Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1187: Four Ways to Build an Impressive Back

Episode Date: December 19, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin talk about four areas to focus on and train to build an impressive back. How building an impressive back makes you stand out among the crowd. (1:40) The importance of developing a strong back evolutionary speaking and for overall health. (4:45) What muscles make up the back? (7:30) Four Ways to Build an Impressive Back. (8:40) #1 – Rowing action of the muscles of the back. (9:27) Proper row mechanics. (11:50) When people neglect rows, what do their backs look like? (19:05) #2 – Being able to do a pull-up or pull-down. (21:01) Proper pull-down mechanics. (23:57) Proper pull-up mechanics. (26:35) #3 – Extension movements to strengthen the back. (33:30) Proper mechanics and benefits of the deadlift. (34:30) Where does most chronic low back pain come from? (40:02) Proper mechanics of Good Mornings. (41:21) #4 – Stabilizing the back with proper movements. (43:38) The proper mechanics of the Farmer’s Walk. (47:25) The proper mechanics of the Suitcase Carry. (49:39) Laying the foundation for the back with active planks. (50:54) What does it look like when you don’t stabilize your back? (54:14) Related Links/Products Mentioned December Promotion: MAPS Aesthetic ½ off! **Code “BLACK50” at checkout** 4 Things You Can do to Alleviate Your Back Pain – Mind Pump Blog How to Row: Correct these Common Mistakes for Maximum Lat Development How To Properly Do The Seated Cable Row (IT MATTERS!) - MP Tv How To T-Bar Row The Right Way! (BACK BUILDER!) - MP Tv The BEST Form for One-Arm Dumbbell Row | Ben Pakulski The ONLY Way You Should Barbell Row – MP Tv How To Do A Pull Up | Banded Pull Up Regression (TRY THIS) - MP Tv How To Actually Target Your Lats With The Lat Pulldown! - MP Tv How To Do A Perfect Pull-Up (AVOID MISTAKES!) - MP Tv How to Perform a PROPER Dumbbell Pullover (Target Chest of Lats) | MIND PUMP Engage Your Lats With The Straight Arm Pulldown! (GROW YOUR BACK) - MP Tv How To Start Deadlifting (REGRESSIONS) - MP Tv Build Your Hamstrings- How to Properly do Good Mornings – MP Tv Add Size to Your Traps with Farmer Walks Kettlebell Kings Presents: Kettlebell Suitcase Carries - Kettlebells 4 Aesthetics Mind Pump TV - YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump, we talk about one of the most important body parts you could possibly train, both from a functional standpoint. In other words, training this area will make you move better and prevent pain just as a normal human, but also from an aesthetic standpoint looks,

this body part is extremely important. We're talking about the back. The back, and we're talking about the four kind of segments or categories of exercises you should pick from when you're training your back. So we talk about rowing movements, pull down movements, extending type movements, and movements that help you stabilize the spine

to prevent injury and to develop an impressive, amazing looking back. But before the episode starts, I want to remind everybody that Maps aesthetic is 50% off. Now this is our program designed specifically for people who work out to change the aesthetics of their body. People want to shape, sculpt, and build their body how they see fit.

In other words, you can go into this program, it's fully laid out for you. And you can pick body parts and areas that you want to place more emphasis on. So you can literally sculpt your body like a sculptor. Again, this workout program is 50% off. Here's how you get the discount. Go to mapsblack.com and use the code black50,

B-L-A-C-K, 50, no space for the discount. Adam, when you competed in the physique world, who me? Mens bikini. Mens bikini. When you were in that whole space, you know, what was the most important body part, the one body part that could either win competitions

or lose competitions? You're back. Intertized. Easy, right? For men's physique, I mean, of course, you can make a case for almost everything. Anything's really too bad. But, yeah, but I mean, if you, when you look at like the average gym gore, like somebody

who has just good symmetry and they came in, they started training really hard for like a year, you could get on stage and like compete with amateur men's physique guys pretty well. If you did a good job of dieting and everything like that, just from a standard physique, meaning that you've, you're trained pretty balanced in your chest, arm shoulders and everything like that, just from a standard physique, meaning that you've trained pretty balanced in your chest, arms, shoulders, and everything. But I think the impressive backs is what really would separate all of us

when you would turn around, flare out your lats, you would be able to really exaggerate that shoulder to waist ratio, which they like that, that's what they're looking for. And if you have a really impressive back, I mean, I think it's what won the shows that I won. I think for sure when I looked at the other guy, I think sometimes the guy had better arms than I did,

or maybe a better impressive chest, or abdominal region, but yeah, he had better calves. He calves are on the bottom of the list for sure for minceweaks, thank God. So I got away with mine for sure. It's true for bodybuilding, it's true for bikini competition, Those are on the bottom of the list for sure for minceweek. Thank God. So I got away with mine for sure. It's true for bodybuilding. It's true for bikini competition.

It's true for women's, you know, display sports, figure, fitness. The back is like the, and it's funny because it's the one body part where it also makes an impact from the opposing side. So what I mean by that is, you I don't have nice looking hamstrings, you can't really tell from the front, does it make a big difference? Your back actually makes a difference from the front, too, because it gives you that illusion of having the...

Well, the hip to waist ratio. It's wideness. It's also made up of a bunch of muscles, too. It's not just one. Yeah, I know, we call it like the back, but that is there are tons of muscles. Right, and so I think it just, it takes a ton of work to make it really impressive

in comparison to chest or shoulders or arms. I think you could do a couple exercises. Just two exercises probably for the chest or the shoulders or the arms, and you could build a pretty impressive one. The back is not the case. The back takes a lot of separate attention to detail in order to build. And you can watch what you're doing, you know, like with your chest and your arms and

your abs and like it's really hard to, you have to fuel your way through it and really connect with your back as a challenge for a lot of people because it's like, for some reason it's that neglected person behind you. No, it's a great point. How many, almost anybody can flex their bicep. Everybody's listening right now, flex your bicep right now. Everybody could do that.

