Intro
This guide will discuss how to use calisthenics to train the upper and mid-back muscles. We will primarily look at exercises to target the lats, mid-back, and scapula, as well as a few accessories with high carryover to pulling movements.
A Common Mistake With Back Training
In the pursuit of impressive bodyweight skills like the front lever, do not abandon the foundational exercises of pullups and rowing once you get to an intermediate or advanced level of strength. They are not as flashy, but just because they are simple does not mean they are ineffective. Continue to improve your rowing and pullup strength to optimize your training of isometric skills.
Adding Weight and Resistance Bands
To help strengthen the back muscles, use weight vests or dip belts as extra load.
Bands resistance should be utilized for horizontal pulling exercises whenever possible, since they improve the resistance curve of the movements. Otherwise, the movements are less challenging at the top of the exercise. FitnessFAQs has a good video explaining this idea further:
Futhermore, bands are useful because the back muscles respond well to maximum contraction, and they can help build good motor patterns by avoiding the use of momentum to "cheat" a movement. For these last two reasons, I also suggest using bands for vertical pulling as an accessory to the traditional pullup exercise. In the case of vertical pulling, band-resisted pullups do not need to be the entirety of your pullup training, they are just a helpful and challenging accessory movement.
Note on Pullups vs. Chinups
As pullups and chinups are the same exercise with different grip positions, I make no distinction between them in this post. You may choose an overhand, neutral, or underhand grip as you see fit. That being said, there are different areas of the back emphasized by grip and hand width, so I recommend using more than one to add some variance to your training.
Front Lever (Straight Arm Pulling Strength)
These exercises require mastery of the front lever progression you'll be training, and very strong pulling strength. Front lever training is not required to build back strength, but since it is a staple of many programs, I am including it. Not for beginnners.
Ice Cream Makers:
Front Lever Raise:
Rows (Horizontal Pulling)
The row is sometimes overlooked in calisthenics in favor of the pullup, when really it is a movement of immense value. I suspect this is because the bodyweight row progressions beyond an intermediate level are not as straightforward as the pullup. Also, they're not complex, flashy, or a "high skill" movement. Those things are actually some of the major advantages of training the row, but I digress.
A Few Lesser-Known Benefits of The Bodyweight Row: https://youtu.be/dYRnvrWcz8w
Another note: The ceiling for horizontal pulling strength is much higher than it is for vertical pulling strength. Examples:
What this means is that if you are not incorporating heavy rowing into your pulling work, you're leaving a huge amount of strength potential unrealized. Overcome your fear of gains and start rowing.
Where to Start with Your Rows
Unilateral work is a great way to build strength without needing to do a front lever or having a lot of added weight. However, I still strongly recommend the band for one arm row variations. They fix the resistance curve and mitigate some of the body rotation that happens with one arm variations.
One Arm One Leg Row
Resistance Band Pullups
The gironda pullup is easily of the most challenging two arm pullup variations that can be done. Note that the gironda pullup is far more challenging than the arched back pullup. You will most likely need to spend a lot of time with weighted arched back pullups, gradually increasing the arch.
Gironda Pullup
Starting Option: Archer Pullup
One Arm L Sit Pullup
Assisted One Arm Pullup
Option 2: Cliffhanger Pullup Progressions
Rope climbs can be trained for speed, strength, or endurance. Speed involves climbing as fast as you can, strength would be climbing with as challenge of a leverage as possible (or added weight), and endurance would be climbing for long sets to build up tolerance to muscular fatigue.
Inverted Rope Climb
Accessory Work
A list of accessory exercises to help you progress with your pulling. If your biceps and forearms tend to hit failure before your back muscles are fully fatigued, implement some of these variations for extra volume.
Lats Accessories
Resistance Band Gironda Row
Resistance Band Behind The Neck Pulldown
Resistance Band Standing Straight Arm Pullover
There is some overlap with posterior and lateral deltoid exercises listed in my deltoid training post. Make sure to check those out as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweight...ltoid_training_with_calisthenics_a_guide_for/
Active Hang
Bodyweight Swimmers
Resistance Band Pull Aparts
I have a post on inverted bodyweight hangs for trap training. https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweight..._trap_training_with_calisthenics_a_breakdown/
However, I thought it would be helpful to present some alternatives.
Resistance Band Upright Rows
This guide will discuss how to use calisthenics to train the upper and mid-back muscles. We will primarily look at exercises to target the lats, mid-back, and scapula, as well as a few accessories with high carryover to pulling movements.
A Common Mistake With Back Training
In the pursuit of impressive bodyweight skills like the front lever, do not abandon the foundational exercises of pullups and rowing once you get to an intermediate or advanced level of strength. They are not as flashy, but just because they are simple does not mean they are ineffective. Continue to improve your rowing and pullup strength to optimize your training of isometric skills.
Adding Weight and Resistance Bands
To help strengthen the back muscles, use weight vests or dip belts as extra load.
