RIPPED Back Workout - In-Depth Tips (STEP BY STEP)
[Jeff in studio] "When it comes to training, the back is usually out-of-sight/out-of-mind
for a lot of guys, and the lats suffer because of that.
But if you think that's bad, the rhomboids are like the red-headed stepchild when it
comes to training, and we are going to fix that today.
[10-second music intro "ATHLEANX: TRAIN LIKE AN ATHLETE" - BACK WORKOUT]
[Jeff in studio] "What's up guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
Now, first of all, apologies to any of my red-headed stepchildren that are watching
this video.
You know that's just a phrase, but it underscores what we are talking about here and that is:
out-of-sight/out-of-mind, particularly when it comes to the back, and even more so when
it comes to the rhomboids.
I don't think guys are training their rhomboids a) enough or b) the right way.
So I wanted to put a video together today to show you and break down the different components
of what they are, how to test for them in case you have any imbalances left and right,
strength wise, and more so what you can try to do to improve that."
[ALL ABOUT RHOMBOIDS, THE FOUNDATION OF A RIPPED BACK WORKOUT]
[THE ROLE OF THE RHOMBOIDS] "Now, first of all, what they are and what
they do.
Guys, obviously, they are the muscles between the shoulder blades.
Ok, so they retract the shoulder blades and they basicallyůI've already engaged them
[Jeff demonstrates flexure of the rhomboids].
You can see them right in the middle of the back.
Their role is to counteract a lot of what we do in front of us.
And, what I mean by that is, constantly we are working on a daily basis on things in
front of us, whether we are on the computerů [screen flashes "CAUGHT YOU!"]Thumb me up
right now if you are watching this like this [Jeff slouches], watching this video slumped
over in your chair at your desk, or on your couch.
[Screen flashes "CLICK THUMBS UP BELOW IF YOU JUST CAUGHT YOURSELF SLUMPING WHILE WATCHING
THIS].
The problem, guys, is that we tend to have everything in front of us so that's the position
of our shoulders.
And then you add to that the fact that we train our chests, we train our lats, we train
things that do internally rotate our arms and it makes the situation worse.
So, the only things we have to combat that are rotator cuff muscles to externally rotate
the shoulders, but also the rhomboids to kind of pull those shoulder blades back and in.
[THE IMPORTANCE OF THE RHOMBOIDS - BACK WORKOUT MUST]
"Athletically, they are extremely important.
Pitchers that I worked with with the Mets for years, guys, they made it a real focal
point of their maintenance programs to make sure they did this to try to counteract what
was going on with all this [Jeff motions his arm as though throwing a ball] forward momentum
and motion of the arm.
Guys that are strength training, rhomboids are especially important.
Think of a dead lift, ok, or think of a squat.
If you can't activate your rhomboids enough [screen flashes "REGARDLESS OF YOUR SPECIFIC
FUNCTION YOU CAN'T IGNORE THE RHOMBOIDS!']to keep your shoulders locked back and in, you
automatically start to fall forward.
And what have I told you about that before?
The body usually follows the head.
If you are going to start doing this [flexing both arms in front of him], well, with that
goes your head, and with your head goes your body, and with your body goes your low back.
So, it is extremely important to start with the rhomboids and make sure that they are
strong."
[TESTING YOUR RHOMBOID STRENGTH - BACK WORKOUT] "Ok guys, so let's test the rhomboid.
I am going to show you a real simple way.
And for you guys following the ATHLEANX, you should be familiar with the inverted row.
It's also got a dual application as a testing exercise.
So, what we do isůremember, the rhomboids are going to pull the shoulder blades back.
There is a quick way to figure out what the strength of your rhomboids is.
If you get yourself underneath an inverted row right here [Jeff positions himself under
the bar], you square your body up; meaning you are not tilted down to one side, just
nice and square underneath.
I should then be able to move my hands close together, and then let go.
If I let go and I see this [Jeff's shoulder drops ], that's because the strength of the
rhomboid couldn't hold me in.
Ok.
If you start to see some kind of drop or rotation, then we will know that there is an imbalance
on that side, and I'm going to show you how to be able to address that.
But let's start first with, ĹHow do we strengthen these things now the right way?'
And then I will address the imbalances too.
[STRENGTHENING YOUR RHOMBOIDS - BACK WORKOUT] Ok.
So, now let's take a look at how we train them, right?
[TRAINING THE RHOMBOIDS] The most important thing, guys, is that there are two components.
As I said in the beginning, the rhomboids are a postural muscle.
Most of the muscles on our back side, on our posterior plane, are of postural nature, which
means that they fire to keep us upright.
[ARE YOU TRAINING ALL YOUR MUSCLES THE SAME?
- STOP!]
Even from the gluts but mostly low back up through the mid spine and upper back, right?
All these muscles are going to fire just to keep us upright.
So, they have to be used to working all day long as opposed to some of the muscles in
the front.
I mean, certainly, the bicep kind of fires on command.
We don't walk around all day like this [Jeff flexes biceps], right?
It fires on command.
[Jeff indicates back muscles].
These have to work all the time.
So, in order to address them, we really need to work on quality reps [QUALITY REPS].
We need to work on holding the exercises for a lot longer per rep [ISOMETRIC HOLDS].
And we also have to have ways that we can activate them better because [TRUE ACTIVATION]
I don't think we have a real good ability to do that.
They are mostly out of stretch all day long, and a long muscle that is posturally not stretched
for a long period of time becomes a much weaker muscle.
[STRENGTHENING, STEP 1, ACTIVATION] "How do we sort of consciously figure out
what we are doing here?
