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Some of the best back exercises for women revolve around compound workouts. These exercises help in working the bigger muscles in the group and activate the smaller muscles as well. Additionally, compound exercises focus on more than one muscle group, and usually the biceps and rear delts get worked with the lat muscles.
When you’re trying to grow your back, you must do a well-rounded mixture of isolation and compound exercises, and the routine should focus on each part of the muscle group. You shouldn’t focus on only the upper back or lower back but the entire back to ensure proper growth and development of the muscle group.
Best Back Exercises for Women
When you’re focusing on the back, it’s important to understand which exercise impacts which part the most.
Once you’ve understood that, it’s easier to make a workout routine for proper muscle development. On that note, here are the six best back exercises women should focus on.
1) Pull-up
Bodyweight exercises are a must for any muscle group. As a result, it’s imperative to add such exercises to your routine. Pull-ups are the most common bodyweight exercises for the back muscles. You need to focus on wide grip pull-ups to work your lat muscles.
If you’re not able to do bodyweight pull-ups, you can do assisted pull-ups (if you have access to a machine) or resistance band pull-ups. An alternative to pull-ups are bodyweight inverted rows.
2) Back Extension
Back extensions are another bodyweight back exercise that helps the lower back muscles. Hence, if you do pull-ups and back extensions as a superset, you will be able to activate the lat muscles overall before moving to heavier compound exercises.
You need to have access to a back extension bench or equipment for this exercise. An alternative to this workout is cable pull throughs.
3) Wide Grip Pulldown
One of the top compound exercises for the back is the wide grip pulldown. It focuses on the upper back, which is the biggest part of the lat muscles.
It also helps broaden the back and enables the muscles to flare. The wide grip pulldown also helps strengthen the middle back along with working on the biceps as a secondary muscle group.
4) Single Arm Dumbbell Row
When you’re focusing on any muscle group, you just do unilateral exercises to ensure there aren’t isn't muscle imbalance between the two sides. The same applies to the lat muscles as well.
Single arm dumbbell rows allow you to work on one side of your back muscles at a time. You can find the guide to doing single arm dumbbell rows here.
5) Straight Arm Pulldown
Straight arm pulldowns work on the sides of the back muscles from top to bottom. Additionally, they work on the rear delts and a few muscles in the upper arm as well.
You need to be bent from your hips, and stretch your arms all the way upwards before using your lat muscles to pull it down. Keep in mind that you must keep your arms straight and core stable if you want to work on your lats.
If you bend your arms during this back exercise, the pressure will shift to your arms, primarily the triceps.
6) Cable Row
Cable rows are another compound exercise for the back. You can do cable rows on a lat pulldown machine (if it’s equipped), or use the cable pulley machine.
Ideally, you can use this back exercise as a volume or intense workout to burn out the muscle fibers. You can find the guide to doing cable rows here.
Bottom Line
Only focusing on the best back exercises will not help develop your lat muscles. You need to focus on your nutrition, hydration, and rest as well. Everything together ensures that your efforts at the gym and the kitchen will be visible throughout your overall physique.
