Lats Sore After Bench Press? The 139 Latest Answer

The bench press, push-ups, and other chest-emphasizing exercises recruit a variety of muscles, including your lats. Since your lats and serratus anterior muscles are worked on chest day, it’s not uncommon to experience back and side pain after a chest workout. Your lats engage to properly control the downward path of the barbell during exercises like the bench press. Also, when your arms are extended during a dip, press, or push-up, your lats and other muscles work to stabilize you.

Should Your Back Hurt After Bench Pressing?

Don’t be alarmed if you feel sore in your back muscles the day after a focused chest workout. This in itself is not a sign that you are performing an exercise incorrectly. In fact, proper lifting form for complex lifts like the bench press requires that you recruit muscles in your legs, shoulders, arms, and back throughout the range of motion in addition to your pecs.

It’s normal to feel back pain after a chest workout.

Many chest exercises use the back muscles as well as other muscle groups in addition to the chest.

Get professional guidance to make sure you’re doing the chest exercises correctly.

If you’re only feeling pain in your back and not your chest and triceps, it’s worth taking a closer look at your training. Learn from the best – a personal trainer can help you improve your form. Instead of taking lifting advice from “that one guy” at the gym, watch several in-depth YouTube tutorials from professional trainers, athletes, and strongman competitors. If you continue to educate yourself, you can get the most out of your chest training to build a strong upper body.

Why Are Your Lats Sore After a Chest Workout? 4 reasons

If you’ve woken up after several sets of flat bench presses that day only to feel sore muscles in your sides and under your arms, you might be wondering what’s going on. Don’t worry. There are several reasons why your lats may hurt after a rigorous chest workout. The reasons are:

Lats are secondary muscles to many chest exercises

Your lats put a lot of work into many typical chest exercises, including push-ups, flat bench presses, and incline bench presses. For starters, the lat muscles have attachment points on the shoulder blades and the back of the upper arm, above the triceps. This means that your lats are partially responsible for adducting (opening) your arms. So when you lower the bar to your chest on a bench press, or lower your body on a push-up or dip, your lats work hard to control that drop.

Your lats are an important secondary muscle that many chest exercises activate.

Lat engagement occurs when you control the eccentric (downward) movement of chest exercises.

Sore lats can be a sign that you’re doing your chest-aligned upper body exercises correctly.

Having a sore lat after a chest workout can be considered a good thing. It’s a sign that you’re practicing proper form throughout the range of motion of the exercise. If you do a false bench press, where you “drop” the weight onto your chest, your lats wouldn’t be sore. You would also cheat yourself out of half the workout.

Your lats provide stability during chest workouts

Although most lat exercises occur during the eccentric movement (lowering the weight) of a chest exercise, this isn’t the only time your lats are asked to work. Extending your arms at the top of a rep during a bench press or push-up requires a lot of work to keep the weight stable. Your lats engage to prevent the weight from tipping sideways or falling forward or backward.

Your lats are used on the upper extension of the chest exercises to help stabilize the weight and your body.

By intervening to stabilize, your lats are kept under tension for a long time, resulting in an intense workout followed by muscle soreness.

A loaded bar held at arm’s length has great leverage. As a result, your muscles work hard to stay in control. You may not notice your lats working when you’re at the top of your barbell bench, but they do. In addition, your quads, core, deltoids, triceps, and pecs will be engaged. Change the way you think – the bench press isn’t just for your chest; It has benefits for multiple muscle groups.

Your chest is stronger than your back

In any exercise that involves multiple muscle groups, the weakest muscle has to work the hardest. This causes this “weak link” muscle to suffer more pain than the stronger muscles. So, if your back is sore after a chest workout, it’s simply a signal that the weight you’re lifting isn’t extremely challenging your chest and triceps, but rather is pushing your lats to the limit.

Lat pain after a chest workout signals that the weight was more challenging on your back muscles than your chest muscles.

Emphasize back development in your training plan—incorporate 15-20 sets of back-specific exercises per week.

