Back’ Workout

Chin-ups

Longtime MD readers know that Victor was doing endless chin-ups in a doorway of his apartment before he even lifted his first weight, and has kept doing them even well into his pro bodybuilding career.

Nowadays he does them first in his back routine, but considers them more of a vital warm-up rather than an actual exercise.

“I think chin-ups are the best possible way to warm up everything you will be using for your back workout— the lats, the biceps, the rear delts,” he comments. Because it’s a warm-up, he doesn’t add any weight. Then again, most of the year he hovers around 275 pounds at 5’9”, which is a lot of resistance to pull in the first place.

Vic starts off with wide-grip chins, aiming for 3 sets of 12. These are not the bouncing, jerky movements many guys consider a chin-up, either. He starts every rep from

a dead hang, letting the lats stretch, then pulls up until his upper chest hits the bar, squeezing the lats for a sec-ond before lowering slowly. Vic usually will follow that up with 2 or 3 sets of close-grip chins, using an under-hand curl grip.

Kai wasn’t into chin-ups or pull-ups in his very early years, but in recent years he has made them a mainstay in his back workouts. Like Victor, he typically does them at the beginning of the session. Kai has made it a point to com-pletely master pull-ups, even going so far as to be able to

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halt the movement at any part of the range of motion as a means of demonstrating absolute control.

“It’s interesting to note that both Victor and I still do pull-ups, as big and heavy as we are,” he says. “And Victor will even add weight. That’s inspired me to start doing that lately as well.”

Deadlifts

Victor has also done deadlifts more consistently than Kai has. That goes back to a two-year span that followed

his disastrous competition debut at age 20 in which he trained purely as a powerlifter in an effort to pack on some serious beef. Martinez stopped the deads once he returned to bodybuilding, on the advice of older bodybuilders at his gym, but that didn’t last long.

“After a few months I was checking out my back in the mirror and it just didn’t look as thick as it used to. It looked like it had shrunk. I thought about how all the great body-builders with great backs have done deadlifts. It’s the core exercise for a great back.”

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When Vic deadlifts, he doesn’t do the ‘half’ or ‘rack’

deadlifts that have become trendy over the past few years.

“I pull from the floor,” he says. “I have always done them like that. The half range of motion doesn’t feel right when I try it, and let’s be real— they are easier. I think the hardest way of doing an exercise is almost always the best way.”

Both hands are overhand, knuckles out. “The over-and-under ‘mixed’ grip is really just for powerlifters, because they can’t use straps in their meets,” Victor clarifies.

“Bodybuilders should have both palms facing down to distribute the weight evenly to both sides of the back.”

Kai wasn’t really aware of deadlifts in his early years, and instead did stiff-legs— where he eventually was able to handle a staggering 500 pounds. By his early 20s, regu-lar deadlifts became an off-and-on feature in his back train-ing, and a couple years ago his coach Oscar Ardon inspired him to do them on a regular basis.

“I only use 405 pounds,” he says modestly. “It’s not as heavy as I used to go, but I am definitely getting a lot more out of the exercise now than I used to.”

One-arm Dumbbell Rows

Interestingly, Kai doesn’t go any heavier than 120 pounds on dumbbell rows. “Lee Haney was famous for saying he never used more than a 70 or an 80-pound dumbbell for rows,” Kai reminds us, “but he made it a point to say that he went all the way up for a full contrac-tion. And his back was incredible, the best in the world at that time.”

Greene subscribes to the same philosophy, though it’s something that has come over the course of time. “In my younger years, I was all about moving big, big weights, and wasn’t so concerned with things like the quality of con-traction. That has definitely changed.”

Victor will go as heavy as a 180-pounder for 8 reps, though the sets leading up to that are usually with 120, 140, and 160, all for 8-12 reps. Vic pulls all the way up and squeezes his lats on the side of the working arm at the top of each rep. He actually prefers the dumbbell row to the bar, for safety reasons.

