Turning on the back: Evan Sentopani’s workout

With one simple trick, a routine barbell workout will be safer for your lower back and harder for your back muscles. You must know this!

Author: Evan Sentopani

Too often, I notice that people see training as something tailored to a specific muscle group. With this approach, each muscle group consists of disconnected muscles, and each of them must be worked out individually.

I once thought so myself. Over the years, my attitude towards training has become more systematic and complex. Now I understand that every time we lift weights, we use the whole body, and not a single muscle. And on any intense workout, you feel this effect with your whole body.

You know what this feeling is like: you are gasping for breath, you are tired, you feel like sitting down, and you feel discomfort all over your body. Barbells and free weights cause this condition much faster than exercise machines. This state is one of the best tools at your disposal when you want to get your body in shape. This is the approach I use in my back workouts.

Perhaps one of the best opportunities to “do it right” and receive big dividends is provided by back training. With the right approach, back training becomes very energy-intensive. Here you either work hard to the seventh sweat, or stop one step away from realizing your potential. The choice is yours.

Everything you need and nothing more

For me, this is a basic but very effective workout. It includes a bent-over barbell row, a T-bar row, an upper lat row, and a dumbbell row. Based on the training schedule on other days of the week, I can also include a deadlift in my back workout.

On the day we shot this video, I decided to reduce the load. Plus, the barbell / dumbbell / T-row combination is already heavy enough that I didn’t feel like I needed to add anything else (and I did the deadlift two days ago in leg workout).

Turning on the back: Evan Sentopani’s workout

Technique Tips from Evan Sentopani

Leg curls in the simulator. The choice may seem strange, but trust me. I recently found that a few sets of leg curls before back exercises really help turn the hamstrings on. I can feel them both in the deadlift of a heavy barbell in the slope, and during the deadlift, and this spares my lower back. The idea came to my mind while doing the deadlift, which I sometimes combine into a superset with leg curls. I noticed that in this superset, my lower back does not bother me when doing deadlifts.

For the sake of safety and productivity, these two exercises need to transfer tension to the back of the thigh, not to the lower back. If you have back problems, try this workout.

Bent-over barbell row. Is not . You can – and even need – to connect your legs a little. Why? If you try to keep your back 100% still, the load on your lower back will increase with each weight gain. By using your legs as “shock absorbers” in negative repetition, you allow your hips, not your lower back, to take on the lion’s share of the load.

Bent-over barbell row

However, you should keep your back as parallel to the floor as possible. By “parallel” I mean a tilt of about 45 degrees or more. If you round your back a lot, so that the bent-over rows look like the modified ones, you will lose the respect of your peers, and at the same time the expected training effect. Don’t make this mistake.

The effectiveness of an exercise is largely determined by How long weight you can handle using pure technique. The heavier the barbell, the thicker your back. As long as your lower back can withstand the load, starting your back workout with a bent-over barbell row will allow you to give this exercise all your energy and strength. You will pull the maximum weight for the maximum number of reps.

A positive side effect of heavy barbell deadlifts is strengthening the lower back, glutes and hamstrings. And if more than one muscle group benefits from an exercise, that’s a good sign!

T-rod (T-rod rod). Personally, I think the bent-over row is better than the T-row, and I would never trade the first for the second. But at the same time, I’m sure that it makes sense to include both deadlifts in one workout.

Why does this seem like a good idea to me? Judge for yourself: you start with a barbell row and tire many of your back muscles. Then move on to the T-bar and add a bullet to get a slightly different effect from the movement. In addition, this type of traction relieves some of the load from the lower back.

It should be noted that although the T-bar is locked and acts as a lever, you should still use your foot cushioning in the negative repetition phase.

Upper block pull with V-handle. This movement can be performed in a variety of ways. You can often see people push their knees as far under the bolsters as possible and lean back a lot when lowering the weight. This option makes the movement look like a vertical thrust in a hummer; it recruits the trapezius and rhomboid muscles to a greater extent, and to a much lesser extent the lats.

Considering that my muscles in the middle of the back (trapezoid and diamond-shaped) already got it in this workout, the main goal of this exercise is to work out the lats. And this is the best move I know of for maximum isolation!

Upper block pull with V-handle

To get the most out of the exercise, place your knees directly under the bolsters so that you can secure them, but no more. Keep the rope in front of you, not over your head. Then, when pulling the cable to the top of your chest, keep your elbows in front of you and do not let them come apart. The chest is always in a high position, the body is motionless.

Only your hands should move. Remember to stretch at the top and squeeze at the bottom; try your best to keep your muscles tense from start to finish. You are not trying to set a personal record for weight or repetitions here, so focus on making each rep as difficult as possible.

Dumbbell Rows. Over the years I have tried many variations of this movement: with two feet on the floor and an arm on a shelf of dumbbells, with one leg on a horizontal bench, with an emphasis on an incline bench. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that the best dumbbell row for me was with one leg on a horizontal bench.

This option offers a middle ground between “as difficult as possible” and “as easy as possible”. In comparison, with the emphasis on the tilted bench, it is very inconvenient to work and there is no chance of taking any significant weight. On the other hand, if you take the dumbbell straight off the shelf, you can pull an insanely heavy projectile; it greatly overestimates self-esteem, but does little to the muscles of the back. I use 45kg dumbbells and do slow controlled negatives to get the most out of the movement.

I also use some kind of supersets. First, you do a one-handed approach to failure, and then you change hands and do exactly the same without resting. After that, again without pause, take the shell in the first hand and again work to failure. If in the first run you do 10-12 reps with each hand, then on the second round you can barely master 5-7. Two segments count as one set. You need to make three of these.

Sets and reps are just details.

Now that everything is laid out on the shelves, you can remember the main thing – your training “philosophy” is much more important than any training program. Sets, reps, exercises and their order can be changed at any time. But we must not forget that your goal is to exercise, and you must be ready to expose your body to the utmost challenge. This plays a decisive role.

If you approach training in this way, the training will line up by itself. Trust me, you will know when to stop. The body will tell you about it, and you do not have to rely on some arbitrary finish line.

Remember, workout programs alone are not talking about anything. The attitude to training, the willingness to overcome boundaries and break down barriers, leaving the comfort zone far behind – that’s what really matters. Train hard, do it regularly, and enjoy the results!

Read more: