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The Best Back Workouts For Building Muscle & Definition | Masterclass | Myprotein
Jan 30, 2025
Try this back workout and discover 6 of the best exercises to build muscle and strength.
Want a workout that will fire up your back muscles and help you to grow upper body muscle & definition? We’ve got our expert personal trainers, Chris Broomhead and Calvin Crooks, to take you through 6 of the most effective back exercises and help you nail the correct form and technique that you’ll need to get the most out of every rep.
Our Masterclass series is here to help you unlock more from your training with expert guidance from the best of the best. In this video we cover the seated row, straight arm pullovers, lat pulldowns, single arm dumbbell rows, and barbell rows so that you can create the best back workout for your next gym session.
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Chapters:
00:00 – Intro
00:14 – Seated Row
1:44 – Straight Arm Pullover
3:13 – Lat Pulldown
4:40 – Single Arm Dumbbell Row
6:51 – Barbell Row
7:47 – Remember To Like & Subscribe
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0:00
hi guys my name's chris and today we're
0:01
going to go through the best back
0:03
workout
0:05
[Applause]
0:09
so this workout is composed of the most
0:10
commonly used and effective back
0:12
exercises that we see in the gym so for
0:14
the first exercise we're going to start
0:15
with the seated row and what we're going
0:17
to do is reach forward and grab the
0:18
handles
0:20
i want you to bring your feet up onto
0:22
the foot pads there
0:23
and we're going to straighten our back
0:25
before we start lifting off there's one
0:27
place that people go wrong they have a
0:28
hunched back and you can't contract your
0:31
lats if your backs hunch forward so from
0:34
there we're just going to straighten out
0:35
chest up a little bit more
0:37
and then slide your legs back a little
0:39
bit and slide your hips back
0:41
so holding that position
0:43
from there we're going to lean forward
0:45
keeping the back flat
0:46
and then pull through
0:49
with our elbows back and down and
0:51
working the lats in here
0:53
and as we stretch forward we don't want
0:55
to round the back so taking arms forward
0:58
feel the stretch through the lats come
0:59
forward keep the chest up
1:01
to about there
1:03
and then go again repeating through the
1:05
lats
1:07
on this exercise we can also use it to
1:08
bias your upper back if you want to by
1:11
pulling more of your shoulder blades
1:12
back on the way through so we pull more
1:14
into your chest now
1:16
and we see it works more into the upper
1:18
back so we can shift the focus to make
1:20
it more effective depending where you're
1:22
trying to target the main focus is
1:24
keeping that chest up back flat
1:26
and like say pulling more into the abs
1:28
and below your chest if you're trying to
1:30
target your lats
1:31
pulling more into your chest and with
1:33
your upper back if you're trying to
1:34
target your upper back and traps
1:37
[Music]
1:42
okay guys the next exercise we've got is
1:44
a straight arm pull over because it's
1:46
come from an exercise that's pulling
1:48
over
1:49
but on this we're gonna use the cable so
1:51
the same sort of movement but we're
1:52
focusing on the lats so we're in here
1:55
trying to work the lats so if you're not
1:56
feeling in here obviously your
1:58
technique's a little bit off calvin if
2:00
you just grab the handle for me
2:02
we're gonna need to take a step back
2:04
first
2:06
so we get attention to cable and then we
2:08
have to keep it in here so it's hips
2:10
back first
2:12
keep the chest up
2:13
and then you see the stretch through the
2:15
lats straight away
2:16
and then from there
2:17
we're going to bring the bar down
2:19
towards our hips and extend trying to
2:22
shorten through the muscles here keep
2:24
the chest up and you can see straight
2:25
away contracted through
2:27
and trying to really squeeze and let
2:29
them stretch back out on the way up
2:32
and then coming back into that same
2:33
position just moving through the lats
2:35
the whole time a real common error we
2:37
see here is that people switch off the
2:40
back and use all the muscles in the
2:41
front of the body so if you just
2:42
demonstrate like that for me
2:45
and you see it's more of an ab crunch
2:47
so we see a lot of ab movement a lot of
2:49
chest movement
2:50
very little movement through the lats
2:52
and you can see straight away that
2:53
they're not doing very much work at all
2:55
so it's something you want to avoid if
2:56
you want to recruit the right muscles in
2:58
this exercise so just be very mindful
3:01
bring your hips back
3:03
stick your bum out
3:04
stretch through the lats and then we
3:06
bring it in with a contraction
3:07
and then slowly bring it back up to get
3:09
a full stretch at the top
3:12
okay guys next up we've got the lat pull
3:14
down so we're going to use a standard
3:16
bar for this obviously there's many
3:17
different attachments you can put on
3:19
we'll often see people with a parallel
3:20
grip shorter bar going underhand grip as
3:23
well but for today we're just going to
3:24
go with a standard grip bar so calvin if
3:27
you want to grab hold of that bar
3:29
slightly wider we're going to go just