Probably another 50 to 60% could flex their chest. Super disconnected to the back. Right, right. Tell someone to flex your lats right now and I bet you only a very small percentage of people could actually do that. Totally. Now, from an evolutionary standpoint,

a strong, healthy, back meant you were probably a pretty functional, strong, and healthy person. When you look at Greek sculptures, and Roman sculptures, when they're displaying muscular, gladiators, or athletes, or gods, pay attention to the muscles that they place special emphasis on, and all of them, you turn them around, and they have these very muscular

Sinui looking backs when you look at people who work laborious jobs who don't even lift weights people who have to work hard Physically for a living the one part of their body besides maybe their hands that is well developed is their back In fact, you can almost always tell when you look at an athlete or I knew when I was in Jiu-Jitsu or wrestling, you know, somebody had a muscular looking back, you know, it was a good guess. You're good for it. Yeah, it was a good guess that the person's probably going to be really strong. Well, you're making the case evolutionary speaking, but I think too, like health,

like in just longevity. And when you think about us, we do, we're so anteriorly driven, right? Everything in front of us, everything's in front of us and we're rounding in the body. The body from literally almost the day we're born to the day we die is just closing up, closing up, closing up as we get older. And so to do stuff that addresses the post year chain or your back side, like your back helps, you know, protect or prevent you from rounding forward like that. So I think of it that way. Like, man, talk about one of the most healthy things that we can do for ourselves, for our overall posture is to develop your back.

You see that right away, just in presentation, right? Being nice and upright, like you need that back support to be able to keep everything in good alignment and be able to keep you tracking, even with your shoulders especially. Number one area of chronic pain in Americans, and you can even extend this to the rest of the developed world, is the back. It's either low back pain or upper neck and shoulder pain, which comes from a lot of issues in the back. Those are the most common areas of pain. Low back, in particular. It's also, if I see somebody working out in the gym with some experienced training,

the one part of the body that I often see people doing at the wrong way, without good form of technique, is the back. In fact, one of the things I would do with a client who had worked out before, is I would do my assessment. One of the things I do with them was be a cable row because it was an easy way for me to see what they did wrong and show them.

Oh, this is actually how you do it the right way and I'd blow their minds. So it's extremely important yet a very neglected part of the body, both because we don't see it very often and also because we just don't know how to train it properly. And you're right Adam earlier who said, you have to do a lot more things for the back, totally true. Angles are far more important for training the muscles of the back than they are for training.

Anything else, just because it's made up of so many different muscles, there's, I think, something like 11 superficial muscles and seven other would have considered deep muscles that make up the back. It's everything from the lats, the rhomboids, the traps, the erector spinae, you have the posterior deltoids, the stabilizing muscles like the QL, and the transverse abdominis, which you can make the argument

that that helps support the spine. The more common ones that we know about, the lats, those are the wings of your back. So when you look at someone's back and you see the width that they have, those are the lats. The rhomboids are in the middle of your back. So when you look at someone's back and you see the width that they have, those are the lats. The rhomboids are in the middle of the upper back, the trapezius make up the middle

and the upper part of the back. Erectorspinay muscles that run up the spine that helps strengthen stabilize the spine. And then the other ones help with stabilization of the lower back and the core, which helps protect the lower back. So, and those are just the popular ones that we know to train.

When we talk about the deeper muscle on stuff, it's a very big complex area, so it's important that you train your back with a few different ways, or at least a few different things you need to consider when you train your back, because you can do a back workout with five different exercises,

but they may all come from the similar category. And so, although you're doing a lot of exercises, you may be training your back in an unbalanced way, which can promote not just injury, but it just doesn't look as good. It's not aesthetic because there's lacking balance. And there's a lot of back exercises, but I think if we can break down

how to train the back into categories of ways you can train your back, then people can pick exercises from each of those categories and make themselves a pretty well balanced. No, I think we should break it up in four major groups, and then from there, talk about what's being done in that, and then what exercises that we think are best that support that type of a movement. Perfect. So the most important action of the back, and I'm not saying it's not,

it's most importantly, there's aren't important. They're all important, but the one that most people should place special emphasis on is the rowing action of the muscles of the back. Okay, and the main reason why I say that's most important is because rowing, the rowing action of the muscles of the back. Okay, and the main reason why I say that's most important is because rowing, the rowing action of the back directly counters some of the major issues that we see in modern life where the shoulders roll forward.

So oftentimes, and I would get a brand new client, and I'm just trying to work on, you know, better posture and trying to get them to move better. The first exercises I do for back are rowing motions. And rowing really constitutes, obviously, imagine you're standing up tall, it's taking something in front of you, pulling it more towards your midsection, pulling the shoulder blades back at the same time.

This was one that I, you know, if you're talking about having to apply it for the first time, was incorporated into my assessment process. Like a seated row was very revealing to see how their body, you know, had formed over the years and how, you know, their shoulder wasn't able to kind of stay in, in its proper position and, you know, the strength, their connectivity there with the shoulder blade and being able to pull properly while, you know, keeping that shoulder isolate is something that's very important to then move forward.

This is so important that this is an exercise. A lot of times that I did and didn't do chest exercises like a bench press or any sort of front delt raises or overhead pressing until I address this. If I had a client who came in and they are advanced age and they just want to alleviate chronic pain and feel better and they don't really give a shit about how much they bench press

or balance muscle symmetry for looks. They just care about how they move. A lot of times I spent a lot of work working on like rows and kind of even leaving alone bench press for a while until they got to a place where they could really get themselves in a retracted position, because some people are so tight and forward that, if I do a C to row, then I follow that right back up

with a bench press, they're not in the position yet to even hold their body correctly. Right. I think we should talk about proper row mechanics. Of course, it changes from exercise to exercise within the rowing category. But generally speaking, proper row mechanics includes the obvious, which is pulling a bar or a cable or a machine from in front of you towards your midsection area. You can even include the chest,

there's some high rows that allow you to do that. So you're pulling something to your body that's in front of you. So this involves using the biceps, pulling the weight back, but it also involves pulling the shoulder blades back and not allowing them to shrug too much, or in some cases, not at all. So it's not just pulling the weight back, because I could technically pull a way back

without pulling my shoulders back. I could keep my shoulders forward and just pull a way back. In which case, I'm not doing a proper row and I'm actually making things worse for both my posture and then of course my aesthetics. I'm not developing those mid upper back muscles like the mid traps and the rhomboids, which their action is to pull the shoulder blades back.

