This exercise is ideal for transitioning into doing a pullup the right way, so we want to make sure that we keep the same angle as you would in a pull-up in the upper body. Y That last squeeze really brings in the scapula, so you’re getting a nice involvement of the muscles on top of the scapula at the end of the movement; but really, the primary mover is going to be the latissimus dorsi.

This exercise is just terrific for working the whole back – from the lower back, to the upper back,to the mid back – and taking the arms through a full range of motion, which is something we really want to do. It’s really helpful when even working on your posture. This is a great exercise to warm up or just to get your heart rate up a little bit.

In this exercise, this variation, we’re actually emphasizing the origin of this muscle, the lats, as it inserts into the mid and lower back. This is the close grip lat pulldown. It’s a great exercise to finish off with, and just had a little more detail to the lats.

This exercise is going to be an exercise that I would personally recommend as part of a super set, but t’s a great standalone as well. It’s going to focus on the rear delts. The rear delts are really an interesting part of the shoulder complex because the rear delts sometimes don’t get enough focus. They get overpowered by all the strong muscles of the upper back. So it’s great every once in a while to isolate them. It brings balance to the shoulders.

This exercise is going to focus again on the lats. This time we’re going to do an even better job of isolating the lats. The lats are responsible for extension of the arm or shoulder. Now they’re assisted by the rear delts to some degree. In this exercise, we’re going to do a good job of isolating the lats and using the rear delts in a minimal way.

One of the best exercises for developing the back is a row. A variation of the row is the one-arm dumbbell row. This exercise is great for sports and different activities because it really emphasizes a balance between one side of the body and the other.

The pullover is a great exercise to perform because it really spreads you out. It helps get more blood flowing to the upper body. It really expands at the joints so that you can perform or avoid injuries and perform different activities without so many limitations.

This movement is a really unique movement because it’s actually the dumbbell version of the popular rack pull. It’s a variation of the dead lift that really takes the legs out of the picture and it really focuses on the back. This is a more complete movement than even a rack pull. You won't be able to use as much weight, but the quality of the movement is even better for overall balance development.

One of the principle exercises for back development is the back row and we are going to go over a few variations of this. The back row targets all of the muscles of the back from the erectors of the spine to the rhomboids to the rear delts, to the lats, to the traps, everything comes into play in this movement.

Another variation of the back row is going to be an underhand or a supinated grip back row and this is slightly different because it targets more of the muscles on top of the scapula as well as the traps and you are going to get a little more involvement of the lower lats.

If in fact the squat is the king of all exercises, the dead lift then is a queen of all exercises because this exercise is extremely difficult to master. It takes more coordination to get this movement down right and you are not going to be using substantial amount of weight unless you first learn to perform this and execute it correctly. So what we need here is to not only fire the right muscles, but to fire them in the right sequence, and that’s very important in this exercise.

This movement is an exercise that I really haven’t seen a lot of people perform but I have kind of taken some aspects of the row and combined it with a fact that it’s sometimes very hard to get a good pump in the back without first fatiguing the biceps.

The next exercise is another great exercise. One of the old school movements for the back and it’s the T-bar row. The movement is actually a pretty small movement because you are limited in how far up you can bring your hands because the plates will be in the way but it’s still a great movement especially in developing that thickness in the mid back.

This exercise is a variation of the pull-up or chin-up but what we are doing here is change the grip. A lot of times the grip really defines the exercise. So here we are going to bring in a few different muscles. We are going to be able to get a little more range of motion by bringing our grip in and positioning our hands in what we call a neutral position.

This exercise is something that if more people who were just beginning the workout use this machine they would avoid so many health issues concerning the back. Performing this exercise we are going to cover now can really strengthen the back from the lower back up to the muscles that are in the neck.

The next exercise is a two part exercise. In this exercise it’s not about isolating any muscle, it’s about using all the muscles together, pre-exhausting them, performing an isometric contraction, and then concentric and eccentric contractions. So what we are doing here is working the whole back and performing an exercise that’s really going to initiate a lot of cardiovascular demand.