By: Chris Gates

If you’re looking for the best exercises to build your back, you’ve come to the right place!

Because in this article, I’m going to outline absolutely everything you need to know about back training.

We’ll cover:

• The muscle groups you should train to maximize progress.
• Key principles for muscle growth.
• Common mistakes and pitfalls you need to avoid.
• How often you should train.
• The three best exercises to build your back.
• An example workout plan that you can get started with today!

The back is an interesting set of muscles to train and build.

It can be challenging to feel each of the muscles working and make sure you’re directly targeting each area to create a well-rounded routine.

But don’t worry, because I’m going to teach you exactly how to do it.

There won’t be any gimmicks or “hacks.” You’re going to learn about the best tried-and-true exercises to build your back. Each of them are backed by exercise science research that proves their effectiveness.

So, if you’re ready, let’s dive in!

The Best Exercises to Build Your Back: Need-to-Know Info

Before we dive into the best exercises to build your back, we should talk about how your back is actually formed, and how it functions.

Because if you can understand what muscles you’re targeting, and how those muscles operate, it will be so much easier to figure out the right way to train.

There are four primary muscle groups you should target when building your back:

1. The lats: These muscles run down the side of your back, and they help you bring your arm in closer to your body from a number of angles.
2. The traps: These are large muscles that start in the shoulder/neck area and run down the middle of your back, between the shoulder blades. They’re primarily responsible for moving your shoulder blades up, back, and down.
3. The rhomboids: These muscles are also located between the shoulder blades and assist in pulling your shoulders back.
4. The spinal erectors: These are very long muscles that run up the middle of your back. They help stabilize your spine.

Each of those muscles can be trained in slightly different ways to increase both the width, thickness, and strength of your back.

In general, you should be focused on rowing and/or pulling from different angles to target each area.

The Best Exercises to Build Your Back: How to Build Muscle

Now that you have the basic anatomy covered, let’s make sure you know how muscle growth actually occurs.

Because there are a few key principles you need to focus on to maximize muscle growth.

1. Intensity: You need to train hard. Ideally, you’re lifting close to failure and making each set as challenging as it can possibly be (while using proper form and technique).
2. Nutrition: You need enough calories coming in to fuel your workouts, as well as enough protein coming in to help your body recover and grow new muscle.
3. Recovery: Outside of your training and nutrition, things like getting 7-9 hours of sleep a night, incorporating rest days into your routine, limiting stress, and planning deload weeks are all valuable tools to keep your body healthy and able to grow.

If you can accomplish those things on a consistent basis, you’ll be on your way to making TONS of progress with building muscle.

And these are the exercises that will help you do it.

Exercise No. 1: Pull Ups

When it comes to exercise selection for the back, I’m a big fan of trying to incorporate at least one variation of a vertical pull.

In other words, pulling yourself up, or pulling weight down.

And pull ups are the gold standard when it comes to vertical pulls.

For starters, pull ups target more of your overall back than lat pull downs (when done correctly, of course). And they’re great, because you can scale pull ups for essentially any experience level.

• Beginners: Use an assisted pull-up machine, or use resistance bands for assistance as you learn the exercise.
• Intermediate: Do a combination of bodyweight and assisted pull ups.
• Advanced: You can strap on a weight belt and actually add weight to the exercise over time.

Now, if you can’t do a bodyweight pull up and lack the equipment to do assisted pull ups, lat pull downs are a great exercise (hint: we might talk a little bit more about this exercise later in the article).

Otherwise, let’s talk about form and technique.

Form and Technique:

• An overhand grip on the bar, slightly wider than shoulder width is typically best. Going wider may reduce your range of motion, which could limit the stimulus you put on your muscles.
• Initiate the movement by thinking about both pulling your shoulder blades down, and puffing your chest up.
• Think about pulling your elbows down and in as you pull your head up to the bar.
• Try to get your eyes and/or chin above the pull up bar at the top of each rep.
• Control your bodyweight on the way back down.

Ideally, you should load this exercise as heavily as you can while lifting somewhere in the 5-8 rep range. Once you get to 8 reps with a certain weight, add a little bit more (or reduce the assistance) and repeat the process.