The stronger your back gets, the more evenly the pain is distributed between the back muscles, chest and triceps.

This can also be taken as a good sign. Your body lets you know where to develop strength and where to fight muscle imbalances. Weak lats signal that you should do more back exercises to build the lats like wide-grip pull-ups and row variations. Keep working on chest-specific exercises until your lats catch up and your chest and triceps feel the burn as much as your back.

You might not have sore lats after all

Your lats definitely work during chest exercises, but if you experience pain under your armpit after a back workout, it may be due to a muscle called the serratus anterior. Your serratus anterior is a muscle on the side of your pectoral muscle, just below your armpit. It works to bring your arms forward in a pushing or pushing motion, making it a primary muscle used in chest exercises.

Armpit pain may actually be caused by a sore serratus anterior muscle, not a sore lat.

The serratus anterior is responsible for moving the scapula forward and lengthening the arms, which are key movements during any “push” or “press” exercise.

A sore serratus anterior is a good sign after a chest workout—this muscle is critical to properly performing chest exercises.

Although most training guides list the pectoralis major as the primary muscle activated by chest exercises, the truth is more complex. The serratus anterior is partly responsible for bringing the arms forward to perform these exercises. So what you first thought was lat pain might be more accurately described as pain in a muscle near your chest.

Why Does Your Lats Hurt When You Bench Press?

If you feel a sharp or stabbing pain in your back or the back of your shoulders during the bench press, raise the bar and reevaluate. Incorrectly performed bench press — or overtraining from benching too often — can injure your shoulder joint. This can manifest itself as pain in the shoulders or back. If this happens, consult a doctor, rest and recover. Then, study your bench press form and work with a lighter weight. When you recover, make sure you do your exercises with strict form.

Sharp, shooting, or intense pain in your back or shoulder when you bench press is a sign of an injury.

If you think you may be suffering from a shoulder injury, consult a doctor and begin an injury rehabilitation program.

If your chest training caused a shoulder injury, review your bench press form and training schedule to reduce the risk of injury.

If the pain you’re feeling is muscle burn and not injury, it’s probably a sign that your lats are weaker than your chest and are therefore working harder on the bench press

However, if the pain you feel in your lats when you bench press is simply the burning of the working muscles, no problem. It just means you’re recruiting your lats and serratus anterior to move the weight. Again, this is probably a sign that your back is a weak link in your muscular development compared to your chest.

Why does your back hurt after chest workout?

Aching, tense muscles in the back or sides are not uncommon after intensive chest training. In addition to your pecs, many chest exercises recruit several large muscle groups. This includes the shoulder muscles and the back muscles, such as the latissimus. The reasons for this pain are:

The lats are a secondary muscle used to control the downward movement of most chest exercises.

Your lats work as stabilizing muscles to control the weight when you’re in the top position of an arms-extended chest exercise.

Your lats are less developed than your pecs, causing them to tire more easily than your pecs.

The pain you’re feeling isn’t in the lats, it’s in the serratus anterior, a muscle that’s targeted by pushing and pushing movements.

Whether you’re benching heavy weights or doing a standard push-up that uses your full body weight, you’ll be working more than just your pecs. A good chest workout can cause sore pecs, but it’s also common to feel the results of your hard work in your back, shoulders, and arms.

You’ll often hear from big bench presses talking about the importance of the lats in the bench press and how to learn to use your lats in the exercise. When it comes down to it, even the more experienced lifter has a hard time pinpointing exactly why this concept is important—they just “know” it’s important. And for newcomers, this advice can seem counterintuitive.

Isn’t the bench press a press exercise?

Isn’t the latissimus a pulling muscle?

Aren’t the lats the antagonists of the bench press, and if so, how do they really contribute so much to the exercise?

Let’s examine this topic and answer these pressing questions in more detail (see what I just did there?).

