hiting rhomboids

What are the best excersices for the rhomboids? Right now, on my back day, I do chin ups, pull ups, semi-supinated pull ups, rows, external cable rotation top to bottom. What should I change to give more work to the rhomboids? Thanks for your help.

I posted about traps and rhomboids before, all bodybuilding info is repeated anyway, so here goes~I firmly believe “side raises” should be part of most people’s compound movement for (for me in my experience) traps and rhomboids directly, and upper chest, delts, bis and tris indirectly. NOTHING has hit my upper back and traps like this, and I have traps and rhomboids that are as massive as they’ve ever been, yet I don’t look like the typical bodybuilder with his traps brushing his ears! I used to do only one set of side raises, and at the end of my shoulder workout (always with shoulders for me), but now I switch it around, and do it 1st, 2nd or 3rd for shoulders, and I do at least 2 sets, sometimes more, and believe me, even with a long sleeve shirt with a t-shirt under that, the muscle shape is still seen!! I found this exercise in a library book of all things, and have been doing it for years now, but only after a short time of doing only one set, I felt then saw the difference, and added sets because my body was getting used to only one set.(again, I have a job that I actually do less sets when I work out, so I don’t overtrain my body). Take 2 dumbells, palms facing in toward your sides, and just lift them up as high and direct under your underarms as you can, hold for a count or so, and return. In the beginning, I thought the side raise was perfect for hitting and feeling the traps, but it put muscle on my upper back that I could never touch before, and my entire shoulder girdle is worked by it, and is muscular and ripped! I love this exercise and will never stop using it!!

First inclination would be to perform seated cable rows - and to not keep the elbows close to the sides of the body but more perpendicular. I also have a fondness towards one-arm cable rows.

Hey Ramses - I’m not sure of any specific exercises to hit the rhomboids, but I do recall Poloquin saying yonks ago in an issue of MM that sometimes during front squats the rhomboids can fail before the quads, making it hard to keep the bar in place, and I assume the elbows up. So if you’re really in a bind, just throw in some heavy front squats for a very secondary approach to the problem. Cheers.

Try “straight arm” cable rows and “straight arm” DB bentover rows. Same as regular rows
but don’t bend your elbows and use your biceps. Use strict rowing movement, fully contracted your shoulderblades at the top (pulled together) hold for 1 second and let the weight down slow tempo 2-1-3. Also try cable rows to the neck: