Bodybuilding Tips, The Importance Of Back Exercises In Bodybuilding

By Ricardo d Argence

There are a lot of people out there who do not know how important increasing your back strength is to bodybuilding. Bodybuilding is used to either increase muscle mass, or increases your functional strength. In any case in order to do this you must increase your core strength which lies in your abdominal muscles and your back.

Your back and spine are the primary stabilizing muscles in your body, and the ones easiest to injure when lifting weights. From a biomechanical perspective, your back consists of the spine, the ribs, the scapula and the ligaments that string them all together, like parts of a mobile or kinetic motion structure.

There are so many different injuries that are affiliated with the back, and most of it is from lifting heavy things, compression, or rotating the wrong way. Keeping the muscles around the spine strong will make it easier for good posture while lifting, leaving less chance of getting hurt.

The back is so heavily relied on everyday to do just about everything that most people take for granted that their back is strong enough. The back is very fragile, so when working out the back muscles you will want to take it slow, and build strength gradually.

If you go to the gym, you are more than likely to see someone there that has big muscles around their neck. These are called the trapezius muscles, and these are an iatrical part to the strength in your back. The best exercise is to take a dumbbell in both hands and shrug your shoulder up as high as they will go, and bring them down very slowly, create more resistance.

A related motion, which helps the traps a bit, but mostly works on your deltoids, is a straight-arm lift. Hold a dumbbell in your hand with your elbow at your side, and your forearm out level with the map. Extend your arm until it's at shoulder height, in one fluid motion, and look down your arm at the dumbbell, like you're sitting on a pistol range. Then bring it down slowly. This will work on your deltoids and the yoke of muscle linking your shoulders.

Now that you have worked out your trapezius muscles, and your deltoids, you need to then go to your lower trapezius muscle which runs down your ribs. The best exercise to do here is a v-bar pull down because it will isolate the muscle thoroughly.

The next thing you will want to do in building strength in your lower back is shoulder arches. Now this exercise you will want to do lightly as it is easy to overdue it. Just take a dumbbell over the back of your neck, lay down on your front, and arch your back.

As with all muscle building exercises, it's important to do stretches and a bit of cardio before and after doing them to maintain flexibility.

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