exercises for strengthening the back

Forgive me, for it's been a long day. I honestly cannot remember what lats are, but I have a friend who compilied his own work out. He designed it to strengthen all muscles and allow them to work together for better stamina and strength. He says that since he has been doing this program for a while, he no longer has back pain. Not sure if this helps. If you want, I'll email it to you.

I believe he used a couple books, one of them being Dino Exercises or something to that effect. Hope this helps

Forgot: He's about 6'4" and well built. With this work out, he was able to slightly side bend and throw a 200lb man a far distance. No straining or injuries. Not that that is what you're looking for, but he has seen improvements. Similar to World's Strongest man workouts, I would think.
 
Hawkpatriot,

You can do no better for your selected sport than pull-ups, not chin ups, but palms facing away wide grip pull-ups. Start off with as many as you can with out cheating and kicking up, then do negatives. Another great shoulder/back/grip exercise is of course rope climbing. But pull-ups is where it's at for solid upper body strength. Another great excercise along those same lines are muscle ups, which is essentially a pull up between two parralel bars and when you've pulled yourself up to your shoulders you "muscle" your way through to a dip position and push up.

My advice is to look up a guy on line named Coach John Davies. He's the man when it comes to "functional" training...which is what you want. One SERIOUS exercise, that you need to learn technique for, that will give you the solid core that you need for wrestling, is the dead lift. One of the greatest, most overlooked, misunderstood exercises around.

I also say give bridging a try, but make sure you are safe and intelligent about it. Don't start off with hands free neck bridges and don't try and do them for too long. 30 seconds to 1 minute cycles max. Strong back is good, FLEXIBLE strong back is KING. The other thing, that I'm sure you'll do lots of in wrestling class, is wall walking. Basically put your heals against the wall, take 3 steps or so forward and with your back still to the wall lean back and put your hands on the wall and "walk" with your hands down the wall to the floor with out moving your feet.


Anyway, that's my advice.

Jared
 
You probably don't want to hear about this one but ... shoveling anything (snow for example) requires quite some back strength, therefore shoveling snow is a good practice for back muscles. Yay, free training AND clean sidewalk :rolleyes:
 
I frown on the snow shoveling. It involves a bend and a twist. Gym excercises are much more controlled and safer. It's easy to do too much to fast with a shovel. (if you do gym excercises enough the shoveling is not as tough.)

In order of ease and effectiveness for lats.

Pullups.. wide and narrow.. use the pull-down machine if you are too heavy or after you do as many pullups as possible.

Low rows. (cable) Low reps at high weight many sets.

Lawnmower Pulls. - Kneeling on a bench and one arm pulls a dumbbell from floor to side.

Barbell rows - very good but difficult to learn properly by yourself-- requires good core low back strength.

Deadlifts are great for the entire back, but you must have perfect form.. someone to teach you.

The following site has some low res video on many excercises and other good stuff too. Check out the back section.

http://www.planetkc.com/exrx/Lists/Directory.html

back excercises
http://www.exrx.net/Lists/ExList/BackWt.html#anchor125439

low back/core
http://www.exrx.net/Lists/ExList/WaistWt.html#anchor1945210
 
I gave up on building big lats a long time ago. Everytime I would get some decent lats starting, I would find it messed up what little golf swing I had(seriously), so I stopped. But, if you really want big lats, the advice you've gotten so far seems to be good. Wide grip pullups, rowing, etc...
 
Just saw this:

For a wide and strong back I'd use:

1) Chin-ups- Despite what was posted above the chin up is when your palms face outward, but this is petty bickering as there are 8+ variations that fall into the chin-up family of exercises. When you can do 10+ on your own, add weight. These are much better than lat-pulldowns.

2) One armed rows or barbell rows- These are great for adding thickness. Switch between the two, but if your form is spotty on the barbell type, stick with the dumbbell type while you profect your form. It's quite easy to tear a bicep or strain your back if your form sloppy in that exercise.

3) For your traps and as a general back strengthener, I'd go with the high pull(look it up here:
Address:http://www.uwlax.edu/strengthcenter/videos/video_index.htm , it's in the first row). Shrugs are ok, but most folks use way too little weight to get the most out of that exercise. The High pull is better for sporting applications too.

I'd strengthen the posterior chain on leg days, using the either the deadlift or power cleans. I'd also do a few sets of hyper-extensions(or good mornings) on leg day also. The Abs are pretty muscles, but if your lower back isn't strengthened along with them, you'll have problems in the long run.

One last thing, try to work in the 5-8 rep range most of the time. This is a nice rep range that bridges the gap betwween pure strength work and hypertrophy.
 
Get yourself 2 horses, tie a rope to the tail of each, hold one rope in each hand,hold on tight, and yell giddyup! :D
Instant barndoor lats.
 
Hey Bob, I don't disagree with you about chin-ups, as a good exercise anyway, but I've never gotten good results with chins in regard to overall back development and strength like I have from pull ups. I would like to point out that I believe in STRICT form pull ups, making use of the lats and tight abs for pull-ups other wise you are cheating and wasting time. However, I do completely agree with you regarding WEIGHTED pulls and chins. Once you can DO 10-15 bodyweight pulls/chins you should definitely strap on some weight. I would also caution about thinking about the "back" as something wholly seperate from the rest of you. Think about the body as a whole, find exercises and routines that work your body as a unit, this will make wrestling a much more enjoyable sport.

Can you give some background on why you use chins for back development?


Jared

EDIT: I left what i said so you can laugh at me....but I just re-read you post Bob and realized you weren disagreeing with my definition of chin-up not the exercise it's self. So ignore me. :D
 
That's alright, it's a matter of semantics. I was taught that a chin-up was done with the palms facing outward. Now, most are calling that a pull-up. And most of the strength coaches tend to go back and forth on the issue.

:).
 
Deadlifts are great for the overall back, but I think weighted pullups are one of the better exercises for the lats.
 
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