Muscle Growth, Use this Muscle Building Routine for a Better V-Shape (Part 2) :

👉 Muscle Growth, Use this Muscle Building Routine for a Better V-Shape (Part 1)

Muscle Growth, Use this Muscle Building Routine for a Better V-Shape (Part 2) :

What were the tips? Here's the gist of it since I have to paraphrase in the absence of that old Muscle and Fitness magazine article. Mr. Gaspari said that when you perform lat exercises, imagine your arms are only an extension of the bar you're holding. In other words, quit using momentum and stop using your biceps to pull the weight down or toward you. A real lat workout requires slow and concentrated movement. If you think of your arms only as pieces of equipment that are attaching your lats to the weight stack, you will pull slowly from your back. If you then squeeze your shoulder blades together at the peak of the movement, you just might feel your lat muscles really working for the first time.

Using the technique described above, it's imperative that you perform just enough exercise to stimulate upper back growth and don't over train. Personally, I only do four exercises for my lats. Let me tell you; they've been growing like crazy from those four movements. I've found that if the lats are worked with intense concentration from each major angle, exercise redundancy usually results in over training and lack of progress. So here are the four lat exercises:

1. Close-Grip Pull-downs

2. Seated Pulley Rows

3. Wide-Grip Pull-downs (top half)

4. Wide-Grip Pull-downs (bottom half)

I'm sure you've noticed the "top half/bottom half" designations on lat pull-downs and are wondering what I mean by that. I've found that splitting this particular exercise in half provides better results. On the top half exercise, I pull the bar until my upper arms are only about parallel with the floor. In other words; I just do the first half of a lat pull-down. Obviously, on exercise number four, I pull from the midway point to having the bar all the way to the top of my chest. If you split the movement into two exercises like this, you might find (as I do) that you can use a lot more weight for the "top half" pull downs that the "bottom half" ones.Close-grip pull-downs are also performed in a very specific manner. Contrary to how most people perform these, with their body upright through the entire motion, you should move your torso to a forty-five degree angle from the vertical position as you slowly bring the weight to your chest. Begin pulling the close-grip bar downward with a yanking motion that comes very deliberately from those huge muscles below your shoulder blades. As you bring the bar toward your sternum, keep thinking of your arms as merely extensions of the bar and pull strictly from your back. Imagine you could touch your shoulder blades together behind you as you lean back to a forty-five degree angle while bringing the bar to your chest. Moving the upper body backward to forty-five degrees during the movement like this will make the exercise into both a lat widening and thickening movement.

👉 Muscle Growth, Use this Muscle Building Routine for a Better V-Shape (Part 3)