And I will add this, you should be able to row at bare minimum as much as you compress in front of you. And I would say in more cases, you should probably row more than you compress if you want healthy shoulders. If you want healthy shoulders, rowing is extremely important. Yeah, and back to what I was saying about my point is you just addressed it right there.

There's a lot of people when they row. I think seated row is actually one of the most common exercises as far as done improperly, but looks to the average eye like they're doing rows. Right. Because they're sitting upright and maybe they're not moving all over the place, but because they're rounded forward and they pull in, they end up using their arms and very little of their back gets engaged. And this is probably an area that I probably had to spend a lot more time in with most my clients. I remember like being behind them and like sticking my knee in their back.

Pulling their shoulders. Pulling their shoulders. Pulling their shoulders back to get them to understand what retracting the scapula felt like. And that takes a lot of work, man. If someone's never really done that before and isn't connected really well, we'd have to spend a lot of time in there. I'd be rowing at least two, three times a week

every week just to get that action familiarized with their body so that they could go do other movements like bench press. It's like trying to pinch, just if you're listening right now, what does that mean? Imagine if there's a pencil between your shoulder blades. Yes, put my fingers right there.

Yeah, and try to squeeze your shoulders black like you're trying to hold the pencil with your shoulder blades. While you are not shrugging your shoulders, if this is a hard area for you, a movement for you, what you'll find is as you squeeze back, you'll shrug at the same time. We don't want you to shrug too much when you're doing rows.

I want you to focus more on the pulling back, the pinching back of the shoulder blades. That's a very important part of rowing. Now, when I started working out, luckily, I trained during the, and I was into bodybuilding as a kid, right? I wanted to build lots of muscle. I trained during the Dorean Yates era. Now, Dorean Yates, for the people who don't know that, is he was a Mr. Olympia. I think it was five time or six time Mr. Olympia. And he was known for having this incredible back. That's what got him to win all his competitions.

So of course, because he's the champion and because his best body part is back, everybody wanted to know what exercises did Doreen Yates do to develop that amazing back. So here I am as a kid. I don't know much about exercise. All I'm doing is I'm listening. I'm reading what the top bodybuilders are doing. And during the eights was a huge fan of rows. In fact, that was his core exercise.

He either did a hammer strength, ISO rows, the machine you can find in some gyms, or he would do barbell rows, either with a forward hand grip, or with a reverse grip, or what's known as a supinated grip or your palms face forward. So luckily for me as a kid,

the back exercises that I did the most to start out with were rows. Loved rows and my favorites are your good old fashioned barbell row, both with your hands forward and back. And if you do it right, boy, does that, that is such an effective and amazing back exercise. I don't know if I'd start there though.

Does any clients, people should start somewhere else? I like T-Bar rows better there for a client's arm. Because their trunk is stabilized. Oh, it's a chest pad? Yeah, with a chest pad because then all I have to do is work on them being able to retract versus doing a barbell row requires you to be able to understand how to hinge

at the hips and stabilize in that play and then pull your shoulder back. So it's a little bit more complex for the average gym goer. So it's not the first place I start. A seated row and a T bar row, I think, is a training most all clients. That's the place to start off to get them to really understand how to do that. But eventually we want to progress to where we're doing some barbell or dumbbell rows. The dumbbell rows too, it's like, so that's a whole other thing to where I'm trying to make sure that they know to keep their body and their hips from turning. And like, so they're anti-rotating at the same time.

So there's a little bit more to that in terms of how to keep your body tight, keep it in the same position, be able to also perform that action that we're trying to teach you through those simple moves. So I like those ones proceeding the dumbbell row for that reason because it is, you're going to get that pull left to right, which is the key. Well, if I'm rowing right here, if I'm dumbbell rowing right here, I'm actually doing it with rotation. I'm, if I'm going to do, I'm going to save anti-rotational movements for like when we're doing stabilization type stuff.

That's where I would, if I'm talking rowing exercises, how I teach a dumbbell row here is more, I allow rotational movement through the trunk. And if I'm teaching stabilization stuff and doing rows, then I'm doing anti-rotation. In fact, I love doing dumbbell rows as one of the first exercises that I would have with a client for their back. And the reason why I like doing this is, I found that it was easier to teach

that bringing the shoulder up and back with the dumbbell row because I would allow them to do exactly what you said, Adam. I would let them do a little bit of rotation. So let's say somebody has their knee in their hand on a bench to do a dumbbell row. I'll tell them, all right, pull the dumbbell up to the side of your midsection. And turn up.

While you're doing that, I want you to rotate just a little bit so you bring your shoulder up. And I put my hand behind their shoulder and say, all right, touch my hand with your shoulder. And inevitably, that would mean that they'd also retract the shoulder a little bit and get some of that movement. It feels more range of motion that way too. Yes, and it would feel more natural for them.

So I love dumbbell rows for that reason. And dumbbell rows are one of those rare exercises that is both beneficial for beginners but also extremely beneficial for advanced people. In fact, the dumbbell row has got to be one of the staple rowing exercises that you do to develop your back. So go seated row, T-barrow, dumbbell row, and then you got your barbell rows where, now if you're bringing a barbell to your lower part of your body where elbows are closer to your body, you are going to work different parts of your

back and get maybe a little bit more lats if you're smart. If you bring it up towards the chest, you're going to, and your elbows flare out a little bit. Now you're getting more of the upper back and the rear part of your shoulders or rear deltoid. In fact, one of the best exercises I've ever done for the back of my shoulders is a wide grip, elbows out, row. In fact, I found that even more effective than your traditional reverse flies that people

would do. Yeah, and now you get to talk about when people neglect rows, what does their back look like? Oh, it has no depth. Muscularly speaking. It's not three-dimensional. Yeah, muscularly speaking, you don't have that mid-back depth to your back.

Now, functionally speaking, it looks like forward shoulder. It looks like, you know, even if you do lots of other exercise but you neglect rows, you might have a wide back, but your shoulders come forward and it's flat. There's no depth to your back. So if you're a female and you're wearing a dress, well your back is cut out and you don't do any rows, you're not gonna have that mid back, you know, crease that goes down the spine

or whatever work kind of dips in and gives you that nice, that the diamond at the top of your back, you get that thickness comes with that three-dimensional look comes from that diamond, which is the traps and the rhomboids from getting developed from you doing things like rows. So you miss out on that. So I like the definition of it.

