Favorite Movement For a Thick Back?

I will forever endorse the clean, bench and carry program.

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Rows for me.
Any type pulldown makes me wider so I do both. Grip width doesn’t seem to matter much to me except wider seems to include more of my rear delts.

I think the answer to a thick, wide back is being willing to crush your back and making sure it’s your back that is getting crushed and not your arms. I think intensity techniques are really effective for the back.

I like Kroc and meadows rows for these. Basically anything named after someone :laughing:

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CT has a nice four-count horizontal row that helps keep tension in the lats nicely for an extended period of time. I’d include that among some of these other great recommendation.

Question for the field: seeing a lot of vertical pulls for back thickness. I do a lot of vertical pulling for back width. Didn’t know it contributed to thickness so much …

I’ve started adding straps in more frequently on rowing variations, pretty shocking how much it changes the activation.

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Depends on arm path and elbow position. Most people doing a vertical pull down for example will take a wider grip, flare elbow and pull down and back so elbows pass the body line and poke out behind, this movement involves many upper back muscles and not so much the lats. Add to that an arched back and leaning back which also shift the line of pull to more like a horizontal pull.

Elbows close to body, narrower gip and pulling elbows down into hip area and not letting them go behind body will keep more tension on the lats and less on upper back. A forward lean if possible and no arching will help.

Have a play with your arm postion whist feeling your lat with the other hand.

Its the same way you can turn a horizontal pull, eg a single arm db row into more of a lat dominant pull by pulling the db in a sweeping j path into hip area.

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Dorian used to talk about this, utilizing a narrow grip for rowing resulting in lat engagement as well as just being a thickness geared movement.

S

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Yeah this is certainly something I wish I had learnt a long time ago.

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