Back Workout: Bodyweight Extended Sets

I recently showed you an extended set finisher for chest (see that article here). Now it's time for back.

For chest, the extended sets involved three different variations of cable crossover. Here, you'll be doing only two movements, both bodyweight exercises, to fully exhaust the large muscles of the back (namely, the lats, rhomboids and middle traps). Those two exercises being pull-ups and inverted rows. You could technically also call this a compound set (two exercises performed back-to-back for the same bodypart). Conveniently, you'll do both exercises on a Smith machine to limit rest time between the two.

What I love about this particular extended set is that you're hitting the back with two distinct motions: a pull-up/pulldown movement and a row. As I've mentioned numerous times over the years, pull-ups/pulldowns and rows are the two major types of compound exercises you can do for back – this extended set incorporates both (whereas the chest extended set only dealt with flye movements, no presses).

Here's how the back extended set goes:

• Set the bar of the Smith Machine at its highest possible setting for pull-ups. This won't be as high as a typical pull-up bar, but that's okay – just bend your knees to reach full arm extension at the bottom.
• Do a set of pull-ups to full muscle failure.
• After hitting failure on pull-ups, immediately lower the bar for inverted rows. The bar height should be such that at the bottom of each rep your arms are at full extension with your back barely above the floor.
• Do a set of inverted rows to failure to complete the extended set. Rest 2-3 minutes, then repeat for a total of 3-4 sets.

Not much to it, right? This is a very straight forward workout, but it's also very challenging due to the simple fact that most people have a hard time doing bodyweight pull-ups for high reps to begin with – and now I'm adding inverted rows right after that! It's tough, but trust me, you'll love that "brute strength" feeling you get after doing this combination of exercises for a few weeks or so.

Because of the high degree of difficulty, I recommend doing these extended sets at the beginning of your back workout when you're fresh. (Recall that I advised doing the cable crossover extended sets at the end of your chest workout – this routine is a different beast.) In the below workout, I follow the extended sets with lat pulldowns and machine rows and finish things off with straight-arm pulldowns for some isolation.

Let me know how you like this workout by reaching out to me on Facebook or Twitter. And share your thoughts in the JYM Army Facebook group as well.

Bodyweight Extended Set Back Workout

Download This Workout

Watch this YouTube video for a demonstration of me doing the pull-up/inverted row extended set on a Smith Machine:

And in this other video, I show you a trick for doing the pull-up/inverted row extended set on dual cable station that has a pull-up bar. You probably never thought you could do inverted rows on this machine!

Related Articles

• 
  8 Weeks to Boulder Shoulders

  Having well defined shoulders isnt easy...Having Boulder Sized Shoulders is difficult.

• 
  Top Triceps

  Keep your Triceps in TOP condition with this routine

• 
  Resting Results

  More reps burns more calories? Maybe. The Doc Answers this and much More!!

• 
  Alpha-GPC

  Whats the Benefit of A-GPC? Find out exactly what it is.