You miss out on the thickness or the depth of the back by not doing rows. Totally. Aside from how bad that is for you, just over, I think when you think of exercises that the average population needs to be doing more of, row has to be up there with number one or two. Yeah, right.

It has to be the top two or three I was gonna say for dresses, so many things. Right, because we've talked at Nazium that most people suffer from some sort of upper cross syndrome if it's not really, really bad. Everybody has a little bit of it. And so a movement like that really totally helps with all of the issues that you're dealing with with upper cross syndrome. Oh, totally. So I would consider rowing to be probably the most important generally speaking, you know, segment of movements that you should choose from

to do when you do your back workout. So this includes all types of rows, machine, cable, and free weights, but we name some of our favorites. Some type of a rowing movement should be a part of your regular back workout. Now the second segment, the second category of exercises, I think this one's easy. It's a close second because it's also extremely important. It's just, you know, generally speaking, that is important how it's doing, but it's still very important is being able to do a pull up or a pull down.

That motion where your arms are up above your head and you're pulling weight down or pulling your body up, you're simulating a pull up. It's a very important action of the back muscles. And I think it goes back to our roots as primates who are able to climb trees and pull ourselves up over things. The, and you really work the lats of the back effectively with pulling down or pull up movements. In fact, that's the main area.

And that skill is important, right? Just functional speaking. Like, how many times will you have something that's above your head and you have to either pull your own body weight up or grab and pull down? Like, I just feel like that's one of those movements that, you know, if you don't use it, you lose it. And it's important that we incorporate that.

And ideally, I want to be at a place where I have the strength to pull my body weight up. That's where I want to be at. But if I'm not there, then a regression to that is doing things like you said, the lap pull is hand in hand with overhead press. I mean, you want that to counteract and to balance out your shoulder. So you have that longevity in your shoulder joint. So you don't end up, you know, with this over usage type injuries in the, in, you know, detracking from where your shoulder position should be. Oh my God. I'm so glad you said that, Justin. When I would get clients who could not reach straight up above their head, which is common. It's common. In fact, if you're listening right now, you might think this doesn't apply to me. It might go up against the wall,

put your butt up against the wall, your heels up against the wall, your shoulders against the wall, don't let your back arch too much, keep your back flat against the wall, try and reach straight up above your head while keeping your whole arm in contact. Well, you might not be able to do that. You might find yourself compensating by arching your back and leaning back and very difficult. So what I would do with clients like that,

which was actually more common than you think, is one of the ways that get them to get their arms to go above, is that would do pull down movements. Why? Because they're not having to push their arms up, they're pushing down, but they're allowing the bar to pull them up into that range of motion. It's actually a very important part

of being able to get your arms up above your head without any pain. Now from an aesthetics standpoint, I mean pulling down works the lats. That the latissimus dorsi wings. Those are two, those are the some of the biggest muscles of the upper body. They gave, they give the back, the meat on the sides,

and the lower part that, the wing aspect of it. Super, super prized in body building, physique competitions, and other type of physique presentation type sports. Very, very important. Now here's the thing. It's hard to feel the last when you do a pull down or a pull up for a lot of people.

It's a very difficult thing to feel. So technique is very important. Now just pulling yourself up, you're gonna use some laths of course, but you can do it in a way to where you use more arms than you do laths. So form is very, very important. And I remember the first time I did these right, you know, I was a kid and I did pull downs and you know, I was working out with someone who knew what they were doing and they said,

Hey, pull your chest to the bar, you know, pull your chest up to the bar, squeeze your shoulders, bring your scapula down, your shoulder blades down, stick your chest up as you're pulling down, and then watch what happens. And all of a sudden, they felt these lats start to activate, and I thought it would blew my mind. Not only that, but you instantly all of a sudden feel stronger. Because all of a sudden, you engage the bigger muscles to help you out, and we were probably pulling more

with your arms before, which are such a small muscle and fatigue early. Totally. I was doing chin ups and pull ups and all that stuff, and my arms would get really small. Sometimes it takes like that last like one to two inches, you know, you've been collecting in that range of motion for you to really finally get that sensation. Yeah, it's been crazy.

That cue was the most ultimate cue ever for me. And I wish I remember where I first picked it up, but man, once I picked that up and I started teaching that to my clients, that was a game changer. And I would set a client at the lap pull down machine. And cause here's the thing that's, when you're a trainer and you're watching someone

do a lap pull down and you can see that they're just rolled forward and they're pulling them down with their arms. You see this in the gym all the time, probably one of the most common things. He's totally, right? It's like the number one machine people gravitate to and they do it wrong.

Right, and they pull it all down with their arms. I used to love to let them do it the way they are doing it. And then I'd catch the bar and stop it. And I'd hold it about six to eight inches away from them knowing that they could drive in further. I'd say, okay, now do not pull it down anymore, pull your chest up to the bar and from that position. And then also they, whoop, they put their cells in.

Oh my God, I feel that. Right. And then I say, now drive back and squeeze. Oh, whoa. Yes. That's what you want to feel. People did it so wrong, in fact, that this is common, that they'll roll forward as they do a pull down. So the chest will come forward, shoulders come forward. And then they'll turn the last half of the pull down into a tricep press down.

You see that right where they pull the bar down and then it comes all the way down. And really what they're doing there, and here's the thing with pull down type movements, pull down type movements have the potential to really make your posture bad, to make it worse. Because if you're doing a pull down with forward shoulder, you are making your forward shoulders strong.

You're like strengthening that position to the point where I'm reinforcing that shrimp posture. Totally. Now the best exercise in this category of exercises, and my opinion has got to be a pull-up. Yeah. Pull-up done properly is one of the king top exercises you can do for your upper body. And I want to make a point of Sainson that I didn't really start doing this till way later on. And I wish I would have, I would have early. And that was, you know, if I couldn't do more than, you know, five or eight pull ups, it was like, oh, that's all, I just go to that.

