Straight arm Pulldown – Back exercise
Main Muscle Worked:Lats
Other Muscles Worked: traps,biceps
Equipment:Lat Pulldown machine
Mechanics Type:Isolation
Tips: Stand in front of a lat pulldown bar with your arms outstretched towards the bar. Place your palms flat on the bar and pull it down to shoulder level. Keeping your elbows slightly bent and your wrists locked, pull the bar down towards your body in an arcing motion. Once you contracted the lats fully and the bar has touched or come close to your thighs, slowly allow the bar to come back up to the starting position. Keep your torso erect!
Taken from bodybuilding.com
Categories: Back Exercises, Bodybuilding Exercises, Strongman Exercise Database Tags: lats, machine, upperback
FacePulls – Upperback Exercise
Main Muscle Worked: Traps
Other Muscles Worked: Rear delts Biceps
Equipment: lat pulldown machine,or bands
Mechanics Type:Isolation
This is a great exercise to develop your upper back. Using a high pulley or lat pulldown machine, attach a triceps rope and pull towards the face/forehead. Make sure you squeeze your upper back towards the end of the movement and pull the rope apart. This exercise should be done for higher reps (12-20).
Taken from Elitefts.com
Categories: Back Exercises, Bodybuilding Exercises, Shoulder Exercises, Strongman Exercise Database Tags: facepulls, traps, upperback
Scarecrows – Upper Back Exercise
Main Muscle Worked: Traps, Rear Delts
Other Muscles Worked: Biceps
Equipment: Cable Machine
Mechanics Type:Isolation
Well developed rear delts will help to keep your shoulders balanced and help to prevent a lot of shoulder injuries and rotator cuff problems. Very often the front delts are strong from lots of pressing movements (bench presses, overhead presses, etc.) so they over power the rear delts.
Strong rear delts will also help to improve your strength in exercises such as the bench press. With a strong well developed upper back you will be more solid on the bench and be able to generate more power. They will also help your squat because the bar is placed across your upper back. By having big strong rear delts and traps you will be able to stabilize the bar better and not hunch over in the squat. Just look at anyone who has a big bench press and / or squat and you will see that they also have well developed rear delts and upper back muscles.
Here are are some exercises that will target your rear delts and upper back. You should incorporate these exercises into your workouts. I usually do at least a 3 sets of rear delt work every workout as part of my warm up. I also work my rear delts after chest, shoulder, and back workouts.
Since this is a small muscle group you should train with fairly light weights and do higher reps, between 10-20 reps per set. Focus on feeling the muscles working with each rep.
Lee Hayward.com
Categories: Back Exercises, Bodybuilding Exercises, Strongman Exercise Database Tags: back, traps, upperback
