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Every athlete should be aware of the best lat exercises they can do to improve their strength, physique and muscular endurance.
A significant portion of lat exercises are compound movements, which means these workouts target more than one muscle group. Such exercises are key for strength and stamina development, along with adding muscle mass.
Best Lat Exercises for Athletes
Here's a look at the six best lat exercises every athlete must focus on to become stronger and boost their muscular endurance.
1) Lat Pulldown
This is an important compound movement in lat exercises. This workout focuses on the bigger portion of your back and also has an impact on the mid-back and smaller muscles.
If you want to focus on intensity over volume, lower the weight, and do higher reps. You should be able to feel the burn in your muscles when you focus on intensity over volume.
2) Bent-over Barbell Row
Another compound movement that's important for lats is the bent-over rows. To do this exercise, attach plates to a barbell; bend from your hips, and do weighted rows.
Bent-over barbell rows work on the wing-shaped muscles on your back along with the upper and mid traps. It works on the rear delts as well.
As it’s a compound movement, this exercise works on the biceps too.
3) Single Arm Dumbbell Row
The single arm dumbbell row is similar to the bent-over barbell row, but in this exercise, you focus on one side at a time.
When you do unilateral exercises, you can fix any type of muscle imbalance or strength issues.
4) Pull-up
Bodyweight exercises are important for the lat muscles as well. If you want to improve your overall strength, you should do exercises like the pull-up.
You can use wide grips and close grip pull-ups to add variation to your workout routine.
5) Reverse Fly
Your back or lats are made up of small and big muscles. All the compound exercises put more pressure on the bigger muscles while activating the smaller muscles. Since the smaller muscles are also a part of the muscle group, it’s important to work on them too.
Reverse flys are a great exercise to activate the smaller muscles surrounding the rear delts and the lat muscles. You can do bent-over rear delts or cable rear delts to work on these muscles.
Both variations are useful for building strength and endurance.
6) Renegade Row
Renegade rows are one of the best lat exercises and can work on your balance and stability. To do this exercise, take two dumbbells, and go to a shoulder plank position. From there, keep your core engaged and hips straight.
Finally, pull the dumbbells towards yourself to replicate a rowing motion, going one hand at a time.
Bottom Line
As an athlete, the goal is to increase your strength and stamina. Therefore, just focusing on lat exercises won't help, as your diet is also key.
Moreover, you need to add proper hydration and sleep to your routine to ensure your muscles recover properly. That will boost their strength and enable the muscle fibers to grow back thicker and stronger.
