I recently switched my emphasis of the past 6 years of solely powerlifting to a combination of powerlifting and bodybuilding. My question is have any of you had problems bringing your middle back and traps up to par with your lats? (Prepare to butcher me on terminology) But simply put, I have really wide and thick lats, and my upper traps are extremely thick, but have no peak. The problem is my rhomboids and lower traps are extremely underdeveloped compared to my lats and upper traps. I was talking to another buddy who said that to develope that upper middle back you have to get on the sauce, because otherwise the posterior delts, upper traps and lats end up fatiguing before you can fatigue the others. Thoughts?
[quote]SKWATKING wrote:
I recently switched my emphasis of the past 6 years of solely powerlifting to a combination of powerlifting and bodybuilding. My question is have any of you had problems bringing your middle back and traps up to par with your lats? (Prepare to butcher me on terminology) But simply put, I have really wide and thick lats, and my upper traps are extremely thick, but have no peak. The problem is my rhomboids and lower traps are extremely underdeveloped compared to my lats and upper traps. I was talking to another buddy who said that to develope that upper middle back you have to get on the sauce, because otherwise the posterior delts, upper traps and lats end up fatiguing before you can fatigue the others. Thoughts? [/quote]
I don’t think “sauce” specifically causes any muscles to develop better than others. What I think is most important is hit your back from a variety of angles. Yates rows always hammer my upper/middle back too.
Well, I use AAS so you can take this as you will, but I always feel lightweight, high rep (15+) close grip lat pulldowns (with the v handle thing) done with constant tension really well in my upper middle back. I sit up straight and pull to my clavicle. Another good one is Tbar rows with the narrow handles.
A lot written here on lower trap activation.
Rhomboids lie below the traps, so really getting them bigger isn’t going to be the deciding factor in getting a huge mid-back. If I remember from anatomy correctly, they assist the workhorse middle trap. That said, any exercise focusing on retraction of the scapula should help.
I think I notice these when I do decline shrugs.(Pulling shoulder blades bback instead of up.) someone told me it’s not a safe move, but I’ve never had any trouble.
Thanks for the input everybody. I haven’t done AAS, but I’ve hit a couple PH cycles with main points of emphasis being strength gains for powerlifting meets. I’m about to hop on another cycle in a few weeks and will report back in a few months with how the middle back development went.
This should help.