Back Exercises

Back Exercises

The back may not seem like it but it is a very important muscle of your body.  About every time you pull something, lift something off the ground, or slide something heavy, you are using your back muscles.  The back has three main muscles in it, the traps, the lats, and the lower back.  Your traps are the muscles that make up your shoulder, it connects from your neck to the edge of your deltoid and narrows all the way down to your glutes.  Your lats are the outside of your back, it’s what makes the V-shape of your body.  Your lower back is just that, the lower portion of your back muscle.

Traps

·         Shrugs- Shrugs are very simple, you grab dumbbells or a barbell, hold it to the side of you, arms straight and you shrug, moving your shoulders up and down.  This is about the only exercise that focuses on the traps muscle but most other exercises that focus on the back will also define and grow the traps.

Lats

·         Lat Bar Pull Downs-  “Red Bull doesn’t give your wings, lat bar pull downs give you wings”, your lats are also known as your “wings” because they are at your sides and are wing shaped muscles.  Lat bar pull downs are probably the best exercise for lats.  You need a machine to do this and a lat bar.  You hold the lat bar up with your arms straight and you pull the bar down to your knee without bending your arms.

·         Bent Over Dumbbell Flies- To do this you need to dumbbells, bend over slightly holding the dumbbell straight and perpendicular to the floor, then you pull the dumbbell away from each other and up towards you until they are about the same height as your body.

·         Bent Over Rows- Bent over rows just needs a barbell and weight.  Do the same as the bent over dumbbell flies but pull the bar up to your chest keeping your back straight.  You can do this with regular or a reversed grip for different angles.  Also known as bo(bow) rows.

Lower Back

·         Supermans- About the only lower back exercise I know.  You lay flat face down on the floor and lift the upper part of your body bending at your lower back.  You may feel tension and slight pain from this exercise but that’s normal and will wear off soon.