How to Gain Weight & Build a Barn Door Sized Back
If you want know how to gain weight and build a
thick, muscular back there are three exercises that you need
to become very familiar with. Those exercise are chin ups,
rows and lastly but most importantly; deadlifts. If you did
nothing but those three exercises faithfully you would end
up with a thick and impressive looking back.
When it comes to uncovering the secrets of
how to gain weight you need to realize that the back muscles
make up a huge portion of your total musculature and that
developing them will add countless pounds to your frame.
So how do we go about developing all of the muscles of the
back? Firstly we have to address the traps which start at the
neck and go all the way down to the mid back. These can be
worked most effectively with dead lifts, shrugs and hang
cleans. Deadlifts can be done for anywhere between one and
twenty reps. Shrugs are best kept at 6-12 reps and cleans
should usually be done for six reps or less.
Next on the list are the smaller muscles around the shoulder
blade area which are the infraspinatus, rhomboids, teres major
and minor and rear deltoids. These muscles work during all
forms of rows. If you are really looking to get the most bang
for you buck and to work as many muscles as possible then stick
with big compound rowing exercises like dumbbell and barbell
rows. These will work most muscles in your back. But if you are
more advanced and want to isolate and directly target some of
these smaller muscles you can do that with face pulls, bent
over lateral raises, scare crows and external rotations. These
smaller isolation type exercises are not necessary but can help
prevent imbalances and can put the finishing touches on a well
muscled back. Unlike other isolation exercises like leg
extensions and concentration curls, these exercises actually do
serve some purpose and are effective at building size and
strength and preventing injury. When utilizing some of these
smaller isolation exercises be sure to keep the reps in the
8-12 range as that is what seems to work best for these
muscles.
The lats are next and are the muscles that
stick out under your armpits and give you the appearance of
width. They make up a great deal of the total back
musculature. To really increase the size of your lats and
thus the width of your back, focus on all variations of chin
ups and the occasional higher rep set of pulldowns.
Lastly we have the erector spinae which is basically the lower
back musculature. This area extends from the top of the glutes
up to the traps. A well developed set of erector spinae really
stands out and lets people know you are way more than all show
and no go. There is no better lower back exercise than the
deadlift and its variations. Some other great erector spinae
builders are good mornings, back extensions and reverse hypers.
These exercises should be done for 6-20 reps, while deadlifts
can be done for 1-20 reps.
While everything written above is important and should be
considered, you could ignore all of it and just deadlift on a
regular basis and still develop a very impressive back.
Whenever someone asks me how to gain weight I tell them to eat
a lot and do deadlifts. Deadlifts are the king of the back
builders and work every muscle group. If you are pressed for
time, stick with deadlifts. If you have more time to dedicate
to building a big back do two sets each, twice per week of some
type of deadlift or lower back exercise (deads should only be
done once per week as they are very tough to recover from),
shrug, upper back “isolation move,” compound row and chin
up.
Jason Ferruggia is a world famous fitness expert who is
renowned for his ability to help people build muscle as fast as
humanly possible. He has trained thousands of clients during
his 14 years as a professional fitness coach, including more
than 500 athletes from over 20 different sports. Jason has
written hundreds of articles for numerous top rated training
magazines and websites and has authored four fitness books. He
is also the head training adviser for Men’s Fitness Magazine
where he also has his own monthly column dedicated to muscle
building. For more great muscle building information, please
visit Muscle Gaining Secrets.
| 