3:30
outside shoulder width
3:33
so a little bit wider so you'll see
3:34
you're often on the curved part of the
3:36
bar with this
3:37
and then we're really focusing on the
3:38
lats as we come down so if you take a
3:40
seat down
3:42
obviously after you've selected your
3:43
weight take your seat get your legs
3:45
hooked underneath so it holds you down
3:46
in position and from here we're going to
3:49
focus on shortening the lats and pull
3:50
down keeping the elbows in front of your
3:52
body
3:53
so come down now elbows down
3:56
there stop there
3:58
and then we're trying to be in here so
3:59
it's chest up
4:01
right in there and we can see the lats
4:03
engage stretch up to the top and just
4:05
give me a couple of reps so we can see
4:06
that again
4:07
so we stretch up
4:09
squeeze down we're in here
4:11
and stretch up again
4:12
going slightly forward at the top and
4:14
down so you see the stretch through the
4:16
lats if you just go back down top of the
4:18
chest
4:19
in there we see pausing in
4:21
working into the lats really keeping the
4:23
focus in the right position then come
4:25
back to the top
4:27
pause there so as we stand back up make
4:29
sure you stand up carefully putting the
4:31
weight down don't let go while still sat
4:33
down because you could injure yourself
4:34
or damage the mission
4:39
okay guys next move into the single arm
4:41
dumbbell row
4:42
so calvin if you just want to take your
4:44
left knee putting it onto the bench
4:46
there if you go
4:47
left arm down onto the bench and then
4:49
from here where most people go wrong is
4:52
they'll be more up in this position if
4:54
you're here and then you're trying to do
4:55
a roll without the weight
4:57
straight away we can see everything's up
4:58
here
4:59
but we're trying to work the muscle here
5:02
trying to work in the lat
5:03
so if we're up here
5:05
with a bent back it won't work we need
5:06
to then straighten out
5:08
so you see this line straightening out
5:10
straight away spine straightens out and
5:12
we can focus into the lat as soon as we
5:14
start moving now we see it stretching
5:16
there and then pulling up through
5:18
so if you now go down and grab the
5:19
dumbbell
5:20
we lift it off the floor set that
5:23
position so your shoulders up slightly
5:25
there you've got stretching the lat and
5:27
then you're going to pull that dumbbell
5:28
more towards your hip
5:30
so your elbow comes back and up
5:32
and that engages your lat as it goes
5:34
down it goes forward and down
5:37
so you can see the stretch through the
5:38
lap there so it's one more squeeze in
5:41
and back down
5:44
[Music]
5:46
okay guys next up we've got the chest
5:48
assisted dumbbell row so for this
5:50
exercise we need an incline bench
5:52
a pair of dumbbells and then we're just
5:54
going to carefully lie ourselves down so
5:56
colin if you just lie down
5:57
make sure you're right up over the top
5:59
as well so you're not squashing so much
6:01
on your chest is right up at the top of
6:03
the bench and it's sat here make sure
6:05
our feet are planted in the ground so
6:06
we're not sliding away and falling down
6:08
the bench as well
6:09
and once we've got that position set up
6:11
we're going to get hold of our dumbbells
6:13
okay once we've got the dumbbell set up
6:14
we're going to pull more towards our
6:16
hips so pull the elbows back and up
6:20
and really try and lift the chest not so
6:22
much that we pinch the lower back but
6:24
they'll be working into the upper back
6:26
here stretch down
6:29
then come up pull those shoulder blades
6:30
back so we can see straight away it's
6:32
working right across here and down
6:35
give me one more rep
6:37
and squeeze through got a nice hard
6:39
contraction here so just focusing
6:41
through here once you've finished that
6:43
careful put your dumbbells down
6:45
and then make your way back to the top
6:47
[Music]
6:48
[Applause]
6:50
okay guys for this exercise we're going
6:52
to do a barbell row
6:54
so on this one a lot of people make an
6:55
error with the hip movement if the hips
6:58
aren't in the right place and the pelvis
6:59
isn't in the right place you won't be
7:00
able to get the movement right
7:02
so
7:03
with that in mind
7:04
we're going to set now
7:06
get into a deadly position
7:09
so
7:10
bring the bar right into you
7:13
hands just outside your knees a little
7:14
bit okay from there we're going to lift
7:16
up to start at the top then we're going
7:18
to go into our hip hinge so just sit in
7:20
the hips back slide the bar down your
7:22
legs pause there
7:23
from here we're going to focus on
7:25
pulling those shoulders back elbows back
7:28
and open the bar in just towards the
7:29
bottom of your stomach or your hips
7:32
and from that you'll feel all your back
7:34
working
7:36
so we're right in here
7:39
going down we'll feel the spine direct
7:40
to slightly holding the position we'll
7:41
throw the lats and slightly into the
7:43
upper back as we pull and roll
7:47
okay guys that brings us to the end of
7:48
our best back workout hopefully you've
7:51
really enjoyed it and found it very
7:52
useful
7:53
if you want to find more workouts like
7:55
this go over to the my protein youtube
7:57
channel and make sure you like and
7:59
subscribe
8:02
[Music]
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