A strong upper back is important to minimize injuries to the shoulder joint and shoulder belt. Many athletes and training enthusiasts love the pressure and pressure exercises: bench press, incline press, press down, dips and overhead presses. To balance these movements and improve the stability of the shoulder joint, however, antagonistic pulling exercises should be incorporated. If these movements are neglected, the risk of injury increases.
I understand that train movements are not popular or are controlled by the "I can lift X weight" mentality, so unfortunately they can be neglected. "How much can you close handle pulldown or bowed row?" You never hear that, do you?
In order to strengthen the upper back / shoulder area, minimize the potential for injury and improve your ability to optimally perform your upper body sporting skills, the following exercises for pulling the upper torso should be integrated in order to emphasize the exercises for most trainees to push the upper body counteracting the front body:
- Pulldown / chin with a wide grip up to the upper chest
- Close the pulldown / chin to the upper chest
- Sweater machine
- High row
- feature
- row
- Low row
- Upright row
- Rear delta machine / curved fly
- External rotation of the rotator cuff
Think of it this way: for each thrust exercise there should be an opposite pulling exercise. Examples:
- Overhead press – pulldown with wide or narrow handle, machine sweater
- Tilt press – high row or face pull
- Breast press – seated / curved row, low row, rear delta / curved bow tie
- Push / Immerse – reject upright row
Before we go any further, we need to know two things:
- It is literally impossible to isolate a particular muscle only when doing an exercise move. For example, if you perform a side elevation to target your delts, both the anterior and medial deltoid muscles are activated along with the clavicle head of the pectoralis major (chest) and the supraspinatus (a rotator cuff muscle).
- Regarding this point, some front muscles are activated when performing traditional back / pulling exercises. During a pulldown with a tight grip and supinated forearms (the palms facing you), for example, the sternal head of the pectoralis major and the long head of the triceps support the lats, teres major and other posterior / pulling muscles.
And then there is the question of the venerable upright row – where does it belong? It's a pulling exercise, but it works with the deltoid muscles that typically occur in anterior / pressure exercises. What a dilemma. Let's go through a basic tutorial on upper back musculature and kinesiology:
When discussing the upper back muscles, two anatomical points and relevant joint movements must be taken into account: the shoulder blade (shoulder blade) and the humerus (upper arm). Shrug up, down, forwards and backwards. This is your shoulder blade in action. Move your upper arm in several directions. This is your humerus articulating on the glenohumeral joint.
Looking at the development of the upper back, the following table shows the details of the movements and the muscles involved:
Training logs for the muscles of the upper back
There are many ways to develop the upper back muscles using a series of movements / exercises with a variety of overload protocols. I have provided a sample exercise that can be used in individual workouts and some set / rep scripts that can be applied to it.
Exercise movements in the upper back for individual workouts:
- Large handle pulldown
- Bowed row
- Upright row
- pull ups
- Low row
- Face pulls
- row
- Pulldown with a tight grip
- Curl biceps
- High row
- Rear delta machine
- machines sweater
Set / repeat script options that can be applied to them:
- 2 sets of each exercise in 10-14 and 6-10 repetition ranges
- 2 sets of each exercise in a range of 8-12
- 3 sets of each exercise, all in repetition ranges 12-16, 8-12, and 4-8
- 3 sets of each exercise in a range of 6 to 10 repetitions
- 1 set of each exercise in a range of 12 to 16 repetitions
Many options work for certain training days. Regardless of whether you exercise two or three days a week with a full body workout or a split routine where your upper body is trained twice a week, you should consider the above-mentioned upper back exercises.
Make sure that you balance all common pushing exercises with pulling exercises in the upper back. Work it as hard as all of your bumps. This approach protects against shoulder injuries, gives you balanced muscles, and improves your ability to perform sporting skills better.