so just down Really keep my neck tucked my chin tucked and then Tuck my chin and neck back and when I get to the top I flex my glutes So for me this really works You know my upper neck my glutes My lower back the things I'm not hitting with my other back exercises And if you do this right, you know, you shouldn't really Activate your hamstrings too much it should be only The targeted muscle group. That's what we're able to do when we're using lightweight We're able to remove muscles That we don't want to be working and one other aspect. I like is the single arm dumbbell aspect Really helps build symmetry between the left and right side And this is the best exercise I've done to improve my posture So we did the rope pull-throughs We did the dumbbell pull-throughs And now I'm going to show you guys the single arm cable pull-throughs And I actually like using these as a superset with pull-ups or another exercise as opposed to doing them on their own Because you do have to use quite a lightweight, but there's still a great exercise. So and all I do is as with the other pull-throughs just Keep the arm static And what I'll do, you know, I'll do an overhand set. I'll do like five reps squeezing the upper back You know five reps squeezing the lats And then I'll switch to the underhand grip. I'll do the same thing, you know, a couple reps squeezing the upper back couple reps squeezing the lower back Really just take the last failure And the reason I like this a lot is because it's a single arm back exercise and there's not a lot of those, you know, you have Dumbbell rows, you have these pull-throughs. You can do rows with this but Unfortunately, most back exercises involve both arms at once and it's hard to build symmetry with that So this is definitely something I would incorporate into your routine But our next exercise is even better for that our fifth and final exercise And definitely my favorite exercise lately something I've been doing for the past nine months every day is single arm lat pulldowns And I'm going to do these facing this way for demonstration purposes But I usually do them by facing this way facing the functional trainer So this is really self-explanatory. I usually do about 50 pounds And I'm on my knees. I kind of sit back on my knees a little bit, you know, my my feet are My feet are flexed like this Nice and comfortable. I mean, I've done these sitting down. I've done these like this It's all over the place. Whatever feels good for my back at the time and you can do these Focusing on whatever part of your back you want. I tend to squeeze my lats But as I said with the other exercises, you know, a few reps you can squeeze your mid back A few reps you could squeeze your lower back A few reps you could squeeze your lats. So really squeeze the lats nice slow stretch And I do this like an underhand grip. I don't think this grip is that great. It's it's too much forearms and shoulders so I do keep My hands kind of parallel to my body Really flex the lats try to get a nice stretch and I'm doing lats now, but like I could lean forward a bit and do upper back I could lean back a bit and do the lower back too But The lower back too, but you know, this is where you realize that back is a very large muscle and You could do Six seven sets for each of these exercises. You could have a 50 60 70 set back routine easily You know, once you're thinking well, I want to do these cable rows But I want to do two sets with my upper back two sets with my lower back two sets with my lats You know, see how many exercises and sets and reps it takes for you to get that really good back pump and You know right now with my full body routines every day I'm spending 60 to 70 percent of my workout Just doing that because it's such a large muscle group and I'll do a whole video focusing on this But you know, just think about it. Look at how big your mid-delta is compared to your back It only makes sense that you do a much higher volume for back But thank you guys for joining me today. Let me know how you guys like these exercises Let's do a little bonus. Let me show you the the barbell pull-throughs as with most of these other pull-throughs You could do this for a warm-up. You could do this for a cool down. It's just a really great exercise in general and You can go a little bit heavier with this than the rope and there's also more variations. So You know, we have the overhand I could squeeze both my upper back As well as my lower back and my lats So now we can do the underhand variation So the underhand variation on any exercise is typically easier than the overhand as you can do more reps So I can feel this in my upper back I can do my You know lower middle back I can do my lats as well. So You know regardless of the back exercise you're doing You want to make sure to try to move the biceps as much as possible And you could even do that with a dumbbell row if you use the right amount of weight and you're really careful And I guess the main takeaway from this video for you guys is Use a lighter weight and really focus on Squeezing those individual parts of the back whether you want to focus You know two sets on upper back two sets on mid-back two sets on lats for an exercise Or you want to do it by the set like do five reps upper five reps mid five reps It doesn't matter the point is you're taking all parts of your back to failure As frequently as possible as often as possible. So thanks again for joining me today guys If you could please share the video You know drop me a comment as well as like the video And if you do want to support me further there's stuff you can check out down in the description I'll see you guys for tomorrow's video