Bands resistance should be utilized for horizontal pulling exercises whenever possible, since they improve the resistance curve of the movements. Otherwise, the movements are less challenging at the top of the exercise. FitnessFAQs has a good video explaining this idea further:
Futhermore, bands are useful because the back muscles respond well to maximum contraction, and they can help build good motor patterns by avoiding the use of momentum to "cheat" a movement. For these last two reasons, I also suggest using bands for vertical pulling as an accessory to the traditional pullup exercise. In the case of vertical pulling, band-resisted pullups do not need to be the entirety of your pullup training, they are just a helpful and challenging accessory movement.
Note on Pullups vs. Chinups
As pullups and chinups are the same exercise with different grip positions, I make no distinction between them in this post. You may choose an overhand, neutral, or underhand grip as you see fit. That being said, there are different areas of the back emphasized by grip and hand width, so I recommend using more than one to add some variance to your training.
Front Lever (Straight Arm Pulling Strength)
These exercises require mastery of the front lever progression you'll be training, and very strong pulling strength. Front lever training is not required to build back strength, but since it is a staple of many programs, I am including it. Not for beginnners.
Ice Cream Makers:
Front Lever Raise:
Rows (Horizontal Pulling)
The row is sometimes overlooked in calisthenics in favor of the pullup, when really it is a movement of immense value. I suspect this is because the bodyweight row progressions beyond an intermediate level are not as straightforward as the pullup. Also, they're not complex, flashy, or a "high skill" movement. Those things are actually some of the major advantages of training the row, but I digress.
A Few Lesser-Known Benefits of The Bodyweight Row: https://youtu.be/dYRnvrWcz8w
Another note: The ceiling for horizontal pulling strength is much higher than it is for vertical pulling strength. Examples:
Where to Start with Your Rows
- A General Rowing Progression Guide: http://www.startbodyweight.com/p/horizontal-pulls-progression.html
- After the beginner progressions, you can begin to train with weight vests, as well as incorporating front lever rows and unilateral variations. Bands should be incorporated early for resistance.
Unilateral work is a great way to build strength without needing to do a front lever or having a lot of added weight. However, I still strongly recommend the band for one arm row variations. They fix the resistance curve and mitigate some of the body rotation that happens with one arm variations.
One Arm One Leg Row
- https://youtu.be/PH9-nQ7Lu2I
- Regression (Two arms one leg row): https://youtu.be/iGzfuXd85R0
- An advanced pulling variation. Similar to the one arm pullup, in that you are lifting most of your bodyweight with one arm. I have not tested it for this purpose, but I suspect it would be a very useful stepping stone to the one arm pullup.
- https://youtu.be/bzmdmqmf39U?t=201
- The standard to aim for with unilateral horizontal pulling.
- https://youtu.be/4g8CM9pV4X4
- A good starting point with unilateral work.
- Front-Lever Rows allow you to row with your full bodyweight, providing a challenging stimulus. More advanced front lever variations have worse leverage, making them harder. These cannot be band-resisted very easily, but a weight vest can still be used, particularly for tuck and l-sit variations.
- Several Progressions: https://youtu.be/Peax8Xu4m04
- L-Row https://youtu.be/eZxjpg3DLGU
- This is my favorite front lever row variation, as it is easy enough that it be can be trained in a higher rep range than most of the options. It can also be combined with a weight vest for advanced trainees, which does not work as well with more advanced front lever variations.
Resistance Band Pullups
- Here is an example of the resistance band pullup. I started using these after reading a write-up on the band-resisted pullup by Ross Enamait https://rosstraining.com/blog/2015/08/band-resisted-pull-ups/
- If you don't know who Ross is, he's the author of Never Gymless (a book currently for sale for $1 on his website), boxing trainer, and a physical specimen https://youtu.be/F2KhOikihvE
The gironda pullup is easily of the most challenging two arm pullup variations that can be done. Note that the gironda pullup is far more challenging than the arched back pullup. You will most likely need to spend a lot of time with weighted arched back pullups, gradually increasing the arch.
Gironda Pullup
- https://youtu.be/STqWO-kYEnw
- An advanced pullup variation that requires a great amount of scapula strength as you are pulling your torso from vertical to a nearly horizontal angle. This is similar to the Arched Back pullup, only the pulling and arching are much more extreme. Emphasis shifts from the biceps to the back (don't worry, the biceps are still stimulated).
- Not beginner-friendly, do not attempt if you have not mastered the arched back pullup.
- Advice for mastering the movement pattern: https://youtu.be/fEpiU5YuTDc?t=492
- Also known as the "perfect pullup", this pullup requires an arched back and lots of protraction and retraction to do correctly. They are more challenging than they look. Ideally, your chest should touch the bar with each rep, and include a brief pause to maximally contract at the top.
- https://youtube.com/shorts/Cpt_pDuNL6k?feature=share
- These were a favorite of 2x Mr. Olympia Franco Columbu, and some would say he had a pretty good back. https://www.reddit.com/r/bodybuildi...lumbu_doing_his_unweighted_pull_ups/?sort=top
- https://youtu.be/Zz8JBOoCBVQ
- Focus on the isometric scapula contractions at each positions. Later progressions have a huge demand on scapula protraction/retraction.
