The upper back is one area where we see a lot of attempted heroics. With pulldowns and rows, people tend to pile on more weight than they can handle and end up trying to throw their entire body weight into the exercise to move the weight. This sort of behavior won’t train your back muscles and may result in injury.
Follow these tips to avoid injury when training your upper back:
- Don’t rock back and forth or wiggle around. In an effort to pull the weight toward them, many people squirm around to build up momentum, but that’s the last thing you want; instead, rely on your own muscle power. If you find yourself shifting around in order to lift and lower the weight, drop down a few plates.
- Don’t lean too far back. You may be able to lift more weight when you lean way back, but that’s because you have better leverage and you’re using your body weight to cheat, not because your back muscles get a better workout. A more upright posture ensures that your back muscles are in the prime position to do maximum work. Any time you pull something toward you, slide your shoulders down, squeeze your shoulder blades together, and sit up tall. With pulldowns, you can lean back ever so slightly, but for rows you need to be sitting as tall as you do when your flight attendant demands that you return your seat back to its full upright position with your seat belt fastened and tray table locked.
- Don’t pull a bar down behind your neck. There are endless variations of the pulldown exercise, but one now frowned on by many exercise experts is the behind-the-neck pulldown. Critics of this exercise say that your arms twist so far back that your upper arm bones get jammed into your shoulder sockets, which could overstretch your ligaments and strain those delicate rotator cuff muscles. Unless you’re a rock climber, an avid rower, or a swimmer who favors the butterfly stroke, front pulldowns will suffice.
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