If you want to have that V-taper, look where your upper body’s proportionately bigger than your waist. Then developing a wider back is a must.
Today, in this post, we will be covering eight of the best exercises that are going to help you develop a wider back faster.
You’ll read about training techniques that you should incorporate to make your back bigger in terms of both width and thickness.
The information in this post is based on another great video presentation published by Gravity Transformation.
3 Important Things to Consider for a Wider Back
To effectively build a bigger back, you’ll want to do three things for all of these exercises.
First, you’ll need to concentrate on actually targeting your back instead of your biceps, your triceps, or your forearms.
It’s going to take some time to develop the neuromuscular connection between your brain and your back.
For all of these exercises, you’re going to want to try to pull the weight with your elbows, not your hands, and really squeeze your back with each rep as if you’re trying to hold a pencil in between your shoulder blades.
Second, you’ll need to progressive overload all of these exercises over time.
The best way to do that is by trying to always incrementally increase the weight load you’re using for all your back exercises as you get stronger.
Third, you’ll want to do come to full extension and get a really good stretch at the negative portion of all your pulling movements.
Wide Back Exercise #1 – Long Angle Dumbbell Row
To perform this exercise, start by leaning against something lower than your waist level.
You want to bend down until your back is almost parallel with the ground.
Grab a dumbbell with your other hand in a neutral position and let it hang straight down.
Pull your shoulder blades back and stick your chest out to maintain a neutral spine.
Now instead of pulling the dumbbell in towards your belly button like you would with a regular row, aim to pull the dumbbell back towards your hips like you’re trying to put the dumbbell in your pocket.
And then bring it back down to the regular hanging position and repeat.
This is going to take your biceps almost completely out of the movement and put all the tension on your back, your lats, and the back of your shoulder.
Keep in mind you’ll need to use a lighter weight than you normally would with regular dumbbell rows.
Wide Back Exercise #2 – Wide or Close Grip Pull-Ups
Wide Grip
Both grips will provide unique benefits for your back.
A wide grip will target your lower lats more and it will take a lot of your bicep strength out of the movement.
To start, you’ll want to grab a pull up bar with your hands facing away from you and your grip set fairly wider than your shoulders.
Your body should resemble a Y shape.
Next, hang straight down so that your arms are fully extended while keeping your chest out and your shoulders pulled back.
Pull yourself up, concentrating on pulling up with your elbows until your chin clears the bar.
Close Grip
For closed grip pull-ups, everything remains the same except you’ll want to grab the bar with your handset shoulder with apart or even a little closer together.
Because you’re taking a closer grip, you’ll be able to incorporate more of your biceps and a little bit of your pecs into the exercise, allowing you to do more reps or more weight.
It will also help you hit your inner lats.
Remember to strap a weight to your body once you start getting stronger.
And if pull-ups are too difficult for you right now, then you could use resistance bands to assist you on your way up.
Wide Back Exercise #3 – Standing Cable Pullover
You’ll want to set your cable cross machine at its highest point and grab a straight bar with a grip about six inches wider than your shoulder with.
Keep your arm straight and maintain a slight bend at your elbows.
Bend forward to give yourself a longer range of motion and step back with the weight to remove all the slack while keeping your shoulder blades back and your arms straight.
Bring the bar down until it meets your hips and then control it on the way back up and repeat.
A great tip for this exercise is to keep your hands open the whole time.
It’ll help you take your arms in your forearms, out of the movement, putting more tension on your lats.
Wide Back Exercise #4 – Reverse Grip Rows
Regular barbell rows will target a lot more of the middle of your back, around your shoulder blades.
Reverse grip rows will target more of your lower lats.
You’ll want to grab a barbell with your palms facing away from your body and your grip slightly wider than shoulder-width.
Pull your shoulders back and stick your chest out to maintain the natural curve in your spine.
Bend down by about 75 degrees or until your back is almost parallel with the floor while keeping your arms fully extended.
Pull the barbell in towards your belly button and lower it back down to the starting position.
Remembering to pull with your elbows and to squeeze your back with each rep to prevent a lower back injury.
