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Free weight exercises are the most common ones in the gym. Almost everyone has some form of free weight exercise in their routine, which focuses on various muscle groups.
Similarly, there are several exercises that focus on your back or lat muscles. Even if you cannot spot reduce fat, you can do these exercises to tone the muscles as you continue to lose weight overall.
Free Weight Exercises for Your Back Muscles
The lat muscles are a large muscle group that require you to pay extra attention. However, it’s important you understand that your spine is also a part of your back, and you cannot put immense and unnecessary pressure on it at any point.
On that note, here's a look at six best free weight exercises to lose fat in the back:
1) Bent-over Barbell Row
This is an important compound exercise. You can do it using dumbbells or barbells, but most prefer barbells.
If you choose to do it with barbell, avoid bending forward too much or too little. It’s important to find the optimal point from where you can pull the barbell towards yourself using the lat muscles. The bent-over barbell row works on a wide appearance of the lat muscles.
2) Back Extension
This is a bodyweight exercise that's extremely useful in toning the muscles, especially the ones in the lower back.
Usually, gyms have equipment that has padding. That allows you to drive your hips into the exercise to do extensions.
It’s better to engage your core during this exercise for better balance and stability.
3) One-arm Dumbbell Row
If you’re looking for free weight exercises for your lats using dumbbells, the one-arm dumbbell row allows you to truly isolate each side and work on each division.
You can choose to focus on volume or intensity in this exercise. However, throughout the exercise, your back must be straight, and you shouldn’t allow your biceps to pull. You need to pull with your lat muscles, and at all times, you must keep a bend in your knees and feet firmly on the ground.
4) Reverse Fly
The reverse fly works on your upper back muscles and the rear delts. You can do this exercise using dumbbells, but many gyms have a pec dec machine where you can do reverse flyes.
It’s preferable to use a lighter dumbbell for this exercise, as a lot of the smaller muscles are involved in the reverse fly. Those muscles might not be equipped to withstand heavy resistance.
5) Chest Supported Dumbbell Row
You’ll need an incline bench for this exercise. This compound movement can be done using dumbbells or barbells, but dumbbells are easier to pick up. However, you can choose whichever works best for you.
To do a chest support row, place the bench in an incline position, and lie down with your chest on it. When you pull with your lats, try and bring the weights as close to your body as you can.
You can begin with a lighter weight to understand the posture before moving to heavier ones.
6) Renegade Row
The renegade row is an excellent free weight exercise if you want to boost muscle endurance and strength. Ideally, you should do this with exercise with lighter weights, as you’ll be in a shoulder push-up position, with your palms holding the dumbbells to the floor.
When you row with each hand, a lighter weight allows a full range of motion as opposed to a heavier one.