That's all I, I, you know, pull up to and then I rest and then do it again versus doing sometimes singles, doubles or triples weighted. That was something that really helped me progress my body weight pullups. That I wish I had that in my arsenal early on that I give as a tip when we talk about pullups. Because we talk about the benefits that on the show a lot and I get a lot of DMs of people asking me about pullups.

And how do I increase the amount of reps? And one of the best things that I ever did was actually being okay with only doing one or two or three reps, but with some weight underneath me and then getting used to that. And then I dropped the weight and then all of a sudden I could rep out five, ten more pull ups, body weight pull ups that more than I could before. No, I'm glad you said that. The back responds.

Once you have good form, I want to say that, I don't want to make sure I say that. Once you have good technique and form, the back responds exceptionally well to heavy weight. This isn't true for every single body part. Now, I think all body parts should be challenged with heavy weight at some point, but of course, that being relative. But the back just seems to do, if you have really, really good form, and you do heavy rep, four rep rows,

or heavy three, four rep pull ups, you're gonna get strong, but you also will develop a lot of muscle in the back. In fact, when you look at athletes that are just strength athletes, and they don't really care about building muscle or hypertrophy, at least that's not their primary goal. They're just trying to get stronger.

But one area they almost all have well developed is the back, the back just does, and for me, I'm the same, look, I love heavy lifting, I lived it more than bodybuilding, so I spent a lot of time in that trip. The one area my body that developed really well was my back, and it's because it just responds, and I think it's funny, we have sayings like,

you carry the world on your back or you put everything on your back. I mean, that's a part of your body. It's, you know, dare I say, designed to be able to handle heavy loads. So once you got really good form, almost all back exercises, you can train in a kind of heavy fashion.

But the number one exercise for this category, definitely pull ups, it's my favorite. There's two kind of pull ups you could do. There's a wide grip pull up and a close grip pull up. I'll say this for most people, you should start with a generally, kind of medium to close grip when you do your pull ups. Wide grip pull ups require better control, stability,

and the risk of injuries much higher. But that being said, if you get good at wide grip pull ups require better control, stability, and the risk of injuries much higher. But that being said, if you get good at wide grip pull ups, boy, do you get an amazing lap activation? I do like that. I like the neutral grip kind of starting there and then like sort of incrementally making my way out, wider and wider as a go, you know, with clients. Because it is like extremely challenging,

you know, that wide grip position to do a pull up it. It is. I say so many shoulder injuries happen from people doing those when they probably shouldn't. You get that more of the, they say, you know, back in the day, they would say it hits more of the width of the lats. I don't know if that's necessarily true. But I do seem to feel it more in the higher part of my lat. Remember, that's a big muscle with lots of, lots of attachments along the spine. I do tend to feel it more in the higher part of my lap. Remember that's a big muscle with lots of attachments along the spine. I do tend to feel it more in the higher part of my lap than the more lower part where I'll get the close grip.

I think that might have to do more with the stretch. I get at the top with the clueless. Speaking of that, that reminds me of another movement that I think is overlooked and falls in this category. And I think is an incredible movement is then a dumbbell pullover. Oh yeah. Doing a pullover, man.

I tell you what, you've done about the meaty part of the lap, feeling it there, that's probably one of the best exercises that I can feel. Oh, that stretch is real, man. Yeah, I'm glad you said that, because you can put it in this category of pulling down. Even though you're not technically pulling something down, if you look at the action of the upper arm,

because with a pullover, your arm is fixed, right? So you're pulling over your body, but if you watch just the upper arm because with a pullover, your arm is fixed, right? So you're pulling over your body, but if you watch just the upper arm, it's doing the same motion as a pulldown. So you're still working a very, very similar movement. Love dumbbell pullovers. What about, you know, all your cable pulldown exercises? I think pulldowns with the cable,

most people are probably gonna start there. You know, pullup is very difficult for most people to do period, doing a pull up with good form, even more difficult. So pull down with your different, right? And pull down allows you to cue like we just, we were talking about, right? So we are going through this whole teaching to pull the chest up the bar.

Try teaching somebody a pull up for the first time and then also teaching them to pull the chest of the bar. Most of them a pull up for the first time and then also teaching them the pull the chest of the bar. Most of them are too weak to even be able to do that. So a great place to teach the mechanics of the back are we name the first one before it's seated row, I think for rowing movements and then the lap pull down for pulling movements. Right.

And one other exercise, and I like this one, you can do it for bodybuilding purposes, but also for correctional exercise purpose purpose is a straight arm pull down. Now, I was familiar with this exercise early on because this is a popular exercise among body builders, but then later on I worked with a physical therapist. And I watched a physical therapist do this, what I thought was a pure bodybuilding exercise with her clients who had shoulder problems due to forward shoulder. So I asked her afterwards and I said,

why are you doing a straight arm pull down and she would use a rope oftentimes? Why are you doing this exercise with people who have forward shoulder? It's a lot dominant exercise. And is that really the best exercise? And she'd say, well, you'll notice that the bottom of the movement,

I'm definitely having them to do this straight arm pull down, but at the bottom of the movement, I'm having them focus on pinching their shoulders back. And she said, you're right, there's not a lot of resistance on those muscles, but what it's teaching is it's teaching them to activate their lats while pulling the shoulder blades back. So really it was about teaching the movement pattern, which I thought was totally brilliant. And from that day forward, when people had shoulder problems due to forward shoulder, I would always include a straight arm

pull down as part of their exercise repertoire, which would help with that shoulder balance. And for the trainers in the audience that are listening right now, when you do movements like that, it's more about the movement than it is the weight, right? So if a client's doing a weight and they're like, oh, this is light for me, that's okay. We're trying to perfect this movement and this pattern down more than I am trying to progress you in weight. And so knowing that when you're teaching something

like that, that is trying to combat something that is a problem in their posture. 100% focus on on the movement of it, the squeeze and the isolation portion of the exercise more than trying to, oh, you could do five more pounds, that was easy for you. Totally. Now another category of movements for strengthening and working the back, I guess we could call extend, right, extension. So this is basically from extension,

it's like, it could be hip extension. If you load it properly, hip extension, definitely work and strengthen the back, a dead lift will fall into that category. Or you could be lumbar extension where you're rounding the back and coming up. I don't recommend that for a lot of people, but at some point that is an action that you can work. So basically extension is from bending over to coming up straight. That's really all it is.

