Bringing Up Weak areas of Back

Being a few weeks out from my next contest has made me re-think some of my training towards to my weak points. They are many but the three major ones are: overall leg density, lower back conditioning, and glute/hamstring tie in. Today I'm focusing on the lower back and how to harden up that area.

My upper and middle back are my strengths so I don't need to focus much attention there, just keep hitting that area with the same intensity. But this train of thought has brought me to realize that I have not been separating the back into different areas of training; the weaknesses as though they are priorities. So I'm going to break the back down and re-focus on the weaker points and de-prioritize the strengths.

The back is made up of four different areas: the upper lats, the lower lats, middle back and lower back. The upper lats include the teres major muscle which gives you the v taper. It's best hit with movements such as wide grip pull ups (my favorite) and wide grip pull downs. Wide gripping rowing exercises also hit this area to some degree.

The lower lats provide the appearance of back width all the way down to where the lats meet the waist. Exercises that focus on this area are reverse and neutral grip work that are performed with shoulder width grip, such as pull downs and pull ups, as well as rows done with barbells, dumbbells, T-bars, cables and machines. The straight arm pull down and pullover also hit the lower lats.

The middle back includes the middle and lower traps and rhomboids. The best exercises that target this area are seated rows with a wide grip in which you pull to the chest, not your mid-section. Also you can use dumbbells by taking an overhand grip and bringing the weight far out to your sides (not tight to your sides). Regular rowing exercises in which you bring the bar to your midsection (as opposed to your chest) also hit this area to a high degree, but for more thickness in the middle, make sure you incorporate a wide grip, bringing the bar high on the torso. The very best exercise for this area and for overall back thickness is the barbell deadlift done with strict form.

The lower section is the erector spinae muscles or lower back. Exercises that tend to work best for this area are stiff legged dead lifts, good mornings and back extensions. These moves work best for this area if you allow a slight rounding of the back, unheard of in most other exercises for good reason so you need to lower the weights a bit. This area is my weakness and I will focus much of my attention to. I am going to do some of these exercises twice a week to firm up the lower back.

A good approach to specific area back training is to rate your back into these 4 areas from 1-4, 1 being the weakest and 4 being the strongest. Then arrange the exercises where you are doing the weakest parts first in your back training and the strongest last. Or you can have two back training days where you train the weak parts earlier in the week and the strongest at the end of the week.