If you need to vary the weight for each set, that’s OK.

Exercise No. 2: Barbell Row

After doing your vertical pull, a horizontal row is my next favorite type of exercise to utilize for back training.

And while you have the freedom to choose which horizontal row you prefer — chest-supported machine row, dual dumbbell row, one-arm dumbbell row, etc. are great for beginners — I’d like to push you towards doing a traditional barbell row if you’re able.

And I’m talking about a barbell row all the way from the ground, to your torso, and back down.

A full range-of-motion barbell row is going to target the entire back really effectively.

• Your lats, rhomboids, and traps will all assist in rowing the bar up to your torso.
• Your spinal erectors will help to stabilize your back while you perform the exercise.

All of that, combined, can really help you develop a strong, sturdy, thick back.

Form and Technique:

• Stand over the bar with your feet at shoulder width.
• Keep your head in a neutral position in line with your spine (don’t crane your head up, or tuck your chin down low)
• Grip the bar with an overhand grip, slightly wider than shoulder width.
• Sit your butt back, and have the bar over top of the base of your toes before initiating your first rep.
• Starting with your shoulders slightly forward, pull the slack out of the bar and think about retracting your shoulder blades and rowing the bar explosively up to your torso.
• Drive your elbows up and back.
• Touch the bar to your torso at the top of each rep, somewhere between your belly button and nipple line.
• Then, lower the barbell all the way back down to the floor under control.

Do this exercise in the 8-10 rep range, and once again focus on trying to progressively add weight to the bar over time as you max out the rep range.

Exercise No. 3: Lat Pull Down

Let’s go back to another vertical pull down to wrap up the best exercises to build your back.

It’s time to focus on the lat pull down.

This exercise provides a great opportunity to isolate the lats and upper back and really focus on the mind-muscle connection, and the squeeze of these muscles.

You’ll probably see people perform this exercise in a number of different ways in the gym:

• Pull down to the chest.
• Pull down behind the neck.
• Overhand grip.
• Underhand grip.
• Super wide grip.
• Super narrow grip.

We’re going to focus on what the research has found to be most optimal.

When you do lat pull downs, make sure you’re pulling the bar down to the front of your body, touching your upper chest area. This is typically much more comfortable than pulling down behind the neck, and it’s more effective for progressive overload, adding weight, and engaging the lats.

You should also grip the bar just slightly wider than shoulder width. That’s going to be most effective for stimulating the target muscles.

There has always been this theory that a super wide grip will lead to a super wide back, but it’s not true. In fact, a super wide grip will lead to a reduced range of motion, and in the end it could actually limit the amount of progress you make.

You should grip the bar with an overhand grip, which once again has been proven to outperform other options when it comes to stimulating muscle growth.

From there, your setup is in place and you can start performing the exercise!

Form and Technique:

• Start each rep by tucking your shoulder blades down, and think about pulling your elbows in towards your side.
• Think about your hands as hooks that are simply attached to the bar, and put your focus on driving your elbows down.
• You should lean back slightly when doing this exercise, but avoid an excessive lean. The further you lean your torso back, the more you’ll take tension off your lats.
• Pull the bar down and touch to your upper chest (if you are mobile enough to do so).
• Then resist the weight as the bar comes back up.
• At the very top of each rep, try to feel a slight stretch on your lats before starting the next rep.

This exercise can be done at a slightly higher rep range. Anywhere from 10-15 reps per set should be really effective.

The Best Exercises to Build Your Back: Avoid Common Mistakes

We’ve touched on a lot of the do’s and don’ts so far, but I think it’s important to outline a few of the big-time mistakes you should avoid.

I see these CONSTANTLY in the gym, and on social media. And they’re limiting your progress.

Mistake No. 1: Ego Lifting

This applies to quite literally every exercise known to man, but if you’re lifting with your ego instead of your brain, you’re doing it wrong. Ego lifting is when you use a ton of weight and momentum to perform each rep, just because you want to lift heavier weight.

