Tom Venuto's BodybuildingSecrets.com - "There's a Hole in Your Back!"

“There’s a Hole in Your Back!”

Tom Venuto, CSCS, CPT

Many years ago, I was getting ready for a contest, and the owner of the gym I was working at just happened to wander into the locker room where I was hitting some poses for my training partner. I didn’t ask him for his opinion, but regardless, he stopped dead in his tracks, looked me up and down with his beady-little eyes, and then he says to me, “You’re nicely ripped, but your back needs work. You have a hole in your back.” WHAAAAAT the heck was this guy talking about and who the heck did he think he was?… the jerk! Well, I’ll explain in just a minute, but first, check out today’s workout and then I’ll explain how my workouts today are still influenced by that strange and “insulting” comment made to me more than 15 years ago…

BACK

A1 Medium Grip Pullups: 2 light warmup sets on lat pulldown; 1 set pullups warmup with body weight; 3 sets X 40 lbs X 12, 11, 8 reps X 3011 tempo
A2 Lat pulldown, very wide grip: 3 sets X 160 lbs X 12 reps, last set drop to 120 continue to failure
B1 Prone Incline Dumbbell Rows: Set 1: 50 lbs X 13 reps; Set 2: 55 lbs X 10 reps; Set 3: 60 lbs X 8 reps
B2 Prone Incline Shrugs (strict): Set 1: 50 lbs X 12 reps X 3012 tempo (squeeze 2 sec at top); Set 2: 55 lbs X 12 reps X 3012 tempo; Set 3: 60 lbs X 12 reps X 3012 tempo
C1 Low cable rows to chest (pull high): Set 1: 140 X 14 reps; Set 2: 150 lbs X 12 reps; Set 3: 160 lbs X 12 reps; Set 4: 160 lbs X 10 reps to chest, drop weight to 140 lbs X 10 reps to stomach

CALVES

A1 Smith machine standing calf raise on calf block: 1 set X 135 lbs X 20 (warm up); 1 set X 185 lbs X 15 reps (warm up); 4 sets X 275 X 20, 20, 17, 15 reps
B1 Donkey Calf Machine: 4 sets X stack X 20 reps

Workout Commentary

So where was I… yeah, so this gym owner had like “half a build”, but he wasn’t competition material or anything, and he was kind of old, and he came across as a know it all, and then he had the audacity to say I had “hole in my back???” Ok, well that’s what I was thinking at the time when he criticized my back development. I guess I was offended. I was young, cocky, and naive. Today of course, I openly welcome constructive criticism and I have much more respect for my elders, LOL, and here’s why: He was right!

I didn’t have a see-thru “hole” going through my entire torso like the T-1000 cyborg in Terminator 2 after he got blasted by Arnold with a shotgun… no, nothing THAT serious… What he meant was that there was an area of my back that was totally undeveloped.

Thing is, he didn’t tell me how to remedy the problem. I only later discovered after a long period of trial and error, that with the exception of genetic freaks, who could get hyuuge, thick and wide backs by lifting empty egg cartons (and never changing their “routines”), that you absolutely MUST train your back from a wide variety of angles and planes to get complete development.

The back is an extremely complex GROUP of muscles, not a single muscle. Even the fibers of the latissimus dorsi (“lats”) run in a fan-like shape with some fibers running down the outer “width” of the back in an angled, almost “vertical” direction, with others running across to the center of the back almost horizontally.

When you do a pull up or pull down, that is the vertical plane (frontal plane for biomechanics geeks who require proper terminology). When you do a cable row that is the horizontal plane (transverse plane to the biomechanics geeks). Although there is a lot of overlap and it is futile to try to “isolate” completely, any seasoned bodybuilder will tell you that every angle of pull will stress a slightly different area of the back and that it’s a must to work as many of these angles as possible.

And that brings me to today’s workout. In the attempt to make sure I am never accused of having a “hole” in my back again, I frequently change the angles from which I do my rows and other back exercises. Today I did an exercise that you don’t see performed that often in the gym: The prone incline dumbbell rows (laying on my stomach on an incline bench), which strongly hit upper mid back. By supersetting these with prone incline shrugs (zero rest - same dumbbells), the rhomboids and trapezius are worked from an angle that is often missed.

To work another unique angle, my low pulley rows were performed today pulling to the chest, not to the stomach… BIG difference in where you feel it. This calls for a reduction in poundage, of course.

As for the pull-ups and pulldowns I did first, I went with a slightly closer grip than usual on the pull-ups, and slightly wider than usual on the pull downs.