When it comes to the basics—Fitness 101, so to speak—the pecs are pushers and the lats are pullers. The lats are the main muscles that work on lat pulldowns and rows, etc. And at a very basic level, the pecs and lats are antagonists. But to answer this question we need a deeper knowledge and this is where understanding anatomy is helpful.

While the lats are primarily a traction muscle, the lats attach at the front of the humerus (upper arm bone—specifically, the biceps groove of the humerus), not at the back as common sense might have you believe. When the arm is extended in front of the body, the lats are pretty easy to spot, pulling the arm back towards the body (shoulder extension and shoulder adduction for the nerds out there). But what happens when the humerus moves behind the body, as in the target position in rowing, or as is true in this discussion, as in the starting position at the bottom of the bench press when the bar is on your chest? Remember that muscles work by pulling the insertion towards the origin. Once the insertion point moves past the origin (which runs along vertebrae T7 and below and the thoracolumbar aponeurosis, among other things), this muscle now, as it shortens, actually brings the arm forward (shoulder flexion) when the arm is in the extended position (behind the body). If you give someone a broomstick, have them bench press, and then ask them to flex (squeeze) their lats — and they know what they’re doing — the broomstick moves forward a few inches until the humerus is further in is – line with the body.

It’s true that a big lat and back gives you a nice stable platform to lift off of when benching. It’s also true that a larger lat can give you some spring or leverage – when the triceps come down with elbows tight, they can push against the lats, providing extra stability and helping with the bench press. You can feel this by getting a nice pump in your lats during your next banking day. These things are all true and nice to know, but they don’t explain why the lats are so important in the bench press. The lats literally help by helping you lift the bar off your chest, in this case (the first part of the bench press) it’s a pushing muscle, not a pulling muscle. Your contribution decreases as you push the bar farther away from you. But the lats aren’t quite done helping you even after the first few inches of the press.

Another key function of the lats is to create internal rotation (remember to pat your abdomen with your palm while your elbow is at your side). Most good lifters know that when they press up after the first press on a bench, they need to straighten their elbows. This flare creates some internal rotation that helps activate the lats and other muscles (you have 5 important internal rotators). For this reason, good boxers and martial artists know that when punching, not only does the arm extend, but the hand also twists in a bit when punching – this increases muscle activation, which increases stability, which increases power and strength.

If you’re very weak at the bottom of your chest—when the bar won’t move even at maximum weight—and you have a normal bench grip (forearm perpendicular to the bar at the bottom), then it’s likely that the lifter’s lats are weak . Exercises such as pull-ups (bodyweight, with any grip), bent-over rows, dumbbell rows, cable rows, and pulldowns can all help strengthen and massage the lats. I’ve actually found that the lats are not at all sensitive to programming – you can do high reps, low reps, heavy weight, short rests, etc. – as long as you train hard and build in progressive overload each week, or so the lats appear to be to be react. Unfortunately, the bench press doesn’t fall into the same category – it’s very picky about how it responds to programs once past beginner level.

A good lifter will have strong lats. Lats help a little with the squat and a little more with the deadlift, but they help the most with the bench press. My rule of thumb was that with anything I can bench press (either maxed out or for reps), I should be able to do a 45-degree bent-over row (Yates row). Another simple guideline is what you can press with dumbbells to be able to row with dumbbells. If you can’t do this, it means your lats may be underdeveloped and holding back your strength.

Add in some extra lat training and see how you—and your bench—react. Let me know how it works for you.

The latissimus dorsi is a large, flat muscle that covers the width of your mid and lower back. It connects the bones of the upper arm to the spine and hips. This muscle is often referred to as the lats. Latissimus dorsi pain is often caused by overuse or can be the result of poor technique during sports or similar activities. Fortunately, several exercises can help prevent or relieve this pain.