But what this often leads to, is all that momentum takes the stimulus off your target muscle group and onto your bones, ligaments, and joints.

You’re not going to build muscle that way. You’re just increasing your chances of getting injured.

Mistake No. 2: Limited Range of Motion

This mistake applies directly to the exercises we just went over. For example…

For pull ups and lat pull downs, you need to fully extend your arms at the beginning of each rep, and then pull the weight/your body fully in the other direction. Don’t do half reps. Don’t cheat yourself.

And for barbell rows, get that back flat and pull the bar all the way up to your torso, and then back down to the ground. Otherwise, the more you cheat on your range of motion, the more you’ll sacrifice potential gains.

Mistake No. 3: No Bracing

A really important aspect of lifting heavy weight is bracing your core and establishing a solid foundation from head to toe. This couldn’t be more important when you’re training your back.

By taking a deep breath in and bracing your core before each rep, you’re going to help stabilize your entire spine and midsection. When doing technical exercises like barbell rows or pull ups, this is crucial to lift safely and effectively.

But most people don’t do it… Don’t be like most people!

The Best Exercises to Build Your Back: How Often Should You Train?

So now you’ve got a ton of knowledge on the best exercises to build your back, along with many of the do’s and don’ts to maximize your progress.

How much should you be training?

To be completely honest, the answer to that question is going to be a bit different for everyone.

But we can outline some general principles to help you get started.

• Most people see optimal progress by doing somewhere in the range of 10-20 hard sets for each muscle group.
• “Hard sets” means you’re pushing yourself legitimately hard in each and every set. An easy way to make sure you’re working hard enough is to lift within 1-3 reps of muscular failure on each set.
• You can split those hard sets up however you’d like across the week (and I’ll give you one example of how to do it below!).

If you’re a beginner, I’d recommend you start on the lower end of that 10-20 hard sets range.

If you’re more intermediate (2+ years of consistent strength training experience) or advanced (5+ years), you can gravitate more to the middle or top end of that range.

And then focus on being as consistent as you possibly can be.

Example Back Training Workout Plan

At this point, I don’t think there’s much else you need to know about back training.

I’m kind of kidding, but also kind of not. haha

Let’s face it, now you have a really solid understanding of:

• How your back is formed, and how it functions.
• The principles of building muscle.
• The three most effective exercises for building muscle.
• Common mistakes you need to avoid.
• And how often you should train your back.

I really think the only thing left is to break down what your training schedule can look like, so let’s dive into some examples!

Most of my online fitness coaching clients train on a four-day schedule, so we’ll use that as our guide.

Sample Workout Plan
Day 1: Upper Body, Back Focus. Let’s start off the week by training and prioritizing your back. You’re going to be fresh, recovered, and ready to train hard! • Pull Ups: 3 sets of 6-8 with as much weight, or as little resistance, as possible for each set. • Horizontal Row: 3 sets of 8-12. Typically, I’d recommend a barbell row here, but since you just fatigued your back by doing pull ups, you can do a chest-supported machine row, or a one-arm dumbbell row instead. • Pick an exercise for the chest, shoulders, and triceps and insert all three here. • End the workout with 3 sets of 10-15 on lat pull downs.
Day 2: Lower Body Day. No back training on this day. We’ll train lower body and allow your upper body to recover.
Day 3: Upper Body. This upper body day will be more evenly applied to all of the upper body muscle groups. • Start the workout with 3 sets of barbell rows in the 8-10 rep range. • Add in at least one exercise for the chest, shoulders, triceps, and biceps. • And then you can finish the workout by hitting lat pull downs again — 3 sets in the 10-15 rep range.
Day 4: Lower Body Day. We’re hitting lower body again, so there won’t be any back training on this day. Let your upper body recover.

I Hope This Helps!

Thanks so much for stopping by and reading this article! I really hope it was helpful, and if you have any questions at all please feel free to ask in the comments.

And if you’re interested in getting some personalized help with your program to build muscle and make sustainable progress with your training and nutrition, check out my coaching page. I’d love to help you reach your goals this year.

Have a great day!

~ Chris