“I used to round my back way too much on bent rows,

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and I hurt my lower back very badly a few times,” he tells us. “Doing the row one arm at a time helps you keep a better body position.”

Barbell Rows

Kai’s back training has changed and evolved over the years, but there have been certain exercises that were always in there. Barbell rows would be one of those, and he is able to pull 405 for good, quality reps, using the standard overhand grip.

“Most of my life, I have had access only to the most basic equipment, barbells and dumbbells and some cables,” he relates. “But I learned how to make the most out of whatever I had, and I really feel it was a blessing in disguise. There are plenty of nice machines out there, but after having finally tried a lot of them, I realized that I wasn’t missing out on anything. Free weights are still the most valuable tool for any bodybuilder. You can get a great physique by using all free weights and no machines, but I seriously question whether the opposite would be true. Instinct tells me it wouldn’t.”

Victor agrees. “Barbell rows are like deadlifts and chin-ups— a bread-and-butter movement for the back.

Without rowing a lot of heavy free weights, you can’t build the type of back thickness it takes to be a pro body-builder in 2009.”

Seated Cable Rows

If he’s in pre-contest mode, Victor will always include a machine or cable row for 3 sets.

“These are more for detailing. I like to really hold the squeeze and exaggerate it, flexing as hard as I can for a couple seconds for every rep.”

He will use either the seated cable row or one of a couple Hammer Strength rowing machines he is partial to. In either case, he will hit it for 4 sets of 12-15 reps.

Kai likes the freedom cables allow to tailor the movement and target specific areas of the lats. “You can pull to lower or higher points on the front of your torso, and attach any number of different grips. Those are things that are virtu-ally impossible with barbell or dumbbell rows.”

Lat Pulldowns

Kai makes use of this exercise in virtually every back workout. “It’s great for going heavy and still being in control of the contraction,” he says. “You can use various hand widths and positions and stimulate the back in different ways, which is definitely another bonus.”

As for pulldowns being an inferior substi-tute for pull-ups, Kai isn’t quick to agree to that

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commonly-held belief. “As I said, pull-ups are a great exercise, but it’s all about hard work, mind-muscle con-nection, and stimulating the muscle intensely. Who’s to say that there aren’t those out there who are able to accomplish this much better with pulldowns?”

Kai even does pulldowns behind the neck, despite their infamy as being rotator-cuff wreckers. “I have never had a problem, but I realize this is an individual matter,”

he states. “If someone feels that pulling behind the neck aggravates his shoulders, then obviously he shouldn’t do them.”

At the lat pulldown station, most often you will see Victor using a wide grip and pulling to the front. “That really pulls the lats out and makes them wide, over time,” he comments. “But you have to get a good stretch, too. You should feel a tug on your shoulder blades when your arms are raised up all the way.”

Martinez, like Kai, will also pull behind the neck. “I

do them later in the workout and with lighter weight for sets of 15 reps. Behind-neck pulldowns hit all those little ‘detail’ muscles in the upper back, like the rhom-boids and the teres major and minor. These are the muscles that will really pop when you hit your rear double biceps pose.”

Close-grip Cable Pulldowns

Another type of cable pulldown Vic likes to do is the close-grip, pulling to the upper chest. “These will work the lats down real low, and that’s a critical area.”

Knowing that he wasn’t gifted with the extremely low lat insertions of a Dorian Yates or a Franco Columbu (or, of course— a Kai Greene), Martinez made a point years ago to always include some type of vertical pulling move-ment that would target that region, either using the attachment shown here for lat pulldowns, or underhand-grip pulldowns with a short straight bar. ■

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“We both beat the odds and found success after struggling over

the years growing up. I just looked at Kai and I could tell he was

thinking the same thing— we’ve come a long way since we were

those kids at Johnny Lats dreaming about being famous

body-builders someday.” —Victor Martinez

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