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High Intensity Training For The Back Muscles

My Magnificent Obsession

By Kevin Dye

I want to share an obsession that transfixed me when I was a teen. For some it is need to build a large chest or impressive set of arms, but for me it was a wide set of lats. The seed was planted after I saw Bruce Lee in The Way of the Dragon, spreading his awesome set of lats. Seeing Lee go from being average looking to resembling a wall, his back spread to balloon like proportions set something off in my adolescent psyche. So the journey began to build a wide back of my own. Unfortunately my journey wasn't easy sailing, there was much to learn along the way, and many delays on my road to achieving the back of my dreams. Here is that journey.

Thin beginnings

Starting off ultra-skinny, something I suffered all through my childhood, I'd spent way too much time in hospitals undergoing numerous tests. So in my early teens I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands. I was a literal skeleton with long limbs attached to a rib cage. There wasn't a muscle in sight, let alone a set of lats. Possessing a less than favorable base to work with, I set out to widen and thicken my back to Bruce Lee proportions. Any additional muscle I gained elsewhere was a bonus.

Getting closer

As I didn't have the back that I desired, the next best thing was to associate with those that had. My first lat idol was a muscular schoolmate, who had an impressive v-shape stretching his shirt. On the end of year school outing, I made sure to keep close to his side all through the day, in the hope I would find out the "secret" to his bulging back. Imagine my disappointment, and devastation when I found out he didn't even train! What a cruel way to burst my bubble. He was naturally wide by nature!

I encountered my next idol on the bus I used to catch. He deliberately wore a tight T-shirt, to emphasize his upper body; he had the most impressive v-shape I had ever seen. After weeks of plucking up the courage to approach the guy, I introduced myself. I found out he was a body-builder (derr), and we were about the same age, though he looked much older due to his massive build. He was Greek, with little grasp of English, so conversing posed a real problem. Over a period of weeks I began asking him about his training, he was hard to understand so I didn't really achieve much in the way of worthwhile advice. Having someone to idolize in the flesh made my yearning to build a huge back a bigger focus than ever. He had a back well beyond what I had envisioned; now it was a matter of finding out how to build one of my own.

Finding the solution

I started with a bullworker I received for my 15th birthday. The guy illustrating the booklet that came with the bullworker had a monstrous back, so I was content that I finally had the means to build the back that I desired. But 9 months later it dawned on me that while I had toned-up a little throughout my body, my size had barely changed, and my lats didn't look any wider than when I started. I was bewildered, something must be wrong! What about the model in the book? Hadn't the bullworker built his lats? Why hadn't I built similar results? What could I do to get my lats bigger?

I concluded that the answer must lay with free weights. So after bugging my parents the following month, my Father purchased me a set of dumb-bells and 55lbs of weights for Christmas. The bullworker found a home in the corner of my bedroom where it was left to collect dust. It had let me down, despite all the hype that surrounded it, so I wouldn't waste my time with it any longer. I now had in my grasp what all "true bodybuilders" relied upon, a set of weights, and best of all they were my very own!

The pinnacle

At that point my obsession was overwhelming me, I wanted lats more than anything else in the world! My bedroom walls reflected my desires they were covered with numerous pictures of bodybuilders spreading lats beyond human reality. Same with my schoolbooks, I had lat spreads everywhere. They were a constant reminder of what I was struggling to obtain. My favourite pass-time was absorbing the latest muscle magazine in search of new techniques to deliver my dream back. It was then that I got my most bizarre idea yet; if I couldn't build my lats I would MAKE them!

As embarrassing as it seems, the only reason I didn't make a set of paper mache lats was the means of keeping them in place, undetectable under my T-shirt, and the dilemma of stopping them wearing away my triceps when I walked. Had I found solutions to these problems, I wouldn't have hesitated for a moment. I would have made a set straight away, and wore them with pride. As fake as they would have been, I would have finally had the lats I yearned for in my possession. Such is the mind of an over-eager adolescent, striving towards the means to take him from a boy to a man.

Right choices

My choice of back exercises was obviously limited, after all, what variety could I think of with just two dumb-bells? Dumb-bell rows were my sole lat exercise, even though they never felt natural or comfortable to perform. Back in the late 70's my only source of training advice was the numerous muscle magazines that I would gather up like gold as soon as they appeared on the magazine shelves. I bought any and all that would help me in my endeavors. Unfortunately, I never gained anything noticeable for my efforts, as my exercise pool was limited, relying solely upon dumb-bell rows to build my back.

