4+ GREAT (and 3 BAD) exercises for back growth
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Stick to stable exercises with lots of ROM, that are limited by the target muscle group and that you can load properly. This includes cambered bar rows, pulldown and pull-up variations, dumbbell/barbell bent over rows and machine/cable rows. You should probably avoid the T-Bar Row, dumbbell/barbell pullover and the rack pull if your goal is back growth. Read on to find out why.
What makes for a good exercise?
Before we can decide what the best exercises are, we need to know what makes an exercise good or bad. The following is a list of the primary criteria that can be used to evaluate an exercise. Together, they will increase the stimulus for muscle growth that an exercise will give, and reduce the amount of fatigue it produces.
1) Does the exercise utilise the target muscle group(s) through at least a long, if not full, range of motion? If it does, that is probably better for muscle growth. This also means that isometric exercises are likely suboptimal. In this case, the back has a multitude of muscle groups and functions, which will likely require a several exercises for best growth.
2) Is the exercise stable enough for the target muscle group(s)’ ability to produce force to be the limiting factor? If yes, that is likely better, as excessively unstable exercises make reaching local muscular failure difficult.
3) Is the target muscle group’s ability to produce force the limiting factor? If it is, that will likely result in greater hypertrophic stimulus.
a. Sub-criteria/practical proxies: DOMS, the feeling of the pump, the mind-muscle connection, connective tissue discomfort & systemic vs local fatigue.
4) Is it possible to load the exercise to reach a repetition range of 5-30 reps while being close to failure? If yes, that is likely better, as low loads (below 30% 1RM) have been shown to be less hypertrophic, and loads in excess of ~80-85% 1RM likely do not allow for enough volume accumulation per set to be maximally stimulative.
For some of these criteria, it is hard to know whether an exercise fulfils them – particularly for the individual. Because different people have different genetics, strengths, weaknesses, etc., an exercise that’s ideal for one person may be subpar for another. For example, if someone is unable to go through a full ROM for high bar squats, is so out of shape that their lungs give out before their muscles and is not able to squat the bar, high bar squats may initially be a terrible exercise for hypertrophy for them, but may be a phenomenal exercise for them down the road or for another person altogether.
With that in mind, here are some of the back exercises I think are both theoretically sound and have consistently worked for clients and myself!
Cambered Bar Rows
Cambered Bar Rows are a great option because they allow the musculature of your upper back (save for a few muscle groups like the lats & teres major) and elbow flexors to 1) work through a nearly full/full ROM, 2) are stable enough, 3) are limited by those muscles’ ability to produce force and 4) can be loaded adequately quite easily.
In my experience, most people who have access to these like them a lot. To optimize your technique, bend over at the hips and get your back parallel to the floor. Keep your back straight, and, if necessary, stand on a plate to allow your shoulder blades to be protracted at the start of each rep. Then, grab the bar, and row the bar up until the camber touches your abdomen/chest. Where it touches might make a difference for how it grows your back, but I’d recommend just touching where it feels comfortable. Alternatively, you could row to your chest on one day/mesocycle, then row to your abdomen in another.
Lat Pulldowns/Pull-Ups/Assisted Pull-Ups
Pulldowns and pull-ups (or their variants) are almost a MUST for back training. This is because they are nearly unique insofar as they train the lats & teres major through a nearly full ROM (unlike rows, which can only target the lats & teres major through half their ROM at best), are sufficiently stable, are usually limited by the lats’ ability to produce force and can be loaded appropriately, and even micro-loaded. One exception is not being strong enough for more than 5 reps of full ROM pull-ups. If that’s the case, you’ll probably be better off just sticking to pulldowns.
These are already a staple in many people’s training, but people LOVE to do partials on these. Go all the way up until your scapula elevates, and pull all the way down until you touch your upper chest with the cable attachment or pull-up bar.
