Developing a V taper
developing a v taper
Do you want that V taper back? Do you struggle to add mass to it?
Of course you do. Why? Because the wider your back is, the smaller your waist appears.
Here are some tips for training your back.
Moving load is very important but how you move it matters a lot more! Learn how to contract muscles before thinking you’re Ronnie Coleman.
Yes, those big movements are important but doing heavy rows with a lot of bounce like you are on a trampoline, or doing those rack pulls at turbo speed isn’t going to help.
Think about your elbows and not your hands.
When doing any rows or pulldowns and you are trying to target your lats then don’t make the common mistake of focusing on your hands! That is, what your hands do isn’t important – instead, think about burying your elbow hard into your ribcage pocket.
This is by far the best piece of advice I have been given when trying to develop my back.
Train through a full range.
When training your back, don’t stop the move where it feels like you should – let your lat lengthen! For example, in a barbell row, don’t stop at above your knees: let the bar come a little further to challenge your back in that range. Another example is the lat pulldown: let your shoulders raise slightly at the top of the movement to fully lengthen the muscle.
Deadlifts are cool right?
Let’s be real, we all love a good deadlift. However, there are many more positions you can get yourself into and/or lifts that are more effective at stimulating your back by applying a lot of load. For the most part and for most people, deadlifts are far too complicated and won’t help you get huge. Pick exercises that you connect well with (i.e. mind-muscle connection).
Don’t miss the more stable isolation stuff
When training their back, a lot of people opt for loads and loads of big movements; however, these are very physically taxing, and once you are fatigued, it’s going to be super hard to target your lats without stability.
Therefore, once you’ve completed the big lifts, opt for exercises such as chest supported pulldowns, prone rows, machine rows with a pad (…) to support your chest and engage the lats. These exercises will be very beneficial to grow your back.
The rep range you work in.
So, we have all done a barbell row or rack pull for 6 reps but how many times are you pushing yourself to do 10-12 or 12-15 reps? To grow a strong and thick back, we need to be strong across a variety of rep ranges: don’t skip on the higher ones.
If you really struggle to engage your lats, then start with smaller movements.
If you struggle to feel your lats when you train, my best advice is to start with a smaller movement to get blood into the muscle. For example, a straight arm pulldown or a cable row can be a great plae to start. From there, once you have the lats “fired up”, work into your bigger movements.
This applies to training any muscle, but remember to LEAVE YOUR EGO AT THE DOOR
I’ll keep this short and sweet. It is only progressive overload if you are training the muscle correctly.
If you struggle with back development and your movements drop me a message and we can chat about how to improve it.
Ally Burdge