Effective Exercises to Strengthen Your Back: A Comprehensive Guide

To strengthen your back, everyone knows that there is a key exercise: pull-ups. That said, this exercise already requires excellent sheathing and strong upper body muscles (biceps, triceps, trapezius, etc.). Fortunately, other exercises allow you to gradually learn to master this movement and, above all, the back muscles do not work only when you are suspended from a bar. So, to give you some ideas of exercises that challenge your back muscles to include in your workout routines, we spoke with Alice Mathieu, Nike sports coach and pull-up specialist. The young woman has designed a course dedicated to working the back muscles at KAH Studio – explicitly titled “Gorilla Back” – and lists for GQ the most effective exercises to get a strong and healthy back.

The best exercises to build your back without equipment (or just with a rubber band)

Here are some effective exercises to strengthen your back at home, at a hotel or with friends, without weights or too many specific equipment.
PS: If you’re at the beach, or by a nice pool, you can always go swimming, it’s also good for your back.

3 exercises without equipment to strengthen the upper back

The “Superman” and its variations

“The Superman and its variations are very good exercises for warming up, for activating the shoulders and the back muscles”, says Alice Mathieu. In its most classic variant, the Superman consists of lying face down on the ground, legs straight, arms stretched forward. It is then a question of taking off his legs and his arms at the same time and maintaining the position maintaining the position for a few seconds before releasing. You have to keep your head straight facing the ground, your shoulders aligned and not dig your back by contracting your abs and staying well sheathed. “It’s interesting to add pull-ups with an elastic band to work on opening the shoulders and mobilizing the shoulder blades,” adds the coach. If you don’t have one, you can always grab a towel or a t-shirt.

the bird

“Always to activate the shoulders and shoulder blades, you can make the bird with a rubber band”, continues our expert. Just shift one foot slightly forward, slide a rubber band underneath and bow, keeping your back straight. Then you will go up and spread your arms simultaneously to model the movement of the wings of a bird.

Prints (with elastic)

“The problem with working the upper back is that you will quickly be limited in the variety of exercises if you don’t have equipment or at least a rubber band,” says Alice Mathieu before detailing different pulling exercises that target the muscles of the upper body and back. For example, place a rubber band between your feet, bow with your back straight, and pull the rubber band towards you. On the same principle, you can also do standing horizontal pull-downs with a rubber band attached to a beam. Or finally make vertical draws with an elastic placed in height so as to make downward movements.

3 exercises without equipment for the lower back

The half bridge

We can tend to minimize the importance of the muscles of the lower body in the stability of the pelvis and the mobility of the spine, and therefore the good health of the back. Alice Mathieu thus underlines the importance of performing exercises such as squats or “bridges”. Here, we will talk about the half-bridge which consists of lying on your back, knees bent and raising then lowering the pelvis to work the back of the thighs and the glutes. “By moving the feet forward, you work the whole posterior chain but also the lower back,” says the coach.

Le good morning

Same idea with the “good morning” which allows both to solicit the back and the shoulders but also the hamstrings and the glutes in particular. It involves standing straight with your hands crossed on your shoulders or your palms resting on the back of your head with elbows apart, knees unlocked and slightly bent. You will then lean the bust towards the ground by starting the movement of the hips (and especially keeping the back straight) until the level where your flexibility allows it.

With a deadlift

Ok, normally the deadlift is done with weights, or at least a barbell, but you can also do it without. You can for example perform a “one leg deadlift”, that is to say that you work on one leg. You make a pendulum movement by leaning your bust towards the ground (keeping your back straight) while sending one leg up.

The best back exercises with equipment

“If you’re in your gym, you can warm up by rowing or skiingERG [une machine qui reproduit les mouvements du ski de fond], says Alice Mathieu. I also like to do this at the end of the session to work on endurance and general physical condition.”

5 exercises with equipment for the upper back

pull-ups

We warned you, pull-ups remain the flagship exercise for building back muscles, especially when they are performed with an overhand grip (the back of the hands facing you), rather than with an underhand grip (with the palms facing you) which puts more strain on the biceps. Depending on your level, you can use a rubber band to help you pull up, or do your pull-ups with weights attached to a belt. Alice Mathieu slips us another tips to vary the pleasures: use a grip without the thumb to put less strain on the forearms. Good luck.

TRX Draws

Easier than pull-ups: TRX pull-ups. “The sheathing is more important when doing pull-ups because all the muscles contract, especially the legs, to avoid the pendulum movement. With the TRX, we have support on the ground and all the muscles are less stressed.” We let you take a look at one of our articles on the subject if you have no idea what TRX means.

Lumberjack prints

In general, all types of pull-ups are effective for working the back (renegade row, gorilla row, etc.), but Alice Mathieu points out that lumberjack pull-ups, i.e. a one-arm dumbbell pull-up, are particularly interesting because they allow you to work unilaterally. “When you’re doing pull-ups, you often have one arm helping you more than the other, and working that way helps compensate for the deficit you have on one side or the other,” she explains. You have to place one knee on a weight bench, the other leg stretched out beside the bench, bend over keeping your back straight and perform pull-ups with the arm on the side of the leg on the ground.

The vertical pulley pull

Same principle as the exercise described in the first part of our article but this time the elastic gives way to a machine, with a pulley and weights. “What’s interesting about this exercise, whether you do it standing up or sitting down, is that it’s the movement that comes closest to pulling up. It can be a good way to strengthen your back muscles before getting into pull-ups.”

The “shrug” with dumbbells

A difficult term to translate into French, “shrugs” consist of shrugging your shoulders while keeping your arms straight. You obviously have a dumbbell in each hand, otherwise it’s too easy, or you’re still warming up. “It’s always good to work in tempo on these kinds of exercises, staying at the top for a few seconds before lowering your shoulders, we are our expert. When you start it allows you to integrate the movement well but it also allows you to gain strength and vary your training.

3 exercises with equipment for the lower back

Bench lumbar extensions

You work on a purpose-built 45-degree incline bench that allows you to immobilize your legs. You perform a flexion from the hips and direct your bust (right) towards the ground. You can work with a disc that you place at chest level (as if you were giving it a hug) or with a pull-up bar in the back.

Les deadlifts

The deadlift is a classic exercise that everyone knows and which allows you to work the glutes, hamstrings and all the muscles of the body at the same time.

squats

“Sometimes I realize that I have more aches in my upper back than elsewhere after series of squats”, says Alice Mathieu who points out that by performing squats with a barbell (the aptly named “back squats”) we also work on the back.

The perfect back workout routine

After a warm-up consisting of mobility exercises targeting the shoulders in particular, Alice Mathieu suggests continuing with pull-ups, pull-ups and TRX:

3x 10 tempo pull-ups 4×12 “Gorilla Row” or pull-ups with a barbell 3×12 vertical pulley pull-ups (holding one or two seconds in the pull-up) 3x 12 lumberjack pull-ups (holding 2 seconds at the top) A finisher on the TRX of 5 or 10 minutes with 10-12 repetitions each minute
2023-07-22 02:40:55
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