What's up, guys, Jeff Cavaliere, Athleanx.com. So, if you're having a hard time kind of filling
up that V shape when you're looked at from behind, it's probably because you're not
training your back, right. Today I want to show you exactly how to do that. And this
is coming from someone who has had some good back development myself, but more importantly,
been able to do it for other people, like, let's say, Jesse, who went from a pretty skinny
back to one that's much more developed now. But the issue is actually the type of training
itself. When you talk about back training, you're likely going to use a lot of momentum and that's
by nature because it's built into the exercises we perform. See, if you talk about pushing exercises,
you don't get a chance to use as much momentum as you might on any pulling exercise. If I'm
doing a bench press, I either can get it off my chest or I can t. Or I could either do a Seated
Dumbbell Overhead Press or I can't. The issue is that with pulling exercises,
you always have the opportunity to swing your body in space to get that extra rep out. But
what the problem is, is that you're forgoing something really important in the process,
and that is utilizing a full range of motion. Now I get it, you probably heard four inch of motion
is important plenty of times before, but here it's especially important because the likelihood that
you're cutting it out is really, really high. So, what do we do? Well, we have to start by
decreasing the weight on some of the back exercises that you're doing. Not all of
them. There's no doubt that there's a value to using heavy weights when you perform exercises
like a Row or a Weighted Pullup. We want to build that base foundational strength up and
have the size follow. But we do know that you're going to be limited in the overall
amount of hypertrophy you can create if you're not focusing on these additional changes.
And so, if we lower the weight, it increases that range of motion right away because we
could explore more of that range utilizing a weight we can control. Beyond that, though,
we introduce another really important stimulus, and that is the stretch stimulus that comes from
training through a full range of motion, On an exercise, like a Lat Pulldown when we're
at the top of the exercise, we're getting a really good stretch, which in and of itself
is a good stimulus for growth. And if you're not actually trying to seek this stretch out,
be honest, you're probably not really utilizing it when you perform these sets. But again, it starts
with having a weight that we can command because otherwise we're probably going to abbreviate that
in the range that we can t actually control. But thirdly, though, when we use these
lightweights, well now we're actually having to make a change in our mindset,
which means we have to still now train these exercises hard. We have to push ourselves more
to failure. If you watch the recent video I made on the importance of utilizing really hard or high
intensity on sets that fail in a higher rep range 12, 13, 14, 15, and so on, well, you'll
understand just how important it really is. So, in combination with lightening, the weight, we're
going to push these sets further and harder. But lastly, it gives us a chance to explore the
motions of the lat. And if you look at it, it's a pretty diverse muscle group because it has a
lot of different functions. So, you can see that attaches here to the back of the humerus and it's
going to bring itself back in towards the midline of your spine. And if my arm was up overhead,
it can pull me down into adduction, right, just like this, which would come from a traditional
Pulldown. Or if I was doing an Underhand Pulldown, it has the ability to pull back
and extend the arm and this direction here. And we also have the horizontal abduction or the
ability to get the elbow back behind the body. So, if you think about it with a bent elbow,
it's getting the elbow wrapping around towards the back or towards the spine.
So, if we can utilize the full range of motion on exercises we're already doing,
that's going to give you a chance to actually get more gains from them. And then maybe even get you
to revisit some of the exercises that you're not doing anymore because you're overlooking
the benefit that you get from the stretch and from using the full range of motion.
So, if I look at an exercise here, like the pulldown, you can see that is going to be
done in that frontal plane, right. Working on the abduction of the elbows down towards the sides.
But I've shown you other alternatives here. I've shown you something like a Rocking Pulldown, which
gives me a chance to drop the elbow, not just back further behind our body into extension, but to get
that horizontal abduction function of the lats, to pull it closer to the midline of the spine. Now,
if you're going to do the exercise, you're going to want to do it right. Engage the weight first
and pull it down first and then start to pull down on the bar. I've mentioned this before, you don't
just pull the bar from one end. That's just when someone's trying to disingenuously suggest that
the exercise doesn't work. Oftentimes in order to gain some relevance, an otherwise irrelevant
presence in the industry. But I digress. So, we pull it in this asymmetrical fashion.
You're actually getting a little bit more load on one side versus the other, and that's fine because
you might be asking yourself, what if I just did this with a single arm pull down? And I'd say,
great, if you have the ability to do it, because there you get a chance to explore
all the benefits we're talking about that are necessary to make your back start to
grow again. You get that great stretch at the top. You have the ability to drive the elbow
really tight down to your side and also get it back behind your body into extension with that
wraparound effect, with that horizontal abduction to really get that solid lat contraction.
Again, I might have to lower the weight, but that's okay because I'm going to counteract that
by simply taking those sets all the way to failure to get the benefit I'm looking for. I could do
the One Arm Standing High Row, which is one of my favorite exercises ever, And I can get even better
of a stretch because I could drop that hip back and get the pelvis further away from the arm to
allow myself to have a really intense stretch at the top of every repetition and then pull it down
to really height and contraction again. Again, I might have to lower the weight,
it's irrelevant here. Mix these in with your standard heavy weight training. It's the missing
element that you're not doing right now that is really going to be the key to your new gains.
And then if you look at it, exercise like the Straight Arm Push Down. I program that almost
every single program I have because I realize its unique benefits because I can get that good,
isolated contraction on the lats, I can get to that full stretch. I can even exaggerate
it by dropping down to my knees and letting my arms float even higher on every repetition.
But again, the point here isn't to break records with the weight that I'm moving. It's just to
break through some of those hypertrophy stalled gains that I might have, and you
might be suffering from right now by performing these exercises you may have overlooked. And
then I could even change the angle of the arm during the exercise you're already doing. So,
I talk about the Underhand Lat Pulldown being an option to the frontal plane or more standard
version of the pull down. And the reason supported once again by what I just showed you here,
explore all the functions of the lats. Don't just work in the frontal plane but get that
arm out in front of you and work out more of the extension and take advantage of that increased
stretch that we get on the lats by being there. So, the point is, guys, you're probably letting
momentum take over for what you're doing right now. And that's a natural tendency on all pulling
exercises. But this is where you have to intervene and say, I'm aware of that and I've got to change
that. And when you change that on whether it's the exercise you're already doing or on some of
the exercises you forgot to do that you used to do. Just make sure that you're lightening
the weights to allow you to get that full range of motion and get that stretch. And most importantly,
adapt for that by taking those exercises to all out failure as of rep ranges go higher
and higher if you want to see those gains. That I promise you guys will deliver the
gains that you're looking for and start to fill in that V taper that's lacking right now.
If you're looking for a back workout that will actually do that for you, you can find
the perfect back workout linked for you over here. If you look for a full program guys,
you can find them over at Athleanx.com. I hope you found the video helpful. If
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you never miss a video when we put one out. All right, guys, see you soon.