The H.U.G.E gym class back: the top five back-training mistakes and how to correct them
It’s complicated. Combining ball-and-socket joints that allow maximum arm mobility, a ribbon of snaking bones and nerves that divide the region down the middle, and a phalanx of big and small muscles spread from your butt to your neck, your back is your most complex bodypart. So it’s little wonder that many bodybuilders earn failing grades for training it. A lot of things can go wrong, but we’ve simplified the list to a top five. This month, we examine the most frequent back blunders and lay out easy solutions for getting your back on course. Class is in session.
MISTAKE #1 - Missing the target
EXPLANATION
Because your back is such a vast and complicated muscle group, there is much confusion about how to best train various areas. Many believe you simply need to pull your hands to the area you want to stimulate–low for lower lats, high for upper lats, etc.–but it’s not that easy to hit the target.
SOLUTIONS
- For lat width, focus on chins and pulldowns with a grip wider than shoulder width.
- For lat thickness, focus on freeweight rows: barbell, T-bar and dumbbell.
- The key to lower lat activation is keeping your elbows close to your sides and pulling them as far back as possible. Two good exercises are underhand, shoulder-width pull-downs and one-arm low-cable rows, both performed with maximum ranges of motion at the contractions.
- To hit your middle, upper-back muscles–especially the rhomboids, and lower and middle trapezius–do wide-grip rows pulled to your chest. Using a Smith machine or a low cable while seated, instead of a barbell, can make balancing easier when rowing to your chest.
MISTAKE #2 - Neglecting the lower back
EXPLANATION
One area not mentioned in our preceding rundown is spinal erectors. That’s because the most common problem here is not in missing the target, it’s in failing to even try. It is true that your lower back is stimulated during virtually any standing exercise, but to maximize the size and strength of your lower erector set, you need some isolation time, too.
SOLUTIONS
- Do deadlifts at least every other back workout. Deads work your spinal erectors in conjunction with numerous other muscles.
- Do 4-6 sets of lowerback isolation exercises at the end of each back routine.
- Back extensions, stiff-leg deadlifts (note: these are different from Romanian deadlifts, which involve less flexion and extension of the spine, and more hip flexion and extension to focus on the hams and glutes) and good mornings are excellent erector isolators. Another exercise is the back crunch, which begins like a back extension, but is a much shorter movement. Instead of bending at your waist/hips, contract your abs and curl your torso down (as if doing an ab crunch), and then rise back up by contracting your erectors.
MISTAKE #3 - In attention to your grip
EXPLANATION
You know the truism that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. This applies to every bodybuilding exercise, but it’s especially true of back work, where several secondary muscles and muscle groups (hands, forearms, biceps, rear delts) work in conjunction with your lats and other posterior muscles. Typically, your hands are the weak link in this chain, and if your grip gives out first, you won’t be able to maximally stimulate your back, no matter how strong all the other links are.
SOLUTIONS
- An underhand grip involves the biceps more and can place you in a stronger position, allowing you to use more weight. Incorporate both underhand and overhand grips into your back routine.
- Whether overhand or underhand, always wear training straps for any row, chin or pulldown. In research performed by the Weider Research Group, trained bodybuilders using straps during a typical back workout increased the number of reps they were able to complete by one or two on every set of every exercise compared to when they did the same back workout with bare hands.
- We recommend bodybuilders use straps during deadlifts, but if you want to increase strapless dead strength for powerlifting or other sports, alternate your grip by using what is known as a staggered grip (one hand underhand, one hand overhand) to better secure the bar in your grasp. A study presented at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the National Strength and Conditioning Association by researchers from the Weider Research Group found that trained lifters using a staggered grip significantly increased their strength on the deadlift compared to an overhand grip with both hands.
MISTAKE #4 - Overreliance on machines
EXPLANATION
The back is complex and the elbows can travel a great multitude of paths when pulled backward, so most modern gyms offer several unique rowing machines: high rows, low rows, unilateral rows, row/pulldown combinations, etc. This has encouraged too many bodybuilders to forgo barbells, dumbbells and chinning bars on back day and instead rely primarily on levers, pulleys, cams and cables. Machines may be more comfortable and lock you into a safe position, but a freer range of motion is generally superior for muscle stimulation.
SOLUTIONS
- As mentioned previously, do deadlifts at least every other back workout–with free weights, of course.
- Do at least one type of free-weight row–barbell, T-bar or dumbbell–in each back workout.
- In place of or in addition to pulldowns, do chins at least every other back workout. If you’re not strong enough to get 8 reps on your own, lighten your bodyweight by either having a partner slightly lift up on your feet, lightly resting your feet on a bench beneath the bar or using a chin assist machine.
MISTAKE #5 - Overusing secondary muscles
EXPLANATION
Bodybuilders who have trouble isolating their latissimus dorsi muscles tend to go either too heavy with sloppy form, thus overrelying on momentum and their spinal erectors, or pull too much with their biceps and/or rear delts, thus never fully stretching or contracting their lats. Because you cannot watch your back work while you are training it, it’s especially crucial to master proper form by feeling stretches and contractions during rows, pulldowns and other posterior lifts.
SOLUTIONS
- Work the weight, don’t let it work you. Use a weight you can comfortably handle with strict form for 8-12 reps.
- Pull with your elbows, bringing them back and/or down as far as possible.
- If your biceps are doing too much of the work, utilize only an overhand grip.
- Focus on the targeted area of your back. Don’t focus on the weight or the path of the movement.