Dumbbell/Barbell Bent Over Rows
Bent over rows are cool. Barbell rows can make a reasonable (albeit slightly worse) replacement for cambered bar rows. Dumbbell Rows, on the other hand, have a use as a unilateral exercise that can be used to remedy Mind-Muscle Connection and/or size differences in your upper back.
If you couldn’t already tell, though, many people mis-perform these. For barbell rows, people LOVE to be super upright and do a weird shrug/row hybrid, with minimal ROM for any of the upper back muscles and with maximal weight – more than they should be using. The fix here is the same as for cambered bar rows.
For dumbbell rows, people don’t cut their ROM quite as badly, usually, but they make a few different mistakes instead. People will often skip the eccentric entirely in an attempt to get a better stretch reflex. This is called the stretch-shortening cycle in science. It’s basically what happens when you make a muscle lengthen before making it shorten – which, in lift speak, means lowering the weight before lifting it up. It makes the lifting up part easier, and the quicker the lowering of the weight, the easier the lifting up part gets. It essentially “primes” your body to lift the weight up.
Machine/Cable Rows
Machine & cable rows fill a certain niche. Specifically, in my opinion, they are best used in the higher rep ranges – perhaps 10-20 and 20-30 – and actively using your erectors. This will allow you to train both your upper back (save for your lats and teres’ major) and erectors dynamically through a near full ROM at the same time.
What exercises are suboptimal?
Dumbbell/Barbell Pullovers
I might offend some people by saying this, but I don’t think dumbbell/barbell pullovers are a very good back exercise. Firstly, they’re an isolation exercise. While that can have its use, the back is a very complex arrangement of muscle groups, so an exercise that only targets the lats and teres major is a very circumstantially useful exercise, as it has poor stimulus to time ratio for your back as a whole. However, even for those muscle groups, it’s still just not a great option. The ROM you get for shoulder extension is, at most, half of full shoulder extension ROM. If you really want to isolate your lats, use a machine or cables. You’ll still target those lats and teres major, but you’ll get more out of it.
T-Bar Rows
Let me explain why I don’t think these are great. First, unless you have certain grip attachments, you’ll be limited to a super narrow grip width, which will inevitably limit your ROM for scapular retraction, making it less effective for some of your upper back muscles. Second, if you’re strong enough to use big plates, you’ll run into another issue – the plates will hit you before you reach full ROM.
There are enough rowing variations out there that you shouldn’t need to do a sub-optimal one for the sake of variation.
Rack Pulls
I kept the worst for last. There’s a variety of reasons why Rack Pulls are not a good back exercise. First off, for all of your back muscles, they’re an isometric exercise. Isometric exercises are unlikely to be as good for muscle growth as exercises with both a concentric (lift the bar up) and eccentric (lower the bar down) component. Secondly, your lats, rhomboids, teres major, lower and middle traps are all doing very, very little during a rack pull. None of their functions contribute meaningfully to lifting the bar.
“Okay, fine” I can hear you say. “They’re not a great exercise for your upper/mid back muscles. But what about your erectors and upper traps?!” (Side note: your erectors actually attach all the way up your spine. They’re not JUST the lower back muscles.)
They’re still not great. For erectors, they’re about as good as deadlift or good morning variations. That is to say, they’re not bad, but again – for the erectors, they’re an isometric exercise, unless you’re botching your rack pulls. To reiterate, isometrics < exercises with a concentric and eccentric component for muscle growth.
If your goal was erector and upper back growth, you’d be much better off either isolating your erectors or doing cable/machine rows with spinal extension and flexion. (Side note: the term “flexion row” annoys me every time I hear it. You don’t usually name an exercise by what you do in the eccentric component. Extension row would make much more sense. #extensionrows)
What about for your upper traps? Well, the same reasoning applies. They’re unlikely to be as good for growth as full ROM shrugs.
To summarize - rack pulls do a great job of fatiguing a lot of muscle groups without stimulating them nearly as well as other exercises.
That wraps up the back. If you want expert back programming to finally make your back grow, check out the Back Growth Template here.
More muscle group exercise selection articles on the way!