Like many other gym-goers, one of the main things I wanted to achieve when I first started lifting was a wider back. A wider back helps build out your V-taper and creates the illusion of a smaller waist. But how do you develop a wider back fast? If you’re seeking to do this, then the main muscle that you’re going to want to develop are the lats, as growing this muscle will help effectively add the width to your back that you’re after. But, unfortunately, doing so often isn’t as simple as just hammering away at the lat pulldown machine. Because adding a decent amount of width to your back requires more than just performing all of the right exercises. In this video, I’ll be explaining a range of training strategies you can use to build a bigger and thicker back.
Activate The Lats Properly: First, you need to ensure that you’re able to maximally activate and utilize your lats in the first place. This is because for most lifters, one of the more difficult muscles to activate and actually feel working when training tends to be the lats, which often leads to other muscle groups like the biceps and traps to take over and essentially steals gains from the lats during back training. This is detrimental since we know based on a recently published 2018 study that establishing a strong mind-muscle connection with your muscles when training them seems to boost growth.
Target the Upper And Lower Lats: Next, you need to ensure that you’re emphasizing both the upper and lower lats within your training. If you want to maximize your back width, then it’s vital that you target both the upper and lower regions of the lats appropriately during your training which most people unknowingly fail to do.
Exercises that involve more shoulder adduction where the angle of pull is more in line with the upper lat fibers will more effectively hit the upper region, such as wide grip pull-ups or wide grip pulldowns. The lower region of the lats run more parallel to the body and are basically straight up and down. Therefore, exercises such as close grip pulldowns, chin-ups, and close grip rows will more effectively hit this region.
Make Your Rowing More Lats-Focused: Next, we want to tweak your rowing exercises to focus more on the lats. Now when most people think of lat exercises, they mainly think of pull-downs and pull-ups. But it’s important to realize that many rowing exercises when done properly are just as effective at building the lats. In fact, as shown in this EMG analysis from a 2018 study by the American Council of Exercise, we can see that many rowing movements elicit lat activation similar to that of pull-ups and lat pulldowns. Let’s take a look at the seated row for example.
If you perform it by angling the elbows out away from the sides more and focus on squeezing the shoulder blades together every rep, then you’ll be mainly emphasizing the traps and rhomboids. Whereas if you instead tuck the elbows in close to your sides, pull slightly lower, and think about pulling your elbows down and back then you’ll be able to emphasize the lats much more since you’re putting it in a more mechanically advantageous position.
Engage The Lats During Deadlifts: Lastly, you’ll want to ensure you’re properly using your lats during the deadlift. So to do this, before you lift, pull the bar into your shins and think about essentially performing a straight arm pulldown with the bar in order to engage the lats. You should now feel your lat muscles activated and turned on as a result of this.
It really is key training tips like the ones I mentioned in this video that is going to make all the difference if you want to build muscle as fast and as effectively as possible. And that’s exactly why within each of my Built With Science programs, we’ve taken the time to not only carefully select each and every exercise included in your weekly routine but we’ll also show you exactly how to optimally perform it and use it to build muscle based on science. To join today just head on over to builtwithscience.com and take the analysis quiz to discover which program is best for you and your specific starting point.
To join today, simply head on over to and take the starting point analysis quiz to discover the best program for you.
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GRAPHICS: Vector art from Vecteezy.com
MUSIC: soundcloud.com/lakeyinspired
STUDIES:
MIND-MUSCLE CONNECTION
LAT ACTIVATION DURING LAT PULL-DOWN
BEST BACK EXERCISE REVIEW
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