And in fact, you take the average person and you ask them, work your back, and the average person has no idea that a pull down a row works the back. But they do know that when they bend over and come up, they feel it in their back. Yeah, that's using the muscles of the back. Well, and I would make the case for this being the most important.

I mean, and for many reasons, probably not just for overall posture, but even just the amount of muscle mass that you can put on doing a movement like a deadlift. We've been in this, and it's funny because as we're going through this and we're talking about each movement and what muscles are being worked.

And there's a lot of camps that would talk about, oh, the row is the best way, or to let pull down, to isolate the lads, or develop the lads. And there's some truth to that, because it's easier to connect to those movements that are more isolating. But I would make the case that nothing will put more mass and more muscle on your back than like a deadlift,

an extension exercise. Totally agree. And I think it's just part of it is just the sheer amount of weight that you end up lifting. You know, with a deadlift, you could, I could get most everyday men average guys to deadlift over 300 pounds.

You know, if you're good, relatively good health and you're healthy and you're, you know, you've got good joint health and all that stuff, most men I can get them to pull over 300 pounds off the floor. They will never be able to handle 300 pounds with any of the free weight exercise. Or even a lot pull down or a rope. Not even close. Not even close.

So that amount of load on the body just has a tremendous muscle building effect in the body. I, you know, it's funny. I had, I've had a lot of friends who've competed in physique and bodybuilding or friends who are just interested in training for the way they look. And I would make the case for, because many of them neglect deadlifts. They neglect this form of this part of the back exercises.

And I'd make the case over and over. And then they would do it. And they'd come back and be like, whoa. Yeah. Blue me. I remember when Adam went crazy with dead lifts while he was competing and his back totally changed. You know, somebody who trained for years

and then you did dead lifts and. I can really see it now because I watched what it did for me. Now I can look at a men's physique or a classic bodybuilding guy who's competing and fell in that trap of, don't do squats and deadlifts, it's gonna make your waist wider. And so they do all the other,

so some of them have an incredible physique. And I'm thinking of a single friend of mine in particular that's a pro that, you know, he looks amazing on stage, but he's missing something. And I feel like it's his back. I think his backs are one in lost and shows. And when you look at his symmetry and his body everywhere else, it looks amazing. He turns around.

And for as much muscle he has everywhere else, his back looks okay. And I think it's because he doesn't do any deadlifting. He totally neglects deadlifting to do all the isolation exercises. Well, now if we're talking about strength too, I mean, this is the ultimate base of support. This is the foundation that you can build, you know, so many directions off of, like that

specific type of a movement there to be able to protect the spine and to be able to, you know, build that much muscle mass, you know, to support your whole body. I mean, the deadlift is superior. It's the, it's the probably the most primal way, the most primitive, first ways that humans ever displayed, heavy lifting strength. Think about it. Lifting something that's heavy off the ground

and having to move it. Yeah, that's like the most dinosaur, like caveman thing we can do. And when it comes to strength, for sure, right? I mean, there's lots of movements that are foundational. There's lots of movements that are you know foundational there's lots of movements that become considered primal but is there anything that's more connected to just heavy strength then picking something up and lifting it and moving it somewhere you know whether you you kill a you know a gazelle and you got oh I got to lift that

up yeah I got more I got to move this rock or I need to build something you got to lift something off the floor it's a very very, very, very important movement. Well, it's also when you, we've gone, we're going through these categories and we're making the case for, what, rowing, what muscles that activates and it's working. When you think of a deadlift, it literally wakes up every aspect of your back.

Totally. Every aspect. There is not a muscle that is not having to be in your back that is not having to light up in order to pull 300 plus pounds up off the ground. Just not happening. You could do a lot of all the other movements that we talked about. And leave out portions of your back by isolating that part of the back. But why, and again, I think that's what makes the case for why it's such a great muscle builder, aside from the sheer amount of weight that you can lift out the ground,

like your points out, but also that it ain't the core part. The core part, yes. You're just asking so much out of it. It wakes up everything. It is. And if you do back extension type movements like deadlifts or back extensions or good mornings, properly, if you do them all properly, you get strong and comfortable doing those. It's the single best way of bulletproofing your back. I'm not saying you're going to have a

bulletproof back. I'm saying of all the other individual possible things you could do to make your back impervious to pain or to prevent any type of low back pain especially. It's back extension type movements. Now of course, a combination of movements is ideal to prevent low back injury or pain, but I'll get, look, Doug is a great example. Doug hired me because his chiropractor sent him to me because he would occasionally, but relatively consistently injure his low back.

One of the exercises that I made sure to get Doug really good at was the deadlift. And when we got good at the deadlift, Doug's back never got hurt again. It just never hurt it. It got really, it got impervious. And I remember when I first started training, I was like, are you sure I should be lifting

something off the ground like that's? Well, let's talk about that a little bit because I think that's important. It's probably a hot spot for a lot of people. know most low back pain is chronic pain right it's due to some sort of an imbalance poor posture them carrying their weight on their body competitive bad mechanics right all day long and so they have this chronic low back pain well when you do things like deadly up back to my point of it wakes up every single muscle. Not just the ones that we were talking about, a lot of those internal ones, like your transverse abdominis, that supports the spine.

And so if those get really strong, strong enough to where they could support 200 or in Doug's case, 400 or something pounds coming off the ground, well, you're daily tasks that you deal with, the amount of strength and support that all those internal and external muscles that help support the spine have now been developed on a whole nother level. And so that's really where the bullet proofing your low back comes from is because you're doing movements like the deadlift that trains all those internal internal muscles, including all the ones, the big ones that we are talking about. Man, talk about totally supporting the spine and why that's so important. Right. I mean, if you can deadlift, you know,

300 pounds off the ground with good form and technique, you know, what are the odds? You're gonna hurt your back when you bend over to tie your shoe or pick up, you know, a jug of water. Or, or a 50 pound bag of dog food, which is like a realistic thing that you're gonna end up having to do. Exactly, exactly.

