Training your back is a great way to gain upper body strength, improve stability, build muscle, and enhance your posture. However, the back consists of many muscle groups, some of which are often trained ineffectively, and some that are overtrained, leading to imbalances such as strong lats but a weak neck. With so many different muscle groups performing a variety of tasks. Balanced strength training will help you build a stronger, more cohesive back that is aesthetically pleasing, efficient in the gym, and functional in daily life.

Which Exercises Target Your Traps?

Your trapezius muscles are the large, triangular shaped muscles that run from the base of the skull to the middle of your back. They assist in stabilising the scapulae, rotating the head, moving the neck and shrugging. Strong, healthy traps promote good posture and can reduce neck strain. They aid in lifting, carrying, pulling and torso balance.

Compound Exercises For the Traps

The deadlift is a great compound exercise that can produce solid results for strengthening and growing your traps. You can also perform movements such as power cleans or barbell shrug pulls to develop explosive power in other areas, as well as increasing your trap gains.

Isolation Exercises For the Traps

Arguably the most popular traps exercise is shrugs. They can be completed with simple kit such as dumbbells or a barbell and plates. Make sure you engage correctly and don’t use momentum, as shrugs are commonly mis-performed resulting in sub-par results.

What Exercises Target Your Lats?

The lats are large muscles found in the back, that help provide the famous V shape aspired to by many bodybuilders. They support shoulder extension, adduction and rotation. They promote spinal stability, and provide additional strength, stability and power during pulling movements. In addition, they support the shoulders in the overhead position and bolster overall upper body strength.

Compound Exercises For the Lats

Key compound exercises that target the lats effectively include a variety of rowing movements. Popular examples include the barbell bent-over row, pendlay rows, or single-arm dumbbell rows. If you’re looking for a scalable, functional way to train them, pull-ups are a fantastic, incredibly popular option. Deadlifts are great for lat growth and strengthening, too.

Isolation Exercises For the Lats

Options to isolate the lats are plentiful. The most common choices include the straight arm lat-pulldown, and the single arm cable pulldown. Make sure you concentrate hard on engaging them to get the most out of these exercises, as it’s quite common for other muscle groups to compensate for the lats.

What Exercises Target Your Levator Scapulae?

Your levator scapulae muscles run as a pair, one on each side of the neck, from the cervical spine up to your scapula bone. Their tasks include helping elevate your shoulder blades, assisting in neck rotation and supporting your posture, particularly in the neck area. Like trap muscles, they support shrugging and scapulae stabilisation. These muscles are prone to tightness, so make sure you keep them moving!

Compound Exercises For the Levator Scapulae

Compound exercises that involve the traps will often effectively work the levator scapulae, as these work in tandem in a lot of cases. Deadlifts are a great exercise to build levator strength, as well as pull-ups, cable exercises such as face pulls, and even overhead movements like the dumbbell or barbell press can be great!

Isolation Exercises for the Levator Scapulae

15kg Dumbbell shrugs, (or whichever dumbbell weight best suits your ability), can be a great way to isolate the levator scapulae muscles, but if you’re looking for a variation, barbell shrugs, single arm dumbbell shrugs or incline shrugs are a great option. Cable or band scapulae elevations are a great option or give neck side flexion a go (you can do this with just your hand, which can be great for stretching whilst at your desk).

What Exercises Target Your Rhomboid Major?

The rhomboid major is located deep in the back, between the shoulder blades. It helps retract (pull back) the scapula. Beyond this, it helps maintain an upright position, good posture and aids stability in the shoulders. Working with other muscles such as the rhomboid minor and traps, it generates power and strength in movements like pulling and rowing.

Compound Exercises for the Rhomboid Major

Widely adopted compound exercises for the rhomboid major include bent-over rows, seated cable rows, pull-ups, face pulls and T-bar rows. Bench presses heavily utilise the rhomboid major muscles for shoulder stability, so performing these often can naturally build the rhomboids. This muscle is targeted frequently by powerlifters to improve their stability on the bench.

Isolation Exercises for the Rhomboid Major

Effective exercises to target the rhomboid major consist of reverse flys, face pulls, scapular retractions, prone Y-raises and chest-supported dumbbell rows. Perform these in conjunction with the compound exercises to build healthy, thick rhomboid major muscles.

