Transcription
So, in this video, I'm going to help you maximize your back development as a natural athlete. And I know a thing or two about back development because back in the day, when I was competing in natural bodybuilding competitions, my back development was ranked right up there with some of the top natural bodybuilders of all time.
And even more important is the fact that I stopped competing 20 years ago, and at 50 years old, my back development still looks like this. So, I do know a thing or two about back training. And a lot of what I'm going to tell you is going to be a little bit on the unconventional side because it goes against a lot of conventional forms of training.
Bear in mind, I started off at 125 lbs, 6 feet tall. I was able to realize my dream of being a successful natural bodybuilder with a workout system called Naturally Intense High Intensity Training, whereby I would train only 10, 15, maximum 20 minutes, just three times a week. And it doesn't get any more unconventional than this because my entire back workout on average will last six to no more than, max, maybe 9 minutes. And I train my back muscles only once a week. In order to get this degree of development with such a small amount of training.
Now, right there, I know exactly what you're thinking. This is probably something that just works for Kevin. But that's not the case. I'm a huge believer in a scientific approach to everything that I do. It's always a mistake to take the experience and the results of one individual and use it as a best practice. This is only my experience with this particular high intensity training protocol. I would recommend it at all. But bear in mind, for the past three decades, I've trained hundreds of men and women with this particular form of training, some of them even going on to win their natural bodybuilding Pro cards. So, this isn't just a PR protocol that works for me. It works for everyone. So, stay tuned. We'll talk a little more about this.
So, I always train my back off training shoulders, as I find that particular split works really well for overall back development and shoulder development. And the principles behind the exercise selections are fairly simple. I'd start off with a pull-down or pull-up movement for my upper back. Then I go into a row type movement for my middle back. And then sporadically throw in some deadlifts and or hyperextensions for my lower back. Sounds simple, but here is where it gets complex. Every single workout I do is different. For example, every single time I do a pull-down, I will change my grip. The grip is almost never the same. But the one thing that stays universal where it comes to any form of pull-down or pull-up movement is that my grip was always slightly wider than shoulder width or closer. I never did any wide grip pull-down or pull-up because, number one, it didn't feel too great at my shoulders. And also, in terms of really trying to get your back muscles involved, I found if your hands go out too far, you tend to lessen, to some degree, the range of motion and, of course, the stress going to your back. I also never do behind the neck pull-downs. For an injury in my late teens, I never recommended it.
Now, as far as pull-ups, pull-ups are considered like the king of back movements. And here's something very interesting. To build my back to where it is, I didn't really do that many pull-ups. Because I came from a background in Ninjutsu, I'm also doing free climbing as a teenager. Pull-ups were exceptionally easy for me. And even today, at 50 years old, I can still do 20 pull-ups. And so, in keeping with Naturally Intense High Intensity Training principles, I have always selected the most difficult exercises. Instead of doing pull-ups, I tended to do more pull-downs. I did more pull-downs for one simple reason, and that is I could use more weight. And I did. And that I would almost always go to the full stack of any pull-down machine I was using, always trying to go as heavy as I could. But most importantly, always going as intensely as I could.
Now, not saying I didn't do pull-ups. I did. But when I tended to do pull-ups, I would usually do them as part of a superset. So, I would do some form of a row movement with a pull-up at the same time because, like I said, pull-ups were relatively easy for me to do. And so I try to always pre-exhaust myself before doing them. Now, on the other hand, if you're like most people and pull-ups are difficult for you, I absolutely advocate that you do them. As I've seen my clients get tremendous results over the years from doing pull-ups. And again, since variety is a key factor of Naturally Intense High Training, almost every single time we do pull-ups, I would consistently keep on changing the grip I was using. So, I wasn't doing exactly the same type of pull-up every single time, which over the years saved a lot of wear and tear on my joints.
