muscular back

[lulu68]

Good morning,

What do you recomend I do to get a tone musculur back. Do I do high reps with low weight or low reps with heavy weights? Also what excersie should I do to work the rear shoulder area? Thanks in advance!

 

[kariev]

Obviously i'm not cathe but i wanted to chime in; hope you don't mind;-) to get a more defined muscular back you need to lift heavy with fewer reps. focus on retracting those shoulder blades when doing rows. this ensures that you are not putting too much emphasis on the arms. as for the rear shoulders, they are also being worked when you are doing rows but to really target them do a reverse fly. sitting at the end of your step hinge forward so your torso is over your thighs. with the weights down by your feet, bring them up in a "u" shaped manner. you don't need heavy wegights for this. do you have the gym style dvds? cathe does this during the shoulder workout. you can also do these standing bent over a little farther with a resistance band.

 

[lulu68]

Hi! thanks for your advice! I have another question. When doing barbell rows is ok to use the curl bar instead of the straight bar. I notice Cathey has a wider grip when doing barbell rows, when I do them I alterate between straight bar and curl bar. Thanks again!

Lourdes

 

[Lynn M.]

Hi --
I know you'll want to hear from Cathe too, but in the meantime, here's my .02:

What REALLY worked for me was in addition to heavier weights, lower rep exercises was incorporating some pull ups. If you have access to a pullup bar, I'd highly recommend doing a set or two. If you do wide grip pullups, you will use some of your rear delt in addition to your back muscles as well.

Also, in re to your question about using a straight or curl: from my experience, you can use both... I find a curl bar feels better on my wrists for when doing rows, but that could be just me.

Take care, Lynn M.

 

[kariev]

yes you can use the curl bar and i agree with the above poster: its much more comfortable on the wrists than the straight bar.