5 Ways You Can Build a Huge Back You Can Fly With

Keeping fit is something that is on everyone’s mind, regardless of age or gender. As we get older, we need to put in more effort and work harder to achieve our goals. If you’re a male aged between 35-45 years old and decided to start working out towards building a big back, here are the top 5 muscle building exercises that will help you get where you want.

1. Pull-ups / Chin-ups

Remember the times you are at the gym and you can’t take your eyes off of those people with a big back? You must have noticed already that part of their workout routine consists of sets of pull-ups and chin-ups with very short breaks in between. These two types of exercises are essential for muscle-building on the back as they target biceps and grips, shoulders and lats.

There are numerous ways of modifying these two back exercises to avoid boredom and keep challenging yourself. You can change the grip to wide or narrow or alternate it, you can use thick ropes, gloves or towels and you can overload by using sandbags, kettle bells or dip belts. Last but not least, you can change the movement to slow negatives, explosive sets, side-to-side or holds.

2. Deadlifts

Deadlifts refer to the type of exercise where big weights are being mover and whether they are conventional, sumo, rack pulls or beyond the range deadlifts, it makes no difference.

Start doing sets of deadlifts as your back will build core and stabilize torso not only through resistance but through locking out the weight in order to finish the movement, too.

To avoid routine and keep things interesting you can make use of dumbbells or trap bars, you can opt for conventional or wide stances, alternate the moves from beyond the range to partial rack pulls or overload with chains, bands or straight weights.

3. Seated Rows / Bent Over Rows

Seated Rows

As long as they are done correctly, seated rows will be working your biceps, posterior delts, rhomboids and lats. Make sure you focus on the move and don’t fall for the bad techniques you may see in the gym where people tend to hyperextend, tuck their chins or throw them.

Bent Over Rows

The most common mistakes with bent over rows are men using too much weight and ending up throwing it up, not arching their back as they should or are too upright and thus have limited range of motion.

Remember to keep your torso as parallel to the ground as possible at all times, whilst your back is in neutral.

4. Back Extensions

Back extensions are great for muscle building on the back as they target the glutes, the erectors and hamstrings. Be careful and don’t hyperextend as you must remain neutral and ensure your lower back is not being hyper flexed and wacth your head’s position as it must be in neutral with the back. If you feel the need for variety you can use med balls, dumbbells, barbells or even holding Olympic plates.

5. Face Pulls / External Rotations / Band Pull Aparts / Foam Rolling

We have kept the most important exercise for last as it is the key to building a big back. Of course, all the above four types of exercises are important and required but face pulls, external rotations, ban pull aparts and foam rolling are the key.

You need to make sure you are focusing on the little muscles and balance as this will make the difference between being able to lift for a longer period of time with great strength potential and lifting but getting injured.

Whilst band pull aparts and face pulls target the rhomboids, teres major and posterior delts, foam rollers work towards improving soft tissue quality and removing scar tissue.