The next exercise that we'll be doing will be rows. I'm taking from barbell rows, dumbbell rows, T-bar rows, supported rows, hammer strength machine rows. You knew it. I would do my best to go as heavy as I possibly can, but keeping the intensity as high as possible. Now, bear in mind, a very important principle with this forward training is the fact that there are no breaks. There is minimal to zero rest between my sets. If I'm training by myself, I'm literally going from what I size to size, resting only long enough to increase the weight. That consistently on increasing the weight while I'm training, which right there by default rounds the intensity up significantly. And yes, initially, there was a drop of the amount of weight I could use. But bear in mind, a human body is an adaptive machine. If you're training that weight over time, your body is willing to adapt. And over time, I saw my weight getting higher and higher, whereby I was able to lift far more weight training had such a ridiculous intensity that I didn't train more conventionally with about 1 to 2 minutes between my sets. And most importantly, my back muscles were tremendously bigger as a result.
Now, a question that keeps coming up is deadlifts. How do I work deadlifts into my back training? So, initially, when I first started doing this form of high intensity training, there was no way I could do deadlifts every single week. Before I more conventionally, regular deadlifts were a key part of my training routine. But here's the funny thing. When I started with this type of intensity, doing deadlifts maybe once every two months or so. The funny thing is that as the years went by, the amount of weight that I could deadlift significantly increased. And perhaps I could have lifted even more than that, but I had a freak accident when I was 30 years old. It made it impossible to be deadlifting that kind of weight. So, I more or less 20 years ago stopped doing regular deadlifts. And instead, I would do stiff leg deadlifts on leg day, which has a lot less pressure on my neck. It does absolutely contribute to gains in your back development. But I do have to say, from my observation, taking heavy deadlifts out of my routine didn't necessarily make any difference in my overall back development. In fact, these shots were taken a full 3 years after I had stopped doing regular deadlifts, and my back development still looks like this.
As far as lower back work is concerned, every once in a while, I would throw in some hyperextensions. But here's the reality. If you're doing really, really heavy rows with heavy weight, your lower back is shot afterward. And so I never really saw a need to necessarily every single time do a lower back movement. And again, your situation may vary. You may need to be doing lower back movements to strengthen your lower back. And so I'm not saying you shouldn't do deadlifts, so you should necessarily as well do lower back exercises. What I am saying is that there is a point where you're training at a certain intensity with a certain amount of weight, whereas your lower back strength and development continues to improve, though you're not doing direct exercises.
Now, as far as repetitions are concerned for back training, I always say more or less within the range of probably not anything higher than 12, 15 reps. And I'll tend to go the eight to six reps as the lowest. But I never go lower than six reps for anything. I do not just in back training, but in general, as my focus is completely on increasing muscle mass. Bodybuilding, I have no interest whatsoever in any kind of one rep maxes or low repetition exercises to see just how much I can lift because my focus is on intensity. You're training to a point, usually of almost momentary muscular failure.
Now, exercise cadence. When I train my back, the movements are explosive. And very often, I'll do partial repetitions at the end as I get close to momentary muscular failure. And here's the thing. We live in a time when people are absolutely overly obsessed with the idea of doing perfect reps when it comes to back training or any training in general. If I can do 10 perfectly controlled reps, with my first rep being a smooth and controlled, my last rep, it means that my muscles are already adapted to that particular weight. And there is no reason whatsoever why your muscles should get bigger and stronger. The rep places can talk from now till the time that pigs fly. But the reality is that muscles will only get bigger and stronger if they succeed to an overload simulation they're unaccustomed to. If it's accustomed to simulation, then your first rep and your 10th rep are going to be exactly the same. As for this for training, it's completely okay for your last reps to be partial reps, especially for a muscle as big as your back, which in my experience responds best to truly explosive, almost isometric type movements.
And bear in mind, training this way with no rest whatsoever is exceptionally difficult. All this was designed to be done either under my supervision or under supervision of a Naturally Intense certified personal trainer because it's very difficult to train this way on your own. And also, there is the problem that almost every single athlete I have ever worked with who thought they were training at maximum intensity wasn't training anywhere near as hard as they could when they were being pushed. But there's still a lot of principles that you can take and apply to your own training. And my whole life's work has always been about the whole idea, to whom much is given, much is expected. And so I try to always share as much as I can because I understand and remember exactly what it felt like when I was a natural bodybuilder without much information that was out there relevant to me as a natural athlete. And so I'm trying as much as possible with this channel to share my years of experience of what works with you. So, thank you so much for tuning in. You'll learn a lot more about Naturally Intense High Intensity Training here at this channel. No, I believe in you. Thanks again for tuning in. And as always, excel here.