- Do back isolation work, such as straight-arm pulldowns. Because rows and pulldowns/pullups involve movement at the elbows, they are multijoint exercises that use other muscle groups, such as the biceps, in addition to the back muscles. Therefore, these exercises do not isolate the lats. To isolate the lats, include one exercise that does not involve movement at the elbows, such as straight-arm pulldowns. Do these toward the end of training, after rows and pulldowns/pullups.
Credits:
- BY GREG MERRITT – SENIOR WRITER
- COPYRIGHT 2009 Weider Publications
- COPYRIGHT 2009 Gale, Cengage Learning
The huge gym class triceps: the top five triceps-training mistakes and how to correct them
Triceps are like the big brother with a blue-collar job, toiling in anonymity, carrying their own workload and assisting others (chest and shoulders). All the while, they’re overshadowed by their little brother–biceps–the star athlete who grabs more attention without working as hard (assisting only back). The key to this analogy is that tri’s are the bigger muscles, despite their lagging reputation. This month, we tackle the five most common triceps blunders and lay out a course for raising your tri’s to star status. Class is in session.
MISTAKE #1 – Not stressing all three heads
As the name suggests, your triceps have three heads: long (upper inside), medial (lower inside) and lateral (outside). The heads always work together, so it’s impossible to isolate one from the others. However, the angle of your arms changes the emphasis, stressing the heads differently. Too many bodybuilders are unaware of how various exercises hit their tri’s, and thus they typically overemphasize their lateral heads and underemphasize the long and medial heads.
SOLUTIONS
- When your arms are straight by your sides with an overhand or a parallel grip (palms facing each other, also known as a neutral grip), the lateral heads are worked most, as during conventional pushdowns.
- When your arms are straight by your sides with an underhand grip, the medial heads are hit most. Regardless of hand position, the medial heads also assist more on all triceps lifts as the arms reach full extension. To give your medial heads their due, consider adding reverse-grip pushdowns to your routine, and always squeeze out full contractions on triceps exercises.
- When your elbows are moved in front of your body or overhead, the long heads are targeted. Overhead extensions are best for “going long,” so always include some form of overhead tri extension in your routine.
MISTAKE #2 – Inefficient exercise order
No exercise order is incorrect, but some are less efficient. Changing the order can shock your tri’s, and at times you may want to pre-exhaust by doing, say, pushdowns before close-grip benches. However, begin most workouts with the exercises in which you can overload your tri’s with the greatest resistance. Do those first in your routine because that’s when you’re strongest.
SOLUTIONS
- Do compound lifts, such as dips or close-grip bench presses, first.
- Do two-arm, free-weight extensions next.
- Finish with unilateral (one-arm) or cable exercises.
- You can change the preceding order on occasion, but stick to it for most tri workouts.
MISTAKE #3 – focusing too much on machines and cables
Many trainers rely too heavily on various pushdowns and cable extensions. For example, it’s not uncommon for bodybuilders to include four sets of both V-bar and rope pushdowns in the same workout, but these similar exercises stress the triceps in nearly identical ways, emphasizing the lateral heads.
SOLUTIONS
- Do a compound exercise (one that also involves the chest and shoulders) in each tri workout. Examples include close-grip bench presses, upright dips and bench dips with your hands behind your back.
- Do at least one EZ-curl bar or dumbbell extension in each tri workout. Examples include lying EZ-curl bar triceps extensions, two-arm dumbbell overhead extensions and one-arm dumbbell overhead extensions.
- If you do two pushdown exercises, one should be done with an overhand or parallel grip (to emphasize the lateral heads) and the other should be underhand (to emphasize the medial heads).
MISTAKE #4 – Improper form
To focus the stress on your triceps, you need to keep your elbows locked in place. The moment you start moving your elbows forward, backward or outward, you shift some emphasis to your shoulders. Doing so allows you to use more weight or crank out more reps, but if you turn tri exercises into partial pullovers, you’re making it easier on your triceps when you should be making it harder.
SOLUTIONS
- Lock your elbows in place for all reps until you reach failure. For pushdowns this is easy to do by pressing your elbows against your sides and not allowing them to deviate from that position.
- After reaching failure with strict reps, you can then loosen your form to eke out a few more reps. Do this by moving your elbows forward during the negative half of the rep and backward during the positive half. Cheat as little as you must to keep the set going.
MISTAKE #5 – Overtraining
Out of all your bodyparts, triceps are the most prone to overtraining. This is in part because most bodybuilders know the tri’s are larger than the bi’s, and in their quest for higher-caliber guns, they assume that if they do 12 sets for bi’s they should crank out 18 for tri’s. Also–unlike your bi’s, which help only during back workouts–your tri’s help when you train chest (pressing movements or dips) and shoulders (pressing movements). If you train chest, shoulders and triceps on different days, they’re getting a triple whammy, likely without enough time to recuperate between workouts.
SOLUTIONS
- Triceps are relatively small muscles. Generally, 12 sets will suffice. If you do chest or shoulder pressing exercises earlier in the same workout, consider doing even fewer sets because your tri’s get some work locking out presses.
- Rest a minimum of 48 hours and ideally at least 72 hours between training chest or shoulders and training triceps. Arrange your workout split accordingly.
Credits:
- BY GREG MERRITT - SENIOR WRITER
- COPYRIGHT 2010 Weider Publications
- COPYRIGHT 2009 Gale, Cengage Learning
