Back workouts are an essential part of the fitness routine. Unavoidable, in fact, even if you’re following a minimal plan. The back muscles are also working when you do exercises which are primarily for other muscle groups. Whether it’s something as simple as doing bicep curls or a bench press, or something more advanced like a hip thrust. The back will always be engaged in some way. Which is why it gets stiffer over a period of time, especially if you don’t do enough to stretch it and keep it mobile.
If you break down the back muscles into more groups, then the latissimus dorsi, or the lats, are the biggest movers. They cover the middle and the lower back and are vital for pulling and pushing movements due to the scapular protraction and retraction. They also help shoulder movement and are one of the primary muscles engaged in all stability exercises. Because of their importance in and outside the gym, most of a back day is built around developing them. Rows, pull-ups, lat pulldowns, bent over or seated rows, chest supported rows, lat prayers, the list is endless when it comes to exercises targeting the lats.
All of which means that keeping them stretched so that they can operate with a full range of motion is the only way to see them grow. One of my favourite stretches only needs a strong base to hold on to. Get into the position of doing alternate toe-touches. Example: Hold onto something on the right with your left hand and then pull until you feel the left lat muscle stretch. Do the same on the other side. In fact, a very popular gym hack is to do this stretch for a few seconds just before a set of bench presses. It makes a slight difference, because you can press better if you have freely moving lat muscles.
“The bench press should feel powerful and controlled, yet tight shoulders, a stiff chest, and unstable elbows can turn every rep into a grind. The right stretches before bench press improve shoulder rotation, thoracic extension, and scapular control, so the setup feels stable, bar path stays consistent, and strength translates safely into every rep,” says an article on the mobility and recovery app Pliability titled, 20 best stretches before bench press for maximum strength.
This is the stretch which Athlean-X founder Jeff Cavaliere was speaking about in a video he posted 10 years ago. You can even use just a tree for this if you’re looking for something outdoorsy to do while prepping for a run. Cavaliere though, suggests that the grip should be higher, which is above shoulder level. He also agrees that it’s not easy to stretch the lat muscles.
“Many will attempt to stretch out their back and lats by grabbing onto a bar in a squat rack and leaning back. [This] doesn’t raise the arm up and away from the pelvis as much as if you were to get your arm over your head. For instance, if you are stretching your left latissimus dorsi muscle you will want to rotate your left hip back and away from your arm. This will help you to sink the stretch in even greater and really get a good change in flexibility over time. Finally, you want to lean your trunk to the opposite side of the arm you’re stretching to further stretch out the lats as they make their attachments to the spine,” he writes in the video’s description. You can learn the stretch from the video below and it is surely one of the best ones for lats.
Tight lats feel restrictive. The body feels it first on the sides, just below the armpit, and it’s not easy for beginners to intermediate athletes to roll it. It can get painful enough for one to not want to go to the gym, so stretching them before it gets to that point is necessary. If you’re advanced enough to roll your lats, then foam-rolling them and hanging on a bar for 15-30 seconds is an excellent way to keep them loose.
From the easier poses, and this will be familiar for those who have done yoga, the cat-cow, the downward dog and the child’s pose while you reach slowly forward with the fingers are all excellent exercises. But flexibility is what you really need. Bodybuilding.com has an excellent video on their YouTube page for this. The athlete in this video uses a plastic bar, because it’s light, but you can do this without one too. You can either hold the bar or keep your hands together while you press your elbows onto a bench while on your knees, and then push away to create the gap for the stretch. Pull back in and push back out to work on the range of motion and see how it increases gradually after each rep. The key is to slow down and make sure you’re getting enough from the stretch.
For those strong enough, the video also suggests doing a slow eccentric during a chin-up, but this is more difficult and needs you to be able to do at least one chin-up without failing.