What Are the Symptoms of Latissimus Dorsi Pain? Share on Pinterest The latissimus dorsi muscle covers the width of the middle and lower back and is better known as the latissimus. It can be difficult to tell if the pain is localized in the latissimus dorsi or other muscles in the shoulders or back. When the latissimus dorsi is injured, a person may experience pain in multiple locations including: the lower, middle, and upper back

the back of the shoulders

the base of the shoulder blade, commonly known as the scapula

the inside of the arms, which extends to the fingers

Forearms In some cases, the pain comes on without warning and can be felt in the surrounding muscles. This pain is often worse when the person stretches their hands forward, raises their hands above their head, or throws an object. Damage to the latissimus dorsi can cause other symptoms. These may include: Tingling in the forearms

difficulty breathing

Tendonitis in the middle and lower back Consult a doctor if the source of the back pain cannot be identified or if it is accompanied by: Fever

difficulty breathing

Abdominal pain These could be symptoms of a more serious illness.

Causes Share on Pinterest The most common causes of pain result from overuse of the muscles and poor technique during training. The latissimus dorsi is used in everyday activities including: expanding the chest for breathing

Push against the armrests of a chair to stand up. It is also used in any sport or workout that involves: Upper body weightlifting

rowing

throw

Performing Bench Press Below are the most common causes of pain: Overuse of the muscle

bad technique

Exercising without warming up A person may be at greater risk of injury if they: Have poor posture

constantly reaching over your head

chop wood

shovel frequently

golf

playing baseball

the line

ski

swim

play tennis

Do exercises like pull-ups or lat pulldowns. It’s possible for the latissimus dorsi to tear, and athletes are particularly at risk. Athletes most likely to injure this muscle include: Water skiers

golfer

pitchers

gymnast

Exercises for Relief Certain exercises can relieve pain associated with the latissimus dorsi and strengthen the muscle to prevent further injury. It’s important for a person to consult an expert such as a doctor or personal trainer to make sure the exercises are right for them and that they are using the correct form. The following two exercises can reduce latissimus dorsi pain. A doctor can recommend how often a person should do these exercises. Never continue an exercise that is painful or too uncomfortable: Back Arch Share on Pinterest Back arch yoga pose can help relieve pain and strengthen muscle. This pose is often referred to as “the superman” because it resembles his flying. Perform back bend: Lie face down on a yoga mat.

Straighten your legs and arms away from your body so your arms are in front of your head.

Use your back to raise your shoulders and straightened limbs toward the ceiling.

Hold the position for 10 seconds before lowering. Pelvic Raises or Raises To perform this exercise, a person should:

Lie flat on your back with your arms at your sides.

Bend your legs so that your heels are closer to your buttocks.

Raise the pelvis towards the ceiling.

Slowly lower it to the floor, keeping your hands and feet in place.

Can this pain be prevented? A person can make certain lifestyle changes to prevent latissimus dorsi pain. These include: Using proper form in sports and training

Avoiding overuse of the muscle

apply a heating pad to the area before exercising

Warm up and cool down before and after training

gentle stretching after warming up and before cooling down

stay hydrated

get occasional massages

Sore lats might not be the first thing that comes to mind when people hear the word “push-ups,” but it’s clear that this is a common occurrence – as shown here and here.

So, why do your lats hurt after push-ups? Your lats get sore after push-ups because they contract during the exercise (called muscle co-activation) to counteract the work of your pecs for stability. Higher-than-normal reps and different hand positions can also contribute to lats in push-ups.

Although the lats are active during push-ups, how much do they actually contribute to the lift itself? In this article, we cover the role of the lats and why they can actually get sore during push-ups.

Let’s dive in and get some answers!

The role of the lats in push-ups

Without a doubt, the push-up falls within the “push” exercise pattern. This means that the “pushing” muscles (pecs major, pec small, anterior deltoids, triceps) are heavily engaged during this movement.

The main reason lifters get sore lats doing push-ups is because they are a stabilizing muscle group during the “push” exercise pattern, a phenomenon called “muscle co-activation.”

According to a review by Latash (2018), muscle coactivation occurs when other muscles contract around a joint to provide joint stability and stiffness. This is because when both muscles contract at the same time, a certain amount of compression is applied to the joint, applied from multiple directions, improving control over the joint.

