It's time to go back-to-school on back training.
We're going to cover today the five biggest blunders that you can make when you're training
your back, and make sure that you don't make them so that you can get the most out of your
workout the next time you hit the gym.
What's up everybody?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.COM
Here at the gym to cover what I think are the five biggest blunders when it comes to
training your back.
If you haven't already seen the Tricep series that we covered, The Seven Sins of Tricep
Training, this is going to be a very similar approach I hope that you can benefit from
because I think it's covering a lot of things that you might be overlooking.
Now if you notice, I've got a new attire here, this is going to match my AthleanX uniform.
It's just I actually broke a pinkie and I am going to have to wear this for the next
six weeks.
So if you see this, you know that we're still recovering.
BLUNDER #1
First and foremost for our back we want to cover a principle that I think people overlook.
Yes it's a huge muscle group.
But what you want to do is, you want to kinda train zones, and one of the zones that I feel
people overlook is the upper back.
And that ties into the Traps and people always write in 'I want Tom Hardy Traps' or Roc Lizarn**1:27**
type Traps.
It's going to come from not just doing shrugs guys but incorporating upper back training
into what you do for your back.
So what I have done here is set up a pulley, which don't freak out, you can do it with
bands, you've just got to hook your bands around anything stable that's not going to
move, put them around knee height or thigh height.
Then you're going to back up, ok, I'm going to talk about this posture in point 3 here,
'cause you're going to see I have already addressed that and how important that becomes,
but you set your back.
Your arms are going to come out in front of you and then you're going to pull straight
back.
Ok, so by having this angle of pull here in this lean forward, I can now target way up
on the upper back, as if I'm almost doing an inverted pull down.
Ok.
So squeezIng it through here, back, Ok so you want to make sure that when you're training
your back, you're hanging from different angles so that you cover and attack the large areas
of this large muscle group.
BLUNDER #2
Now moving on from the upper back, we always have to sort of train the low back.
In the AthleanX program, we have our reverse hyper-extension using the physio ball but
we can also kind of take that to another level as well by putting yourself into a position
to do a hyperextension exercise.
Right.
So all you have to do is anchor your feet under anything, anything stable.
Get yourself into position over the top of a ball so that you can do a hyperextension
and target that low back area.
What we can do to make it even more intense is I will grab one of the Athlean elast-X
bands, wrap it once.
As I come up, I pull apart, come down, let it go, up pull it apart, down.
Ok.
So, again, we are always tying in upper and lower back.
The same way we did on the last exercise, even though I was targeting the upper back
by setting my low back the way I did, we were working the low back too.
So AthleanX training is always about integrating muscle groups to work together, alright, the
way that they prefer to work, but you want to make sure that you're never leaving any
part out.
So another major point, hit that low back every time you're training your back.
BLUNDER #3
Ok, so back to Back, our next point.
Our third point about setting the back.
I alluded to it in both the first and second points we already covered.
And that is when you're going to do any exercise, I don't care if it's squatting, if it's dead
lifting, if it's rowing.
In this case,the example that we showed in the beginning of the video, you always want
to start by setting your back first.
We covered this in a video once before on how to improve your strength in every lift,
and it's by making this simple adjustment.
Posture and setting the low back.
So from here I stick the butt out, right at the camera and as far back as I can go, I
want to get my pelvis to tilt that way.
Once I do that, you can see the low back is already engaged.
That sets the stage for me to now push or pull with authority.
Right?
If I'm moving my low back on every rep, right, swaying and moving, I'm getting a lot of dispersing
of force through my whole body because it is kinda waving, right, it's not ever stable.
When I lock the back in place, now we can push off of a stable platform.
If you had to think of it another way, if some of you could test your vertical jump
and you had a chance to jump off of either a solid ground or jump off of a canoe, how
high do you think you could jump off of the ground versus the canoe?
I can tell you, you would not jump high off of the canoe because as soon as you tried
to put force into the canoe, it would rock and give way and you wouldn't be able to push
off of it with any authority.
It is the same exact concept here.
You have to set this so that then you can then lift and pull with authority.
Guys, set the back to set the stage for better back growth on every exercise that you do.
BLUNDER #4
Next up, over here at a pull up bar, or this is just a Smith machine that we use as a pull
up bar, but the idea is one that I have covered before.
It's about how you do your pull ups and more specifically, what type of grip are you using?
When I do pull ups and what I advise guys who want to get the most out of their back
development as opposed to sort of working too much of their forearms or grip, is to
use a false grip or to use an open grip.
So we're really just looking at using our hands as hooks.
So I actually have less fingers over here.
I think it's perfect to use this hand for this.
I can actually do these pull up with two fingers.
You just hook two here and two here and you come up and you do pull ups.
It 's not very difficult, you could probably even do it with one, although I don't want
to try that 'cause I don't have any good fingers left.
But the idea is, you're not using your hands at all to do it.
What happens is when you use your false grip you're now allowing your elbows to do the
work.
Ok, I'm thinking about my elbow pulling down closer to my sides.
So from here pulling it down, here pulling it down.
Ok.
The advantage here is that I'm not involving the forearm.
Ok, if I start doing this, and grabbing the bar, now I start pulling with my forearm.
Lots of guys can actually start to feel elbow pain by doing that.
You can eliminate that pain, and the likelihood that if you get that pain while also getting
more out of your back workout by switching to the false grip.
BLUNDER #5
Alright, last but not least.
This is one of the ones that I think people overlook all of the time.
It is extremely important, it has nothing to do with a single exercise, but again how
you're performing the exercise, and it's about contraction versus momentum.
And especially when you're doing pulling exercises, the tendency is to let momentum do all the
work.
And I will tell you why in a second here as I demonstrate.
When I'm doing a pulling exercise, if I let momentum get involved, it's very easy for
me to lean back and pull, and lean back and pull because I have the ability to generate
momentum with pulling.
Think of a bench press.
It's hard to generate a lot of momentum because you're already pinned up underneath the bench
and you're on the bench and you're trying to push away but you can't really get a lot
of momentum when you push.
Ok?
No matter what exercise it is when you're pushing.
Most of the time it's very easy though, even on a bicep curl, to get a lot of momentum
when you are pulling.
So particularly on your biceps and back training, you want to make sure you eliminate the momentum
and you let the muscle actually do the work.
So I don't care if you're doing a lat pull down what you should do is let the muscle
contract and then obviously that eccentric control on the way back.
But let the muscle do the work and not the momentum.
When I do this, I think I'm training my back but I'm taking a lot of the effort out.
And when it really matters guys when it comes down to all of it, is what that muscle is
feeling during those 45 seconds or so that you're training in, not what number you got
to or how you got there.
A lot of times guys will say 'Oh god, I got there and it didn't even feel that hard'..If
it didn't feel that hard, you weren't contracting it consciously enough to get anything out
of the exercise.
So guys, this is what AthleanX training is about.
It's about doing things right.
Again, sometimes the shortcuts will get you to the end of your workout faster, or you
think you're getting more out of it.
If you're taking the shortcuts, you're getting less out of your training, and obviously less
results, we don't do it that way.
We do it here at AthleanX by doing things right and hopefully most effective in the
shortest amount of time possible.
Guys, if you haven't already, come on board Team Athlean and grab the 90-day training
program and try it out for yourself.
See what principles like this can do to unleash your results, whether it be on back training,
tricep training or anything else.
I'll see you guys back here in 7 days.