There are so many back exercises available to us today, each with the promise of giving us that X-frame – a wider back and shoulders which makes our waist look narrower, creating an amazingly feminine physique.

Modern-day gym goers do some pretty weird exercises – single arm pulleys, backward looking rows, and other exercises I don’t even have a name for. In my opinion, the influx of influencers online has somewhat destroyed the art of training for strength and resilience, but I keep to my principles and clients achieve better results faster because of this.

Here are my favourite (but much less common) back exercises for building a strong back, and a strong, feminine physique.

1: Deadlift.

Not only does it build your back strong, it builds your glutes too. Old-school programs almost always placed deadlifts on back day, for this very reason. The stability required through your posterior chain in order to deadlift well largely relies on the back – whatever weight you can deadlift is going to be supported by your back muscles.

The best thing about a deadlift is it’s one of those big movements where you can gain a lot of strength – more than you can with any other back exercises. If you persisted with deadlifts, it’s not uncommon to be able to complete 5 repetitions with your bodyweight, but with rows, you’re lucky to get over 40kgs. So deadlifts are king when it comes to building a strong back.

If you want to read more about the posterior chain, check out my article ‘Why You Need a Strong Posterior Chain if You Want to Get Strong’

2: Eccentric Rack Pulls

Rack pulls are a hip-hinge movement like a deadlift but pulled from a higher height (just below or above your knees). You can life quite a lot of weight this way, and when you return the weight slowly, whilst really focussing on contracting your back muscles to support the weight, you can increase the item under tension and thus put a lot of load through your bock.

It may seem counterintuitive, but the ‘easier’ phase of a resistance exercise is the phase where you have potential to build the most muscle (when we speak of a row or rack pull, when you return the weight back to the rack, this is the eccentric phase).

3: Wide-Grip Deadlifts

A wide-grip deadlift is where you perform a deadlift-life movement with a snatch-grip, so your hands are quite a bit wider on the bar. You complete the lift much like a deadlift (although you will be lower to the ground like you would be in a Snatch lift), and to support the bar you really need to contract your back muscles and keep them contracted.

4: Chin-up

Chin-ups are a great all-rounder for building upper body strength, and in order to do a chin-up you need to be able to lift your bodyweight. So, that’s impressive load on your back muscles. Additionally, if you lower down more slowly, you will place more strain on your back muscles just as you do in the eccentric rack pulls.

So those are my top 4 exercises for strengthening your back. They’re less unconventional and require more technique and overall strength to perform, but they will pay off much greater than a DB 1 arm row with 15kg will!

So that’s it! My 4 favourite back strength exercises for building a strong feminine physique.

STRENGTH TRAINING FOR WOMEN

If you’re interested in diving deeper into training, and taking in all of my hard-earned wisdom, check out my Female Training course – it’s amazing and it’ll have you achieving results in no time

I hope this helps!

Jen X