Basically, the lats are an antagonistic (opposite) muscle group to the pecs. They are recruited during the push-up as part of the coactivation process.

Read my article on How do powerlifters train their backs? for 3 essential workouts to build up your back muscles.

5 reasons why the lats get sore when doing push-ups

Here are the 5 reasons why the lats get sore when doing push-ups:

• Your lats will stabilize

• It is actually serratus anterior (not lat) soreness

• Your pain is from a previous pull day

• It’s actually Teres Major & Teres Minor pain (not the lats)

• Your hands are positioned high and/or turned inward

1. Your lats will stabilize

As explained above, the lats are an important muscle group for stability in push-ups.

However, the lats don’t just provide extra stability. Muscle coactivation also allows for better precision in large and fine motor movements. Whether it’s picking up a pencil or doing a push-up, neither would be possible without muscle co-activation.

So, your lats will contract during each push-up rep you perform. And if you have lat pain, it could be because they are stabilizing your shoulder joint for a long time.

After all, many lifters can do at least 15 push-ups or more—it’s possible the increased volume is just a new stimulus leading to soreness in the lats.

You can also read whether it’s better to do push-ups fast or slow?

2. It’s actually Serratus Anterior Soreness

Another reason you might feel sore in your lats after doing push-ups is that it’s actually your serratus anterior that’s sore.

The serratus anterior is a muscle group that stretches across the ribs and connects to the outer edge of your shoulder blade. When it contracts, the serratus anterior pulls the scapula forward around your chest cavity.

In fact, the serratus anterior is often referred to as the “boxer’s muscle” because it’s heavily recruited to pull the scapula forward with every punch. However, the protraction of your shoulder blades also occurs in the ascending phase of the push-up as you approach the lockout position.

As such, it’s fairly common for lifters to confuse serratus anterior pain with lat tenderness due to its proximity to the lats.

Related Article: Is it better to do push-ups with handles? and Diamond Push Up: Instructions, Benefits, Trained Muscles

3. Your pain is from a previous pull day

Some lifters also jump to the conclusion that their lats are sore from doing push-ups without considering the lat-focused exercises they’ve been doing in the previous 1-2 days.

For example, let’s say you do a “pull” workout on a Tuesday. Her workout includes a variety of exercises: deadlifts, pull-ups, and a variation of the seated row.

The next day (Wednesday), perform your push workout of push-ups, chest flys, and tricep pushdowns on the cable.

On Thursday you notice your lats are so sore you can barely raise your arms above your head… what’s the matter?

In this case, most of the soreness in your lats might actually have been caused by your pull workout on Tuesday, but the soreness didn’t peak until 48 hours later — plus, the “push” day was your last workout and it’s getting whole be at the top of the list.

While your lats will contract during Wednesday’s push-ups, it’s possible your lats wouldn’t be nearly as sore if you didn’t have pulling training within the same 48-hour window as your pushing training.

Are Your Hamstrings Sore After Deadlifting? Check out my article to find out if that’s good or bad.

4. It’s actually Teres Major & Teres Minor soreness

Similar to the serratus anterior, you might think your lats are sore when it’s actually your teres major and minor experiencing muscle soreness.

The teres major muscle is located above the lats, and its primary role is to straighten (bring the upper arm back) and rotate the upper arm inward.

On the other hand, the Teres Minor causes external rotation and adduction (bringing it to your midline) of your upper arm, along with stabilization of your shoulder joint.

Considering the actions that Teres Major and Minor perform, they are also active during push-ups. Whether they support your “pushing” muscles (pecs, anterior delts, triceps) or just help stabilize your shoulder joint, they will be recruited to some degree.

The longer periods of tension these muscles experience during push-ups (which tend to have higher reps than other comparable “push” exercises) can cause muscle soreness due to the novel stimulus of multiple sets of higher reps. As with the serratus anterior, pain in the teres major and minor is often lumped together as “lat pain” because it is so close to the lat.