Well, another exercise I like to put in the back extension or the extended category that is, you're starting to see more people do it now But it was extremely unpopular for a long time in fact if you were seeing doing this exercise at any point prior to 10 years ago They might even kick you out Is a good morning. Oh, and a good morning is an old school classic extension exercise now to do it right And I'm pretty sure we have a video on our YouTube channel of good mornings. We have it in our programs. We do, and we do. So, hopefully we have that in our catalog and jacking, put that in the show notes where you'll find some of these

exercises. But a good morning, first off, you're bending at the hips, not at the spine, so your spine is staying stable, but you are extending, you are bending over with the weight on your back. The reason why I like good mornings is because good mornings help emphasize the shoulders pin back, squeeze position, while bending over. So it's like teaching good posture as you're bending over, because if you have bad posture standing straight up,

when you bend over, your posture is even worse. The point is the maintain rigidity in your back. Yes, that way. That then again translates to other movements where you could know to stabilize when you bend over your posture is even worse. The point is the maintain rigidity in your back. Yes. That way, then again, translates to other movements where you could know to stabilize when you need to stabilize. And of course, this is pushing a compromising position to where, you know, if you weren't, you know, tense, when you need to be tense, it could be compromising.

But that, again, this is an exercise that's great for that and also builds a lot of strength around that. Yeah, there was a debate as to whether or not a reverse hyper, reverse hyper extension really strengthens the back, but you know what's interesting is years ago, and I think what's that power of Lewis Simmons? Lewis Simmons, who has one of the most well-known powerlifting camps of all time, he invented it. He went backwards on a back extension machine to help fix his low back and in fact it did

and he went on to break more world records and it has since become a staple among powerlifers specifically to prevent low back problems. So I know the prime movers there are more gluten hamstring, but when it comes to strengthening the muscles that support the low back, I love reverse hypers. And I think it's a safer version of an extension than a traditional back extension for most people. Or a good morning for that part. Yeah, good morning.

Good morning. But you guys made the case for good mornings here in Extension in the get it because you're extending the body. But those to me fall in the last category, which is the stabilization phase of training the back, because you're really keeping the back concentration. Yeah, the back is in an isolated position, right? When you do a good morning, you retract the shoulder blades,

you keep it in a fixed position, and then you're just hinging at the hips, right? The hips are just sliding back, and then the weight is having to be supported by the back, but there is no real movement going on. But again, what an incredible exercise for the back, and we make the case for it. But that also makes the case for what we've talked about

on the show a bunch, which is isolation exercises, which I think are neglected a lot of the times by people. And that's an example of a strength type of stabilization exercise, because the back is being stable and not moving, but then you're hinging at the hips and then you can load it. So, what an incredible exercise, in my opinion, for the stabilization part of the back. Yeah, so I would agree. Now, one thing we forgot to mention was what does your back look like? If you don't do a lot of pull downs, you're gonna look narrow. You're gonna have a narrow back.

If you don't do a lot of pull downs, you're gonna look narrow, you're gonna have a narrow back. If you don't do a lot of extension exercises like a deadlift, you're probably gonna have just less general strength in muscle in your back and definitely lack depth. Now as far as stabilization is concerned, Adam, extremely important, and now here's why. If I took out your spine outside of your body

and I tried to stand it straight up on something, it would fold and flop over. It's made up of many, many, many different joints. It's one of the most, from that perspective, mobile parts of your body, because your spine is this big thing with lots of little segments that can move in different directions.

Big caterpillar. And in between each of these segments, is a disc and the spine protects the spinal cord and all that stuff. Now why is the low back, or why is the back in general, the number one place that people feel pain? Because there's so many different ways to move wrong

in the spine and because really the spine needs to be stable while you do a lot of different things. Most movements that you do that were you're lifting weight, moving or whatever, what you really want your spine to do is just to stay strong and stable and that allow the spine to move in a range of motion that's supported then by its end range of motion. In other words, you don't want your spine to fold and then what stops it from folding

is the bones or the spine itself. You want the muscles to be able to do that and that requires a lot of stability. This category is the most neglected. Stabilization is the most neglected part. It's also one of my favorites to teach, because you take somebody, even in an advanced lifter who's been lifting for a really long time, and you take some of the movements

that you're about to talk about right now in this phase, and you incorporate them into somebody's routine, and you'll see even somebody who's really advanced really start to, you'll see their numbers go up out of nowhere, because I really feel like this is part of the foundation of wanting to build a massive, you wanna have a really solid, stable support system

that you then pile on all the other exercises and things are saying. So technically, this should kinda be in the first port, right? This should have been like, if we were to order, if we would have ordered these in priority, I could make the case that this is probably the highest priority before row and then row. It is in terms of importance.

Now the reason why I don't typically train first with a lot of these exercises is because when I have a person who doesn't work out and then I have them do like a farmer walk, which I would consider a farmer walk to be one of the best exercises to stabilize. They don't have good posture to stabilize. So I have to pull your shoulders back, tighten your core,

they can't do any of that, so I have to go through and work rows and I gotta work pull downs and I gotta work extension. Then when I'm like, okay, everything looks like it's moving right now, I can have you walk with weight to do the stable as it, because you need all those to work at once. You do, and that's my favorite exercise,

farmer walk, and I did not do, I did farmer walks for fun back in the day, usually to show off And I did not do, I did farm or walks for fun back in the day, usually to show off, if I had, you know, folks working out my cousins and I'd be like, but you can hold these dumbbells and walk the furthest or whatever. And really it was because I had a strong grip. But I never really trained them until I did maps strong.

So we created the program map strong with a strong man competitor and strong man competitions include typically holding something and carrying it something heavy. So they do a lot of farmer walks as part of the training. So it was in the program, I followed the program and I could not believe the muscle development I got from stabilizing. It wasn't I wasn't doing any rowing, I wasn't doing pull down.

I just had a trap bar, it was heavy. I got up to 500 pounds I think, and I walked. Well, think about moving, moving with heavy weights. All that's entailed with that. Your body really has to work overtime to really protect your spine, because it's any sudden adjustment and momentum that you have to slow down, speed up.

Your body has to be able to react on the fly. And so to, to, to that point, and to be able to like farmer walk, of course, like, it's gonna go ahead and build all those stabilizer muscles like nothing else. In fact, I would say this, and I earlier I said, you know, deadlifting, do it right. It's one of the single best things you can do

to make your back bulletproof. Now, some people may be listening and be like, I'm strong at deadlift. I can lift 500 pounds off the floor, six, and I always hurt my back. What the hell? I thought you said it can make myself bulletproof. Here's why.

