Why is the respond of the back muscles often particularly poor?

For people who have just started to train their back muscles, if you usually work for a long time and often look down to slide your phone or spend a lot of time in a state of bending and hunching, then your back muscles may not feel as good as other muscle groups. When the back muscles are stretched for a long time, the pectoral muscles and back muscles become imbalanced, not only will be extra difficult to train the back muscles, but your posture will also look uninspired on a regular basis. You may often feel tightness and pain in your shoulders and neck, but you don’t know how to exert yourself when training your back muscles in the middle and lower back.

How can I increase the respond of my back?

If you have this kind of issue, use a massage ball to relax your shoulders and neck (upper trapezius) which are usually too tight, and use some warm-up exercises to wake up the main back muscles (rhomboids, middle and lower trapezius, large and small round muscles, back muscles, etc.) next time before training your back muscles.

Why can’t I just do (assisted) pull-ups?

It is actually very inefficient to do only assisted pull-ups if you would like to achieve pull-ups. When practicing pull-ups for beginners, there is often a situation where the back muscles do not feel much before the arms lose strength. If only one movement is practiced, it may not be practiced for a few times before the phenomenon of pulling up and running away from the movement.

Secondly, our back has many different muscles, vertical pull (such as pull-ups) does not train all of our muscles evenly, if only practice a direction of pull may increase the risk of muscle imbalance.

Therefore, we need to pull in various directions to more effectively stimulate different back muscle groups.

Pull-ups 2.0 Schedule

May’s Pull-ups 2.0 schedule includes assisted pull-ups as well as dumbbell rows and wide grip pull-downs. While strengthening the back, it is also necessary to take into account the overall balance development of the upper body and core stability.

May’s pull-up 2.0 schedule continues the focus and pattern of the 1.0 schedule. This will allow those of you who have completed 1.0 to continue to improve your upper body strength and progress towards pull-ups.

Pull-ups are a long term exercise, not a quick fix! Even if you don’t succeed, don’t be discouraged, this 2.0 schedule will not only focus on the muscle strength required for pull-ups, but will also be paired with higher intensity upper body super group training to continue to strengthen the back and upper body muscle groups. The lower body training is also balanced in this schedule, so that the whole body strength can be greatly improved, to move forward to the goal of Superwoman!

Pull-up 1.0 and 2.0 class schedule.

Target group: People who want to strengthen their upper body (mainly back muscles) (middle school or advanced) and aim at pull-ups
Training frequency: train at least three or five times a week, strengthening the back muscle group & hand muscle strength in the schedule
Duration: 45-55 minutes
Equipment: Dumbbells, bars, pulley machines, Smith machines, resistance bonds

Day 1 Back muscle + triceps

Assisted pull-ups (wide grip) 4 sets x 6 reps
Superset (3 sets):
pulley wide grip pull down 10 reps + pulley narrow grip pull down 10 reps
Seated Narrow Grip Rowing 3 sets x 10 reps
Super group (3 sets) :
Pulley standing one-handed rowing (left) 10 reps + Pulley standing one-handed rowing (right) 10 reps
Kneeling rope pull down 3 sets x 10 reps
Rope face pull 3 sets x 10 reps

Day 2 Back + Chest

Assisted pull-ups (narrow grip) 4 sets x 5 reps
Rope pull down 3 sets x 10 reps
Supersets (3 sets):
Dumbbell one-handed row (right) 10 reps + Dumbbell one-handed row (left) 10 reps
Wheel Standing Wide Grip Rowing 3 sets x 10 reps
Dumbbell upward incline narrow grip chest press 3 sets x 10 reps
Dumbbell lying chest bird 3 sets x 10 reps
Mountain Climb + Burpee 2 sets x 8 reps

Day3 Lower Body

Kettlebell Romanian Hard Raise 4 sets x 10 reps
Smith Squat 3 sets x 10 reps
Leg press 3 sets x 10 reps
Superset (3 sets):
Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Leg Squat (right) 10 reps + Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Leg Squat (left) 10 reps
Superset (3 sets):
Resistance Goblet Squat 15 + Dumbbell Resistance Crab Walk 15

The above is the Day1-Day3 course of the first week of the 2.0 schedule, the complete pull-up schedule has 6 weeks, you can choose 3 or 5 exercises per week, the schedule will train progressively to enhance the stimulation of your muscle groups! We invite people who already have a foundation in fitness and want to train their back muscles to take on the challenge!