Back Sets

Sorry, it's been a while. I believe I promised a nice back workout so here 'tis. Now when I say "back" as I have explained before, I do not refer to the lats as some do. I consider the back to be the erectors and rhomboids up either side of the spine from the can to the shoulder blades. I do lats another day, but even though not featured they are there for support on one of these excercises in particular.

Excercise 1; The Arms Extended Back Raise
Find a padded back raise bar or bench, every gym should have one and select a nice setting, if applicable, so that your hips are close to the business end of the pads and put your feet in whatever anchor is available. As you bend forward the edge should be pretty close to your bladder. The heels hooked, you'll notice your hamstrings are involved. Now with a small plate weight, start with a 5lber, hold it directly above your head with striaght arms, biceps close to the ears. Start doing back raises. Get as full a motion as your space permits on the way down and come up as far as your back arch will permit without any type of pinching pain. I've heard people say that any arch in the back is unhealthy on these, but since the body does bend in such a manner it's okay if you ask me. But what do I know, being unauthorized and all. The beauty of this particular excercise is that the wieght is doing an arch as far from the fulcrum(your hips) as is possible so it's as difficult as it can be the more correct it is.
I superset 4 sets of 10 reps of this alternating with;

Excercise 2; The Seated Half-Row
Find your gym's seated row pulley, sit facing it feet planted on whatever base your machine has, insert the peg by a number close to your body weight. Grab the stirrup or whatever close grip you choose and with shoulders neutral, at your sides niether forward are behind the rest of your torso, and arms straight pitch it all back until your body is parallel to the floor. It's like a dead lift only sideways. Now do a slow negative until your hips are at about 90 deg. and hold for 10 seconds or so. Then continue forward to the limit of your sustainable pike position. At the 90 deg. position with a flat back and neutral shoulders you'll notice the point of this one and as a bonus the lats jump in to stablize and keep the shoulders neutral.
I can only usually do about 5 or 6 reps of the Seated Half-Row per set.

The 3rd excercise I'll call; Bench Hug Back Raise with Ball
Start face down longways on any bench with your hips (or bladder-hopefully not too full) at the edge. Get a smallish medicine ball and place it between your feet. Once you get a good solid hold around the bench, hug it, straighten your legs holding the ball between said feet and raise it up and down as far as you can arch up and to the floor on the way down. I do 4 sets of this of about 15 reps with a 6lb ball. And between I sit straight legged on the bench and stretch out the hammy's and lower back with a nice forward pike stretch.

This would be followed by the back cleavage shrug set I described in an earlier blog.

I've been experimenting lately with static type of suspended strength excercises. A good example is the seated position held in the Half-Row. This is for the fast twitch muscle fiber I'm told. I just know it burns calories and developes the kind of strength and particular stamina one would need to call upon in real life. Say, you're in line at the DMV and you happen to be carrying a television set. You never know. As a watermark for a good amount of time to hold a position for the fast twitch workout would be 20 seconds. Work up to that, it's not going to happen the first time.