New Year, New You: Working the back muscles
(WWBT) - We're on your side helping you maintain your fitness goals in 2018. Fitness trainer and bodybuilder Dorrie Smith is sharing tips with us all month long.
This is our last fitness segment at 11:11 Gym. Smith, who is the gym owner, fitness trainer, body builder extraordinaire, she's been showing us how to work basically every muscle group. Today, we are ending on the back.
What's one thing we need to remember when we're working on the back?
"When working on the back...you have multiple muscles within the back, so you want to make sure that whenever you are doing a movement, you are making sure that it's nice, slow and controlled, with good form," said Smith. "A lot of times here, you do have some shoulder muscles that are connected to the back, responsible for helping stabilize during the movement."
One way to exercise the back muscles is through the cable seated row.
"This is also an exercise you would see in the gym. What she's doing, she is really squeezing that back when she brings the cable back. And then she is also lengthening out and stretching the back as well. It gives her the full range of motion to really work that back muscle."
Part 1: Henrico trainer gives tips for 2018 fitness goals
Part 2: Plank exercises to tighten your core
Part 3: Exercises to strengthen the shoulders
Part 4: Pushups to strengthen arms and chest
Part 5: Building and defining triceps
Part 6: Working the glutes on leg day
Part 7: Strengthen your oblique muscles
Part 8: Working the back muscles
If you are looking for a lighter exercise you can do outside the gym, try using a resistance band.
"For anyone who may have had injuries, or if they are not used to doing weights, or [looking to work out] at home or even your work office, you can attach a resistance band to an apparatus," said Smith.
"Then you can simulate that movement just by stretching and pulling. You want to relax the shoulders while contracting the back. Keep the elbows tucked in nice and tight. The farther you are away from the apparatus, the harder it becomes. You add more resistance."
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