[FIRST STEP: ACTIVATION] We really have to make sure that we are not just rowing when
we do any kind of rowing motion.
We have to make sure that we are consciously contracting the rhomboids, too.
So, a quick little set-up here with the band.
I can row like this all day long, ok.
[IT'S TIME TO CARVE UP YOUR BACK THE RIGHT WAY] I'm using my lats and I'm pulling my
elbows in nice and close.
Ok?
[IT'S TIME TO GET YOUR ATHLEANX SYSTEM] But, when we want to activate the rhomboids, what
we have to do is really squeeze the shoulder blades together.
Ok.
Really squeeze the shoulder blades together [zooms in on Jeff demonstrating the band].
So, it's not just a row, but it's a row and a squeeze.
[STRENGTHENING, STEP 2, CORRECTING IMBALANCES] [SECOND STEP: CORRECT IMBALANCES]
"When you find that you have a right versus left imbalance over your rhomboids, you do
this one arm at a time (again keeping the other side square), and the treatment for
that is not 1 set of 20 repetitions, it's 20 sets of 1 repetition.
You want to make sure that you are getting top quality in making sure that you are getting
peak contraction of that rhomboid because that is our problem guys - we can't contract
that with much conscious action.
We are really a little bit more unaware of that muscle, and that muscle's connection
is extremely important.
[STRENGTHENING, STEP 3, EXERCISE EXAMPLES] "Let me show you one exercise that I think
is a great one for you guys to do.
The set up here is our land mine set up.
Again, you can do this at home if you have a bar.
If you are at the gym, it is obviously a lot easier.
But you don't need a lot of crazy stuff to be able to do this.
I take a bar and you can buy any of these little strap handles and you can use them
for anything.
These happen to come from my machine over there.
Slide them [Jeff bends over to slide the handles on to the bar.] over the bar, k, and I will
tell you why we use them.
[FOR THE COMPLETE BACK WORKOUT HEAD TO ATHLEANXTNT.COM] Your ego, guys, you got to leave it at the
door sometimes, whenever you are trying to train your back for the purpose of stretching
your rhomboids.
It's not about heavy.
The heavier you go sometimes, you lose the ability to control what's going on back there.
With these straps, I've given myself about 3 or 4 extra inches as you can see to be able
to pull and get around my back.
Last tip on the rhomboids: [Jeff lifts the bar by the handles] We are here.
We want to be able to get a prestretch of the shoulder blades and let them get around
your body.
[TRAINING TIP: GET THAT PRESTRETCH] So, as you can see from here [Jeff walks the bar
to his right] I might be able to sneak around here so you can see the shoulder blades kind
of engaged together.
Prestretch them.
Let them come forward because now you are going to be able to actually have some movement
to make in order to feel them moving and pinching together.
If you start from here and you go up [Jeff pulls the bar to his torso], there's no perceived
motion that you can actually feel.
So, you want to make it come around so you have a prestretch.
Now, from here, come up and squeeze.
Ok?
Down, prestretch, never let the lower back go with it, now come up and squeeze.
Down.
Up.
And squeeze.
[ATHLEANXTNT.COM] [Jeff standing] "That advantage of that prestretch
is what allows you to then at least feel the motion, so you are not feeling like you just
starting from here [Jeff gestures with hands] and making a small movement.
You have some room to be able to feel it going through that range of motion.
" Another exercise is called bat wings [GET
THE COMPLETE BACK WORKOUT ATHLEANXTNT.COM] where you lie down on a bench, you pull your
thumbs right up into your armpits [Jeff demonstrates], again, the idea of really squeezing in between
the shoulder blades as opposed to just rowing up.
Guys, rhomboids are just part of back training.
They are one of the prerequisites.
To have a stable back, you will be able to build a lot off of that.
It's like having a house.
If you don't have a good foundation, you can't build a big house, or at least expect it to
stand tall.
[TRAIN ALONG WITH ME AND GET MORE TRAINING TIPS LIKE THESE].
If you guys want to do more specific back training, something new here from ATHLEANX
is our TNT series.
It allows you to take a single muscle group like the back (which we just released this
week) and do an all-out targeted attack on that.
Now, why that's effective is two-fold. 1.
I know there's a lot of guys that are already doing their own programs, and they want a
little extra in a specific muscle group, so that would accommodate you.
2.
Another thing, we got guys that don't want to follow a 90-day program, and that's fine.
They kind of want to do one muscle group at the gym with their buddies, and that's alright.
We want to give you an option.
But for the guys that do our ATHLEANX training program (that you can get over at ATHLEANX.com),
the best part about these TNTs is that they allow you to integrate them directly into
your current ATHLEANX program.
So, wherever you are, if you want to get additional target work for a specific muscle group, you
can do that and I will tell you how to plug them in so that you still don't over train,
you still don't do too much, you get done exactly what you need to do.
It's sort of customizing the ATHLEANX program for you.
Guys, all of that available over at ATHLEANX.com, the TNTs, the ATHLEANX training system, all
on the products drop-down menu.
In the meantime, I hope you found this helpful.
I'm telling you guys, most of you are undertraining your rhomboids, and not doing them the right
way.
This will help you start and get a big jump start on so that you don't have to deal with
[Jeff slumps] this type of posture for the rest of your life.
[JOIN TEAM ATHLEAN TODAY, GET YOUR ATHLEANX SYSTEM]
I'll be back here guys next week.
In the meantime, make sure you leave a comment below.
Thumbs-up if this was a helpful video for you.
And, as promised, tell me what you want to see next, and we will work on getting that
to you as well.
I'll see you guys over at ATHLEANX .com.