Related article: Do push-ups help bench press? (Yes, that’s how it works)

5. Your hands are positioned high and/or turned inward

The last reason your lats get sore after doing push-ups could be your hand position during the exercise.

Usually, your hands feel most natural when they are on the floor, just below your shoulders. However, some lifters naturally change their hand position to a position that places them slightly in front of the shoulders (when looking from the side) or rotates them inward towards the midline.

Whether these changes are intentional or not, these hand placements promote greater extension and abduction of the upper arm. As a result, your lats get worked more than usual and are more prone to pain — as they play a more active role in this type of push-up.

Related Article: Is it better to do push-ups in sets or all at once? and Dips vs Pushups: Pros and Cons, Which is Better?

Is it bad for lats to get sore after push-ups?

No, it’s not bad that the latissimus hurts after push-ups.

Remember that the phenomenon of muscle co-activation between the pectoralis and latissimus dorsi muscle groups is necessary to stabilize the shoulder joint during the push-up exercise. Without this simultaneous contraction, there would be a serious loss of stability during descent and ascent.

In addition, this stability achieved by the lats leads to more precise large and small motor movements. Of course, it’s completely normal and to be expected that your lats will get sore after doing push-ups.

Training your back muscles is a key component of GPP training for powerlifters. Click here to find out what GPP is, how it works and its benefits.

Push-up variations that target more of the lats

If you want to pound your lats even harder, here are 4 push-up variations to try.

Push-ups to Renegade Row

This exercise combines a “push” and a “pull” pattern by combining the standard push-up with a dumbbell row.

TRX push-ups

With the TRX push-up, this variation puts extra work on the lats as they stabilize the rings and keep your arms close to your torso.

If you don’t have access to a TRX strap, check out my top 5 TRX alternatives.

Hindu push-up

The Hindu push-up combines a couple of yoga progressions (downward dog and upward dog). This dynamic movement targets the lats more because of the additional extension requirements for the upper arm.

Push-ups with overhead reach

Performing a push-up with overhead reach is a surefire way to stimulate more lats by isolating one arm and forcing it into significant extension.

If you feel push-ups in your shoulders too much read my article Why do you feel push-ups in my shoulders (4 reasons)?

Final Thoughts

The lats are an antagonistic (opposite) muscle group to the pecs, which are the primary movement during the push-up. To promote greater stability and motor control of movement, the lats contract throughout the exercise—this is called muscle co-contraction.

It is common for pain in other muscle groups to be confused with pain in the lats, such as serratus anterior, teres major, and teres minor pain. Additionally, the pain you are experiencing could be due to previous “push” training or an inward hand position.

For the reasons listed above, sore lats after push-ups is a natural occurrence – embrace it!

If you enjoyed this read, you might also like this article on Quads Sore After Squats: Is It Good Or Bad?

About the author

Kent Nilson

Kent Nilson is an online strength coach based in Calgary (AB). When he’s not training, coaching, or volunteering on the platform at powerlifting meetings, chances are you’ll be drinking Kent coffee or enjoying his next Eggs Benedict. Connect with him on Facebook or Instagram.

One of the many goals of those who exercise is to be able to be strong and have well-defined muscles. Most of the time, however, we tend to neglect certain unfavorable muscle groups. This usually leads us to focus on the muscle groups in the front half of our body — the “mirror” muscles that we see when we nonchalantly tense ourselves, or glimpse our reflection when we walk in front of a mirror. In fact, quads, biceps, delts, chest, and abs often get a little more love and attention than anything else in the back chain. So let’s flip the script and talk about having a strong and functional back.

The largest and most dominant muscle group on your upper body in the posterior chain of muscles are the latissimus dorsi muscles, more commonly referred to as the latissimus. You are recruited for many key movements that involve the core, core and upper body, so it’s important to include exercises, rows or pulls that strengthen the lats in your training routine.

