All the nitty gritty details about my back workouts.

In my weekly workouts, I used to list all the exercises I do when I lift. But then I stopped because I didn't think anyone really cared! Plus, I am a creature of habit, and good or bad, I normally do the same thing each time, so I figured it was useless to keep posting it. However, since I haven't elaborated on my lifting for awhile and a reader requested that I explain more exactly what I do, I figured it was a good time to write a post about what exact exercises I do when I lift and what equipment I use.

Today, I will give you the nitty gritty details about my back workouts!

When I lift back, I do the upper body lifts, core exercises, and lower body strengthening exercises. Here's the break down of each of those types of exercises!

Upper Body:

Equipment- pull up bar, free weights, chair or resistant band, towel, piano bench, gloves (Even though I use gloves, I have a lot of callouses on my hands and they sometimes hurt when I lift!)

It should be noted that before I jump into my heavy lifts, I warm up with lighter weights. I warm up my rotator cuff, do wide grip pull ups with chair assistance, bicep curls, and shoulder press.

Wide Grip Pull Ups/Neutral Grip Pull Ups

Sometimes I do a set with no assistance, but otherwise I use a resistant band for both of these lifts. I do 5 sets of 6-7 reps. I am exhausted after doing just a set of these. My whole body is engaged and I feel like I have to puke!

Dumbbell Row

We have an actual weight lifting bench in the basement but it's rather large. I'd rather just use my extra piano bench for these! Rows can also be done in a lunge position but I like to put my knee on a bench for more stability.

Bicep Curls

Bicep curls are done last because they are an isolation exercise. I like to do the lifts that involve several muscles first before isolating smaller muscles. Some would say since I use my biceps in some of my other lifts there is no reason to even isolate them, but I do them anyway to add a fourth lift to my back workouts.

That's right, I only do four lifts when I do back. These are four quality exercises I can do at home. I personally would rather do several sets (5!) of quality exercises than the standard 3 sets of a bunch of different exercises that may not be as effective.

When I go to Planet Fitness, it takes me a lot longer to lift back because I also do lat pull down, cable row instead of dumbbell row, and inverted row with the TRX cables.

Lower Body:

**Note: I don't properly lift lower body anymore (aka squats, lunges, etc.) due to it aggravating my ITB. The following exercises are things I can do for my hips/glutes that don't bother my ITB. I miss properly lifting lower body A LOT.**

Equipment- towel

Donkey Kicks

Hydrants

Kickbacks

Core:

Equipment- towel, stability ball

Bicycle Crunches

Stability Ball Knee Tuck

Forearm Plank

Stability Ball Sit Ups

Okay, so now you are probably wondering how I put this all together. I do the workout in circuits. Most of the time it goes like this:

Wide Grip Pull Ups- 5x6

Bicycle Crunches- 5x40

Donkey Kicks- 5x20

Neutral Grip Pull Ups- 5x6

Hydrants- 5x20

Dumbbell Row- 5x10x25lb

Stability Ball Sit Ups- 5x15x15lb

Bicep Curls- 5x10x15lb

Stability Ball Knee Tuck- 5x15

Push Backs- 5x20

Forearm Planks- 5x1 minute

If I'm lucky, Jelly sleeps on the couch the whole time I workout!

What are your favorite back exercises to do?