- I also recommend training active hangs and bodyweight batwings as assistance work.
Starting Option: Archer Pullup
- Use the archer pullup as your beginning unilateral pullup before moving on to one of the options below. It is not a very similar movement to many of the exercises below, but it does ensure that you have sufficient pulling strength to move to the more advanced variations.
- Rings Variation: https://youtu.be/H49htfRg6Tw
- Bar Variation: https://youtu.be/NuqcoOAsTMA
One Arm L Sit Pullup
- https://youtu.be/-mFROOBeXaA?t=95
- The L-Sit position adds a more challenging leverage to the one arm pullup
Assisted One Arm Pullup
- Assisted + Negative (More Advanced)https://youtu.be/eZxjpg3DLGU
- https://youtu.be/FZPjwl1NSdI
- Move your hand lower on the towel for less assistance in the movement.
Option 2: Cliffhanger Pullup Progressions
- Cliffhangers are less intense than the other options, but also much easier to add load to than other unilateral pullup exercises. I recommend this for heavier trainees wanting to incorporate unilateral work. You can use a weight vest or weights and a dip belt fairly easily.
- https://youtu.be/9FN4Z26kPVY?t=74
- A progression with more challenging leverage, move your front hand further away from your body to make it harder.
- https://youtu.be/yS2F17REkPo
- Make sure to alternate which hand is in front and which is in back.
- For better results (less of a break in between reps) complete all your reps on one side, then switch hands to work the other side. Alternate which side you start with for each set.
Rope climbs can be trained for speed, strength, or endurance. Speed involves climbing as fast as you can, strength would be climbing with as challenge of a leverage as possible (or added weight), and endurance would be climbing for long sets to build up tolerance to muscular fatigue.
Inverted Rope Climb
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RndGhDB5KXs
- This is where it gets gnarly, make sure you are very confident in your rope climbing before attempting.
- More challenging leverage for the rope climb
- https://youtu.be/8w95Vwn9T8E
- https://youtu.be/AINKDQrGUJI
- https://youtu.be/1_oY4NdgnFY
- The goal is to eventually get to a point of no leg assistance in the movement (gripping the rope with your lower body).
Accessory Work
A list of accessory exercises to help you progress with your pulling. If your biceps and forearms tend to hit failure before your back muscles are fully fatigued, implement some of these variations for extra volume.
Lats Accessories
Resistance Band Gironda Row
- A very intense and often forgotten lat exercise. Can be trained using a resistance band or cables. Can also be trained unilaterally. Grip at different widths to target different parts of the back.
- https://youtu.be/Ssezv4WyJ9c
- https://physicalculturestudy.com/20...uilding-exercises-the-gironda-motorcycle-row/
- Bodyweight Rings Version: Replicate the rings lat slide exercise (see below), but instead of keeping arms straight, do the motion of the gironda row. If done right, your back will be very fatigued.
Resistance Band Behind The Neck Pulldown
- https://youtu.be/0cv9bht0rdk
- Hold band with narrow grip and pull hands apart as you are pulling downward.
Resistance Band Standing Straight Arm Pullover
- https://youtu.be/LfGyMCw_Zd0
- Avoid cheating with momentum.
- A challenging bodyweight variation of the pullover exercises (the weights one not the transition movement). Useful as an accessory that does not put stress on your biceps and forearms.
- For best results, use gymnastics rings and have a resistance band loaded at your hip to increase difficulty.
- Focus on using your lats as much as possible and not turning this into an ab rollout.
- https://youtu.be/pgX9kMxHmsc?t=377
There is some overlap with posterior and lateral deltoid exercises listed in my deltoid training post. Make sure to check those out as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweight...ltoid_training_with_calisthenics_a_guide_for/
Active Hang
- https://youtu.be/pgX9kMxHmsc?t=772
- Dynamic Variation: https://programme.app/exercises/ring-scap-pull-up/756
- Rear Delt Row: https://exrx.net/WeightExercises/DeltoidPosterior/STRearDeltRow
- Scapula Rotations: https://programme.app/exercises/hanging-ring-row-scapular-rotations/427
Bodyweight Swimmers
- https://youtu.be/pgX9kMxHmsc?t=821
- Use bands for additional resistance
Resistance Band Pull Aparts
- https://youtu.be/MnDpmNYUjbc
- Vertical Variation: https://youtu.be/L8F_EZ8UJ3A
I have a post on inverted bodyweight hangs for trap training. https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweight..._trap_training_with_calisthenics_a_breakdown/
However, I thought it would be helpful to present some alternatives.
Resistance Band Upright Rows
- A simple band exercise that will train the upper traps and lateral delts. Easy to progress in load and intensity.
- https://youtu.be/SfSnx8BXgoE
- These are fairly advanced, I'm posting one of the few examples I have found of the exercise being done with clean form.
- Prereq: Master the inverted hang, 30 second hold minimum standard.
- https://youtu.be/9FN4Z26kPVY