#1304

Antonin – good question

I was fortunate enough to learn and adapt a lot of methods from Matt throughout our entire 5 years together where he trusts me enough to handle my own training – I am forever learning but here is some of my own opinions based on what I’ve learned from him and through experience..

For my back training, well any body part for that matter, movement selection is very important to me in that in my mind I am envisioning how I want my physique/shape/symmetry to look, what movements will target the intended muscle properly, never doing two movements back to back that will hit the exact same area in the same way, and what variation will give me the most bang for my buck.

I credit myself on having a really good mind muscle connection, and making any movement I perform as hard as possible on the muscle itself, so with back in particular I really focus on driving the weight with the intended section of my back that I am emphasising with that movement vs just moving from point a to b. Keeping tension on the muscle throughout the entire ROM, controlled eccentrics, concentrics with intended explosiveness, hard contractions, good stretches and minimal momentum.

For me personally in my back training, I am someone who does not need a lot of upper back/trap emphasis, so I mostly focus on lats and mid back, and secondary upper back.

I have movements I alternate, but A typical back session I like would look something like this

1.Wide Neutral grip pull down OR pull up – really try to initiate lower lats in this by pulling as low as I can while remaining upright and not swinging

2. Bent over smith machine row – I focus on pulling more to my belly button vs high, and eliminate a lot of trap involvment, but still getting some upper back width/thickness work in, while staying as close to parallel to the ground and as strict as I can

3. T bar row – using a close neutral grip handle attachment – again staying as parallel as possible to floor as I can and moving the weight through a contracted back throughout the entire ROM and not my arms

4. Dumbbell Pullover – lying on a bench, I arch pretty hard on these because I really like the connection I can get with my mid back that way and not just my lats

5. Rack Pull – for these I personally prefer right at the knee, and here I initiate my lats and keep them contracted throughout the entire lift and again arch hard at the contraction and allows me to smoke my total mid back and lats and not shrugging weight up with my traps

6. Dead stop single arm row either dumbbell or a plate loaded machine – dead stop reps but not releasing tension

I hope this offers you some insight! Thank you for the question!