What Exercises Target Your Rhomboid Minor?

The rhomboid minor muscle is located between the spine and scapula and works in conjunction with the rhomboid major muscle to help retract and stabilise the scapula. This in turn helps promote healthy shoulder movement and improve posture. It assists with pulling motions and increases overall upper back strength.

Compound Exercises for the Rhomboid Minor?

As with the rhomboid major muscles, the ideal compound exercises consist of rowing motions such as the bent-over, T-bar, or inverted rows, with deadlifts and pull-ups also proving suitable ways to strengthen and grow your rhomboids.

Isolation Exercises for the Rhomboid Minor

Popular isolation exercises for the rhomboid minor include prone T-raises, bent-over dumbbell reverse flys, cable scapular retractions, band pull-aparts and prone horizontal abduction, with a focus on rotating externally (often seen using a Flat Weight Bench or stability ball).

What Exercises Target Your Teres Major?

The teres major muscle is in the underside of the upper arm and connects the scapular to the humerus. It is a thick, triangular and long muscle that works in tandem with the lats to provide adduction, extensions and internal rotation of the shoulder, providing strength and stability for pulling, pressing and other upper body movements.

Compound Exercises for the Teres Major

The teres major muscles natively gain strength and develop size whilst training your lats. Deadlifts, rows and overhead movements provide great options. Pull-ups, climbing walls and renegade rows provide alternatives.

Isolation Exercises for the Teres Major

Key exercises to isolate the teres major muscles are like that of the lats. Reverse flyes, resistance band pull-aparts, dumbbell pullovers and single arm cable lat pulldowns will help target your teres major muscles. Additional options include prone horizontal abduction or prone y-raises.

What Exercises Target Your Teres Minor?

The teres minor muscle forms part of the rotator cuff, and is a small muscle found at the back of the shoulder. It externally rotates the shoulder, whilst maintaining stability. This makes it crucial for overhead strength and control and enhances overall upper body strength.

Compound Exercises for the Teres Minor

Compound exercises to bolster your teres minor muscles include overhead movements such as the barbell or dumbbell press, alongside bent-over rows, face pulls, deadlifts and if you’re looking for something a bit different, kettlebell swings.

Isolation Exercises for the Teres Minor

If you’re looking to isolate your teres minor muscles, external rotation exercises will be key. These can be as simple as external rotations with resistance bands or cables, prone external rotations with no weight, right through to reverse pec deck flyes, standing dumbbell external rotations or isometric holds.

What Exercises Target Your Serratus Posterior?

The serratus posterior muscles are built up of two sets, the superior (located in the upper back) and inferior (located in the lower back). They play a crucial role in moving the ribs to allow for effective breathing. The serratus superior elevates the ribs and the lower (inferior) muscle set depresses the ribs. Working on these muscles increases respiratory efficiency, spinal strength and stability, and encourages good posture.

Compound Exercises for the Serratus Posterior

Many of the exercises mentioned in this article that target other areas of the back, have positive indication for development of the serratus posterior muscles. Key examples are 20kg Barbell rows, lat pulldowns, deadlifts, renegade rows and face pulls. If you fancy something a little different, squat into overhead press is a great burner and adds some cardio too.

Isolation Exercises for the Serratus Posterior

Isolating the serratus posterior muscles can be a little more challenging than most back muscles, however it can be done! Some examples include prone rib elevation (for the superior muscle) and depression (for the inferior muscle). Seated dumbbell pullovers also engage the serratus posterior, with cable rib pulls also providing an easy to perform option.

Upgrade Your Back Day

Lots of people love training their back, and hopefully with an extensive selection of exercises, as well as an in-depth look at each of the muscle groups, this blog has not only provided you with some new exercises to try, but also a better understanding and awareness of how many different muscles exist in your back, and what they do. Next time you’re in the gym and training back, give some of these exercises a go, you never know, you may activate muscles you didn’t know you had. Want to learn how to perform the exercises mentioned above? Check out our huge range of Back Exercise Tutorials.

For more content, follow us on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and on our official Mirafit Facebook page.

Tags: Exercise Type > Strength