Make sure you don’t slouch forward at any point during this exercise.
Wide Back Exercise #5 – Deadlifts
This is seriously by far one of the best exercises to develop a thicker, wider, and stronger back.
A lot of this has to do with the fact that you’re able to lift a lot more weight in a deadlift than with any other exercise.
Make sure that you try to go heavy after you’ve mastered the proper form with lightweight to begin, step up to a loaded barbell with your shins close to the bar and plant your feet a little wider than hip-width apart.
Hinge your hips and bend down to grab the bar.
Grip the bar slightly wider than where your shins meet the bar.
Stick your chest out and drop your hips down while squeezing your shoulder blades together to pull all the slack out of the bar.
Don’t lean too far forward.
You want your shoulders in line with your hands when lifting the weight.
Don’t pull with your lower back.
Instead, lift the weight by squeezing your abs, pushing your feet into the ground and hinged in your hips by driving them forward until you’re standing upright.
Then repeat for reps.
Wide Back Exercise #6 – Dumbbell & Barbell Pullovers
This exercise can be very effective for building up your back as long as it’s done correctly.
Some people will lay perpendicular to the bench thinking that they’ll get a much better stretch for the lats by dropping their hips.
But the only advantage to this is if you’re going really heavy and you need to drop your hips to counterbalance to heavyweight so you can position yourself parallel with the bench as well.
Grab the dumbbell with both hands by forming a triangle position between your thumbs and fingers and then overlapping one hand over the other.
You’re not going to be holding onto the bar in the middle that connects the plates.
Bring the dumbbells over your chest with your arms extended and a slight bend in your elbows.
Drop your hips to counterbalance the weight.
Take a deep breath and lower the weight above and behind your head in an arc-like motion until you feel a nice stretch in your chest and your lats.
Then return the weight, but don’t go back to the starting position over your chest because as soon as you bring your arms perpendicular to the ground, most of the tension goes from your lats to your chest.
Instead, stop right before when the dumbbell is in line with the top of your head and repeat for reps within that shorter range of motion while performing the exercise, try to relax your forearms and imagine that you’re pulling your elbows into your chest.
You can perform this exercise with a barbell too by gripping the barbell with your palms facing away from you at about shoulder width.
Dumbbell Variation
Barbell Variation
Wide Back Exercise #7 – Lat Pull Down
To begin, you’ll want to grab the bar with a grip with set wider than your shoulders.
Hooking your thumbs over the bar along with your fingers rather than going under the bar, can help you focus on pulling with your lats instead of your biceps.
While holding the bar with your arms fully extended, sit down and put your legs under the pads if you have them.
Stick your chest out high and pull your shoulder blades back before pulling down.
Pull with your elbows and bring the bar right under your chin or to the top of your chest.
Do not pull the bar under your chest as you’ll disengage your lats and put your shoulders in a bad position.
Also, do not swing back and forth and use too much momentum.
You could use a little momentum to help you squeeze out those last couple of reps, but the rest of your reps should be controlled.
Wide Back Exercise #8 – Seated Cable Rows
You can do this exercise with a wide grip bar or a close grip double D-handle.
Straddle the bench and sit down with your feet up on the front platform with your knees slightly bent.
Bend while keeping your chest out and your shoulders back and grab the D-handle while keeping your arm straight.
Sit back upright to a 90-degree angle from the floor with a big chest while keeping your elbows tight to your body.
Pull your elbows back until the handle meets your lower abs and then extend your arms back out to repeat for reps.
Use a little momentum at the very end of your set to squeeze out the last couple of reps, BUT you should not be swinging back and forth.
D-Handle Variation
Wide Grip Bar Variation
Check Out the Video Here
Check out Gravity Transformation’s FREE 6 Week Challenge by clicking here.
Conclusion
Now, even though you can perform all of these exercises, the recommendation is not to do them all in one day.
Instead, you should select four or five of these exercises and perform each for three sets of six to 10 reps with a two to three-minute break in between aiming for a heavy challenging weight load.
Always start with your biggest lifts first, like deadlifts and barbell rows before moving on to lighter exercises like the standing cable pullover.
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