There are numerous exercises that target the lats, including bodyweight exercises, dumbbell and barbell options, and weight machines. Before we dive into these exercises, it’s helpful to define what exactly the lats are. Then read on for lat training inspiration and guidance to ensure your lats are as strong and defined as your pecs and abs, even when you can’t see them.

What are the lats?

The latissimus refers to the latissimus dorsi muscles, which are a pair of large, triangular, or V-shaped muscles on either side of your spine. They extend from the inside of your upper arm at the shoulder to the back of the pelvis at the waist, creating a dramatic taper that extends down your entire back.

The primary function of the lats is to work together to stabilize the spine while supporting and strengthening the arms and shoulders. They allow lateral bending and keep the spine straight while helping to extend, rotate and move the shoulder. For example, the lats are involved in every pulling movement, whether you’re pulling something down over you or pulling something back in front of you. They also help adduct the arms, which is the movement that occurs when your arms are stretched up and out to the side like the letter “T,” then drawn back to your sides. The lats are heavily involved in exercises like pull-ups and rows, but also in running, walking, and breathing.

Benefits of Lat Exercises and Lat Workouts

Lat exercises are important for increasing the functional strength of your lats. One of the risks of focusing too much on the muscles in the front of the body like the chest, abdomen and deltoids is that it then creates a muscle imbalance between these stronger players and their weaker counterparts. Not only can this decrease the efficiency of your movements and limit your overall strength, but it can also increase the risk of injury. Performing lat exercises regularly provides the following benefits:

strengthening of the back

Reducing the risk of injury

stabilization of the spine

Improvement in shoulder addiction and pulling

improvement in breathing

Increase in running speed, throwing, swimming and rowing

Improvement in overall core support and functionality

Best Lat Exercises

The most common lat exercise is probably pull-ups, but if you’re new to pull-ups or just want to build a well-rounded lat workout with multiple lat exercises, there are other exercises that either specifically target the lats or strengthen the entire back, including the lats. For example, deadlifts are usually thought of as an exercise for the hamstrings and glutes, but they’re also a great way to work your lats because you need to use those broad muscles to pull the weight up while stabilizing your spine. Some of the best lat exercises are listed below.

lat pulldown machine

Lat pulldowns with the resistance band

Straight arm pulldowns

Deadlift with hex bar

Barbell Deadlift

Rows with dumbbells

Rows of land mines

TRX suspended rows

barbell rows

rows of pendulums

Bowed Rows

rows of cables

One-arm kettlebell row

dumbbell sweater

Wide-grip pull-ups

Narrow-grip pull-ups

Negative pull-ups

pull-up hangs

Weighted arm swings

lateral raises

kettlebell swings

Medicine Ball Chops

pull-ups

freestyle swimming

backstroke

butterfly

rowing machine

kayaking

stand up paddling

Elliptical trainer with resistance arms

cross country skiing

The best lats workouts

The best lat workouts involve multiple exercises that target the lats and back, performed in sequence to engage the lats. You can also alternate back and lat exercises that use pulling movements with pressing exercises that use the chest (like push-ups and bench presses), since these exercises require the lats to control the opposite movement through eccentric (lengthening) contractions.

If you’re looking to build your lats in terms of size (muscle hypertrophy), the best lat workouts are limited to multiple sets of low reps of various lat exercises performed at near-maximum loads.

Example lat training

Do four sets of five reps on the lat pulldown machine. Do four sets of five reps of weighted pull-ups. Do four sets of five reps of heavy barbell rows. Perform four sets of five reps of hex bar deadlifts with the heaviest load you can handle.

Remember to keep using the correct form. If you’re an intermediate or advanced lifter looking to increase your overall lat strength, use a weight heavy enough that you can only do 8-12 reps before reaching fatigue. Perform two to three sets of eight to ten exercises that target the lats and other key back muscles.

Performance-Based Outcomes

A strong back is critical to injury prevention, athletic performance, and functional strength for everyday activities. By using these exercises and protocols, you’ll build a stronger, more toned back, and people will be able to tell that you’re focusing on your posterior chain.

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