June 1, 2007

Building a Better Back by Training the Teres Major

Having a strong back isn’t just good for your overall health and well-being, it looks great too, giving you that strong and sweeping appearance that practically screams out, Yes, I do go to the gym! But when people think about working their back muscles, they most often focus on the latissimus dorsi, more commonly referred to as the lats. It’s because most think that the lats alone are what gives you that impressive width up top. That’s not quite right.

If you look at an anatomy chart, you’ll see that the lats are large and seem to almost wrap around the middle area of the back. But you’ll also notice that above the lats and below the rear deltoids is something called the teres major, which extends further out than the lats. It’s actually the full development of this muscle that can give you the most impressive back width. This is just another thing that legendary trainer Vince Gironda was teaching people decades ago – including myself.

But knowing about the teres major is one thing, working it is another. Just how do you get at that spot in there to make it grow? It’s tricky, but, luckily, Gironda taught too, and he probably had half a dozen exercises that could tackle it. For the most part, though, I like to use just two that I find to be the most effective.

One is simply a variation of the seated cable row, so you can do it on a cable-row machine, which most gyms have, or you can do it by using a very low pulley (a few inches off the floor) and simply sitting on the floor. In either case, the handle you attach to the pulley is one that holds your hands vertically so that the knuckles are facing each other and are about four inches apart.

The cable-row movement is rather like rowing a boat, and the way most people do a "normal" cable row is by sitting upright and arching the back as the handle is pulled toward the abdominal area. The arching motion forces a lot of the work to the lats, which is what most people do this exercise for.

To work the teres major, you have to do something a little different. Instead of arching the back as you pull the handle in, you round the back. Doing so shifts the stress away from the lats and puts it to, you guessed it, the teres major. And for even greater emphasis there, Gironda recommended looking down as you’re pulling so your chin goes to your chest – this seems to isolate the area even more. He also recommended holding the contraction for a number of seconds and squeezing hard.

The other exercise I like is the 45-degree pulley pull, a movement that I’ve found to be even more effective at getting at the teres major. However, it’s a difficult exercise to describe and a little tough to perform correctly – reasons why I included it in the DVD that I produced a few years ago called The Vince Gironda Exercises: Vol. 1 (available in our "Shop" section). In the video, beautiful Quebec-based fitness star Chantal Dicaire displays great form while doing the movement. Once you see her go through the exercise, you’ll understand fully how it is done. Nevertheless, I’ll give you a brief description here.

The exercise involves using a pulley set at about the height of your head when standing. A small, straight bar is used as a handle, and it should be wide enough to allow your hands to be about six to nine inches apart. You then grab the bar so the knuckles are upward and the palms are down and take a few steps back from the pulley so the weight stack starts to rise. Then, crouch so that the thighs are parallel to the floor, the arms are fully extended, and the hands are now above the head and in the direction of the pulley. This is the starting position.

From the starting position, pull the bar toward the lower part of the chest. As with the regular cable row, the back is arched and the head is held high. Although the teres major is used somewhat when the bar is being pulled, it’s during the next part, when the bar is returned to the starting position, that it gets taxed the most.

Instead of just letting the bar travel back on the same path it took to get there, you direct the bar a little bit toward the floor, making a "scooping" motion, all the while controlling the weight and resisting as the handle makes its way back to the high, starting position. Providing that you have done this scooping motion in a controlled, deliberate fashion, you should feel a lot of stress on the teres major muscles on both sides of the back. In fact, if you do this movement correctly, you can’t help but feel it.

Once you learn about teres major, you’ll never look at the back muscles the same way again – that’s what happened to me when Gironda first told me about it. And when you know the importance of teres major for back width and start doing movements that tackle this muscle that’s tricky to get at, you’ll make great strides in terms of building a better, stronger, wider back that will make everyone notice.

...Doug Schneider
das@seriousaboutfitness.com

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