There is a myth that the wide grip pull-ups and pulldowns create more width in your back, but that’s not necessarily true. Nearly all lat exercises contribute to width to some degree and it’s the angle of pull (vertical) that helps emphasize the fibers that contribute to back width, not the width of the grip. In fact, the medium grip actually provides a greater range of motion.

Todays session wrapped up with a new calf routine: standing calf raises on the smith machine and the donkey calf machine.

Until next time, train hard, and keep in mind that we are all victims of our own habit patterns and we tend to always return to the familiar. Sure, emphasize the basics: rows, pull ups, and deadlifts, but remember, for complete development, change not only your exercises regularly, but also mix up the grips and the angles of pull.

Posted 17 July, 2005 in Workouts

Comments

Marc David said:

Tom,

At first I was like what the heck are "Prone Incline Dumbbell Rows"

Then I did a little googling.. and found the answer.

#1 I only used 30 lbs since I wasn't sure what the heck to expect

#2 I never knew I had muscles there

I'm sore today in areas that I didn't even know I had and I've worked out for quite some time.

Great back workout! A+ and really quite challenging.

The other day I had an old time bodybuilder come up to me (he's won some shows and he's 72 now) and ask:

"I saw you doing and exercise. Who showed you that. Nobody in here does that. That's an old school move. You are like the only person I see doing that."

He went on to say that out of all the guys other then the real old-timers, I always had cool, new, interesting moves. That he liked watching me to figure out what the heck I was going to do today.

It felt kinda cool since most people just keep doing the same things over and over and just the basics at that.

Anyway, thanks Tom. I dropped your name and said "Tom Venuto" is showing me this stuff.

It's not that I can actually keep up with the workouts here. I sort of can and other times there's no way.

But the fresh exercises, the tempos, the reps and sets, and rest periods...

This stuff is better then 99% of the programs I've purchased.

I print out the workouts for a body part before I hit the gym and I have a solid plan.

Amazing stuff. It's really fun, it's really hard and it's really good.

Thanks! I mean it. :-)

Posted on Jul 24, 2005 02:20 PM

Tom Venuto said:

Hey Marc... You wrote: "This stuff is better than 99% of the programs I've purchased."

Oh man, you just blew it for everyone... Thanks to your comment, now I'm going to have to start charging admission ASAP!

Naw... just kidding... not yet anyway. But if you think this is good, wait until my new bodybuilding courses are published in the fall...

This blog wasn't intended as advice or instruction (only "maniacs" like you try to copy my workouts every week, LOL!)

I've been working hard on putting my bodybuilding training systems and methods on paper in an instructional format, and what I've got so far is going to change the way a lot of people train...

Richie Smyth and I are even planning on shooting some videos!

Just like you said in your comment: "Cool, new, interesting moves."

Sorry about having no pics of the prone 45 degree incline DB rows... We're actually starting to get more and more pics... check out future blogs... they will be nicely photo-enhanced!

Keep training hard, my man... prepare yourself... because next time I get out to the West Coast, we're gonna train!

Posted on Jul 24, 2005 08:33 PM

Evan said:

Tom this is interesting regarding the pull ups.im currently in the process of building a "heavy duty" chin up bar for my "Inprogress gym"!There are alot of variants on were hands should be placed.Just from your writings on this session theres no hands placed on the angled part of the bar,rather your using the wide "palms facing away" grip on the straight section of the bar? (Did i read it right?)lol. I was actually thinking about building 2 bars :1= completely straight thats fairly wide with parralel bars internally spaced at 22" inches for "palms facing eachother" and wide/closer grip pull ups, 2= the smaller width bar with angled handles Tom do you know the proper angle?im thinking 24 degrees" because "they" say that it works more of the lats.im confused...hey Tom when you coming to Australia? lol

Evan
Australia

Posted on Jul 30, 2005 07:41 PM

Tom Venuto said:

I recommend using as many grips as possible on pullups (although you can emphasize certain grips or styles to focus on certain areas of the back. I've seen a few gym multistations that had literally dozens of grip positions. The one at my primary gym is an Icarian multi station and it has four chin up bar stations: long bar with a bend, long straight bar, close parallel grip, and shoulder width parallel grip. Some multi stations have 3-4 different parallel grip widths. In fact there is a lat pulldown bar attachment that also has multiple parallel grips on it. Variety is the spice of muscle growth!

Posted on Jul 31, 2005 07:22 PM