Back training at home

Back training at home does not require complicated equipment. You only need to figure out the logic of force exertion, choose 3-4 movements that match your existing conditions, and practice twice a week for 20 minutes each time. If you persist for 2 months, it will not only improve the rounded shoulders and hunched back, but also visually thin the back by 1-2 cm. Novices do not have to worry about training injuries.

It’s funny to say that I spent more than 200 to buy an adjustable rowing handle for back training, but after using it twice, I found it troublesome and left it gathering dust in the corner. Instead, I used the door frame and the ten-yuan elastic band for almost two years. When I first followed the trend of practicing Internet celebrity movements, I fell into the trap of the boss. Every time I finished the exercise, my arms were so sore that I couldn't lift them, my trapezius muscles were as hard as rocks, and my back didn't feel at all. Later, I asked a friend who is a rehabilitation teacher for advice and found out that 90% of people doing back exercises at home are ineffective because they skip the pre-activation step.

In fact, activation is very simple. You can try it now: sink your shoulders, don't hunch your ears, and imagine that there is a dollar coin caught in the gap between the shoulder blades on your back. You are afraid that it will fall, so you pinch it in the middle. Hold for 5 seconds and then relax. Do 10 sets in a row. You will immediately feel the tightness of the lower trapezius muscles and the middle seam of the back. If you practice the movement at this time, you will basically not use your arms to compensate.

If you don’t have any equipment at home and don’t even bother to lay down a yoga mat, just find a sturdy door frame. Stand half a step away from the door frame, grab the edge of the frame at shoulder height with both hands, slowly shift your center of gravity back until the entire back is pulled apart, and then pull yourself back with your shoulder blades. This action is called door frame rowing. I sometimes work overtime until 11 or 12 o'clock, and don't want to lay out mats, so I rely on this practice. I do 4 sets of 15. The soreness in my back the next day is more obvious than going to the gym to pull medium-weight fixed equipment. Friends in the bodybuilding circle around me always complain that the load of this exercise is too small and the muscle-building efficiency is low. This is not wrong - if you are pursuing the kind of inverted delta latissimus dorsi that can fill up a sweater, your self-weight at home is indeed not enough, so you have to go to the gym and add barbells. But recently, there is sports medicine The research also said that as long as the novice stage can be close to failure and pause for 2 seconds at the peak contraction, the difference in muscle-building effect between light load and medium load is actually less than 10%. It is completely sufficient for ordinary people who just want to improve their posture and don't wear clothes with a heavy back.

If you prepare an elastic band, your flexibility will be even higher. Use the door handle as a fixed point and you can practice while sitting. When pulling, bring the elastic band toward your chest and feel your shoulder blades squeeze toward the middle. Here is a piece of advice from the rehabilitationists. If you have a problem with your back after sitting for a long time, don’t do bent over rowing like the people on the Internet. Your waist can easily compensate for the pain for several days. When sitting and pulling, lean on the back of the chair and stabilize your entire lumbar spine. The efficiency of back training is not low at all. During the half-month period when my back was injured, I relied solely on this movement to maintain my training volume, and there was no pain at all.

Don't shake your arms just to make up for the number of reps. To be honest, if you pull 12 times slowly and pause for 2 seconds when each pull is the tightest, it will be much more effective than if you pull 30 times quickly and release quickly. In order to make up for the number of punches, I did 40 pulls in two minutes. As a result, my arms were sore for three days and my back didn't feel at all. Later, I slowed down and adjusted the rhythm. I had to grit my teeth in the last two pulls of a group of 12. The effect was not even a little bit worse.

In fact, you can save time to practice in your spare time. When you are slumped on the sofa watching a TV series or sitting at your workstation fishing, you can hold your shoulders and back for 3 seconds at any time, do it ten or twenty times, and you will activate your back unknowingly. It is much more effective than practicing hard once on the weekend and then having pain for three days. I have a programmer friend who cradles his back when fishing at work every day, and does door frame rowing for 15 minutes before going to bed. In three months, his rounded shoulders have completely healed. His upper body, which used to look strong when wearing a tight T-shirt, now looks thinner, and his whole body is much taller and straighter.

There is really no need to overcomplicate back training at home, buy a bunch of fancy equipment, or copy the training plans of professional athletes. The ones that you can stick to and that make your back feel when you do them are the movements that are most suitable for you.