Training back is one of my absolute favorite priorities in the gym. There are so many different angles to strengthen and so many innovative exercise variations that will make a real impact on your pulling strength, posture, and upper back development.
I often think of training the back as ‘training the arc’ or even ‘taming the arc.’ Hitting every angle as if you’re looking at all vertical/horizontal pulling across the spectrum of a protractor. Imagine pulling at every angle to develop a broad competency of strength and shoulder articulations in order to build the entire upper back. You could find infinite exercise variations of pull-ups, posterior flys, face pulls, rows, high pulls, and shrugs that pull at 0°, 20°, 30°, 40°, 50°, and so on, across the entire arc of available joint/pulling angles.
And, when you realize the available joint angles that can be trained, you may find a missing component in your own back training routines the needs to be developed.
[See Taming the Arc pic below for a visual representation of all available back training angles]
Simple Quick Reference Guide*
0° - Hanging scapular depressions, pull-ups, chin-ups, lat pull down variations
20-45° - Face pulls with pulley above shoulders, prone dumbbell high rows, seated cable rows with pulley above shoulders
90° - Barbell/dumbbell bent over rows, prone dumbbell rows, seated cable rows, prone Y, T, W ISO-holds, face pulls with pulley in line with shoulders, prone dumbbell posterior flys, prone dumbbell W’s, prone dumbbell batwings, prone scarecrow press
135° - Barbell high pulls, dumbbell high pulls, low cable upright rows, face pulls with pulley below shoulders, prone dumbbell rows on incline bench, prone Kelso shrugs on incline bench
180° - Dumbbell shrugs, barbell shrugs, trap bar shrugs
* This table represents a few common back training exercises at each vertical/horizontal pulling angle. This is not a comprehensive list. Incorporate your favorite back training exercises at each degree and build out your back training arsenal.
As I’ve discussed previously, if you’re trying to create a lot of metabolic stress with your supplemental/accessory work; supersets, add sets, and giant sets are a great way to ‘link’ multiple back exercises together and improve the efficiency of your workouts.
Here is a quick example - at 135° on our quick reference guide - of prone dumbbell rows immediately into Kelso shrugs performed on an incline bench. A quick superset that has minimal rest between exercises and a high impact on the lats, mid back, and traps.
I hope this idea of Taming the Arc gives you a simple illustration of the many different variations you can use to train your back and innovate in your own training. Having a visual guide sometimes helps us to think outside the box and give new energy to old boring workouts.
Try out this exercise variation in your next back workout and check out Ageless Athlete 5.0. It is my exact training blueprint for modifying conventional exercises (and programming) for older lifters to help them train optimally and for the rest of their life.