We know what you’re thinking. If you can’t see the effects of a workout in the mirror, what’s the point? And that’s understandable — you want gain as well as pain. But this short-sighted ideal could be slowing down your gym progress. If you want a beach-ready physique that’ll also protect you from injury and fix your posture, you need to put your back into it. Literally.
Strengthen your back, and you’ll inadvertently pull your shoulders back and down to both broaden and straighten your silhouette and make yourself stand taller.

Weak middle and lower back muscles also make you more likely to experience low back pain, a condition that leads to more than 10 million sick days being taken each year in the UK alone. Target these muscles with heavy metal, and it’s also a condition that can be solved in the gym, rather than with pain medication.

Strengthen the muscles in your upper and middle back, and you stabilise your shoulder joints, which has transferable benefit to every other upper body exercise, allowing you to lift more on chest day. Not only that, your arms will get bigger. Each back exercise centres on a pulling movement and your back works in unison with your biceps to complete each rep and, therefore, will help fill out your T-shirt sleeves. Win-win.
For you we have prepared 14 exercises for a huge back. Get to work!

Athlete model – Brian DeCosta @briandecosta
– www.briandecosta.com
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– www.youtube.com/user/atsoced14