You lack stabilization in particular in the muscles that support lateral stabilization like your QL. QL. Your quadratus lumborum. And I've experienced this myself where I'm coming up report lateral stabilization like you're QL. QL. Your quadratus lumborum. And I've experienced this myself where I'm coming up with a heavy deadlift and the weight shifts just a little bit.

Just a little bit. That's how it takes. Just a little tiny shift. Yep. And I'm so strong and lifting the weight, but I'm not strong enough to support the lateral, you know, sides of the weight or whatever. Boom, I hurt my back, I had to drop the weight.

What did I do? Exercise is that work on stabilization, strengthen the quadratus lumbarum, which is a muscle that sits on the side of the spine and keeps the sides really, really... Now you want to dive in and emphasize that. We do the same thing in terms of like a farmer walk, we just add one. So it's more of a suitcase carry, right? Yeah. We really have to accommodate for the fact

that you're loaded on that one side. The other side has to keep everything upright. It puts a lot of demand there. This is also where, you know, earlier when you were talking about roads, just this is where I would place that for that exact purpose. You wanna strengthen that.

Well, try doing a single dumbbell row, but not allowing any sort of rotation going on. So you actually resist the rotation and put emphasis on that part of the motion. So I'll let them rip the heavy weight up. And then as they go down, they really resist it and keep the core stable and keep the hips stable and don't allow any sort of rotation in their shoulders and their low back, keeping the spine still. That right there will do wonders for training.

Oh, yes. I love suitcase carries or basically, even if you explain it better, just walking with one dumbbell on one hand. But really the form looks like this. Your goal is to try and stand as straight as possible. Don't let the dumbbell pull you down to the side. Don't stick your other arm out to balance yourself. If you have to do all that, you're going to heavy. Go light and walk with one dumbbell and try to stay as straight as possible. The muscles on the opposite side of your body, that stabilizes your spine, get an exceptional

workout when you do that. Now, you were making the case, Sal, that you wouldn't start here because most people couldn't do it, but I still would start here. I just wouldn't start on the, our favorite movements as far as this. I would start with things like the plank. Oh, yeah, yeah. Right. This is floor cobra. That's a good point. Yeah, so this is still still. That's still. Fables. Right. This is still foundational for me and for someone who couldn't handle

a farmer walk or suitcase carry at you be doing things like like their planks or side planks and regular planks or active planks is what you would be doing to build that support system or foundation that I think pretty much everybody should at least start there. Now if you're somebody who already can plank and do those movements and you have a pretty good support system, then I think okay, I could start this person with heavy farmer carries or suitcase carries, but I still think that this is laying the foundation for the back first, then the row to improve upon that and build and then moving down to the other. That's a good point. Another thing I would do for counter rotation, stabilization would be,

I would do other exercises, but I'd do them standing and I'd have the person use a cable or a band and their goals to stay rigid. So like I could do like a chest press even, one arm chest press, where they're standing, stall, brace the core, stabilize everything, don't move your body, just do the chest press with one arm, and what's happening with the stabilization of muscles of the back or around the back, especially around the lower back, is they're bracing. They're stabilizing and they're preventing the rotation

from happening that naturally wants to happen when you're pressing a weight. And that was just, it was amazing for protecting, or helping to protect my clients low back. But I do like the plank, that's a, it was amazing for protecting or helping to protect my clients' low back. But I do like the plank, that's a, I forgot all about, in fact, the plank, that's really the benefit of the plank is to increase the stability around the spine.

Well, I think that's symmetric. This is an area too that I neglected, was just hitting even my abs. Even though your abs are on the other side of the body, you talk about supporting the low back for you to be able to do these types of movements. I think it's an area that can get neglected. So doing all core and ab type work to help support in this whole stabilization process that

we're talking about that I think most all people should be starting in before they progress. If you look at a skeleton, okay, and you look at a full skeleton, right? You have the rib cage, which comes around. So the rib cage offers front support to the back, okay, to the upper back. So not full support, you still need lots of muscle strength. But when you're looking at the upper part of the spine,

you get the rib cage that kind of comes off of it and then comes along in the front. So that's additional support for the upper spine. The low back, look at the skeleton. The all of a sudden the rib cage is gone, just spine. It's just low back spine. So what is in front of that that's helping to stabilize that part? Well, it's all the muscles of the front side of your core.

Abs, internal, external bleaks, and one muscle in particular, the transverse abdominis. The transverse abdominis is muscles that are underneath all those other muscles of the core. And the way you tense that muscle up is like, if you're standing up right now, suck in your stomach. That's a TVA. That muscle right there is like your natural weight belt

and that'll help stabilize the spine. So that's why sometimes people don't get it, they think, oh, why do I have to strengthen my core to strengthen my back, my low back hurts? That's behind me. Well, because there's nothing in front, stabilizing, but those muscles, that's why those are so important.

Now, what does it look like when you have poor stability or you don't stabilize your back? Injury. It looks like injury. Pretty obvious. You know why I say, you know why it's just important to understand? Because I could look at somebody,

you could look at someone and have, they have a muscular back. They've got good width, so they obviously do lots of pull downs. They've got good depth and thickness. They obviously do lots of rows, lots of muscularity overall from dead lifts and those kind of things. But why do they keep hurting? Why do they keep hurting?

Why do they have to wear their weight belt everywhere else in life on top of that? Totally, totally. It's because lack of stabilization. So you might not be able to see it musculally, although I'll make the case that injury, obviously, can't build muscle when you're injured, but besides that, lack of stability in the spine,

it looks like injury. So you can't really necessarily see it, but you'll feel it if you don't, if you neglect that. For sure. And with that, go to minepumpfree.com and download all of our resources and guides for free. We have guides on squatting. We have guides on training your arms, your shoulders,

your chest, your core. Pretty much everything you could want, all for free at minepumpfree.com. You can also find the three of us on Instagram. You can find Justin at minepump Justin. You can find me at minepumpsal and at him, at minepumpatum. Thank you for listening to minepump.

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