It wasn't long till I purchased a barbell to add to my bedroom gym, allowing me to do barbell rows, which didn't feel much better. Best of all, I now used most of the 52lbs of weights I owned! Using textbook form, I would lift the barbell from mid-shin to my chest, hold it for a second or two, before slowly lowering it again. I couldn't help noticing the lower back stress I felt during each set, it was more pronounced that the lat stimulation! They weren't much better than dumb-bells, but they were a novelty for a while.

Home remedy

The next step was to build my own lat machine, so I got my Father to drive me to an industrial store where I bought the best ball bearing pulleys I could afford. As soon as I got home, I suspended the pulleys from the veranda with wire. Thread a small rope through them and, Walla, instant lat machine! I now had a new and exciting way to train my lats; more favorable than the dumbbells and barbell I relied upon previously. I truly felt that I had finally arrived at the best exercise to achieve the lats of my dreams. Unfortunately, my new lat machine nearly turned me into a paraplegic!

As the magazines promoted rear pulldowns quite heavily, I logically concluded they were the "the ultimate lat builder". All went well for a couple of weeks as I added a little weight to the exercise, enjoying the stress in my lats and not my lower back. Unfortunately, the rope broke during a set, sending the sharp screw end into the base of my neck. Luckily it didn't stick in too deep, as if it had my hope of building anything might have been well and truly over. My girlfriend wasn't amused either, as she had been spotting for me, and the weights had just missed her foot when it crashed to the floor. That little incident put me off continuing with pulldowns, I had escaped a potentially dangerous accident, so I left well enough lone and moved onwards in my search for something better.

T-bar cravings

Looking through my Weider's magazines I saw an apparatus that really impressed me. Seeing "back monster" Franco Columbo in the ad for the t-bar row machine made me immediately yearn to purchase one. I fell for the ad, as If it helped Columbo get his wings then it was a must have. After speaking with a guy in a small fitness equipment shop, I came away happy that I had at least a close alternative to the expensive t-bar gem I craved so much. The guy suggested that if I stuck a barbell into the corner of my gym I could duplicate the same movement. But when I tried it I quickly found the lower back strain was worse than bb rows! Another promising hope had been dashed.

A new apparatus

After careful consideration I decided that chin-ups were my next option. So my Father put up a chinning bar for me on the veranda, just outside my bedroom window. I was fairly weak in the upper body, to be expected having 10" arms, but I knew as I built up my arm strength that my lats would expand also so I struggled on. Without a solid game plan on how best to use the chin bar, I simply did a set or two whenever the mood hit me. Wanting a wide back as bad as I did, the mood hit me quite often, even when I was out and there were monkey bars in a playground. I now had the answer to acquire my wide set of lats, as simple and uncomplicated as it seemed.

Mentzer's influence

It was around this time that Mike Mentzer burst onto the bodybuilding scene with his revolutionary Heavy Duty training system. Mike had built the kind of thick and chunky body I adored, being the exact opposite of mine. Amazingly enough he had built his awe-inspiring body with brief, intense workouts! Comparing old pictures he completely revamped his once weak back after just a year of this radical torture! It was evident his Heavy Duty system worked. So after buying his courses each week over the following month I took to Heavy Duty with a vengeance in the hopes of expanding my still scrawny back to new levels.

Imagine my delight when Mike came to Adelaide, Australia late in '79. I made sure I was there at the airport to greet him, grab a couple of signatures and photographs. Nothing describes the feeling a teen gets when meeting his idol in the flesh for the first time. I was so excited at the prospect of seeing Mike that I actually lost my voice the day he arrived. This left me unable to ask him any of the multitude of questions I had about his Heavy Duty system. Still, what a sight to behold! His so-called "weak chest" bulged out the top of his shirt, making me wonder if that was his "weak body-part", what about did the rest of him look like!

That evening I just stared in complete and utter disbelief as Mike stood there in a brown velvet cut-off sweatshirt selling his courses. His triceps literally hung over his elbows! I'd never seen arms that resembled legs! I just stared and stared, unable to grasp the reality of what I was seeing. When Mike guest posed later that night, I saw one of the most incredibly thick muscular bodies I have ever had the privilege to see in my life. Mike was thick all over; with no visible weak points anywhere. His lats were so thick and wide that I had trouble taking it all in. Heavy Duty became my God that night. No other training system existed. The following day I took to my Heavy-Duty workouts with renewed enthusiasm. I'd met and seen it's creator and now I wanted to reap similar benefits from this scientifically sound system. No longer did I "want" my goal, I NEEDED it!

Physiologically correct

Though I never used a wide grip on any of my lat exercises, I did use a regular overhand grip. Mike's rational behind using a narrow, underhand grip convinced me that I could improve the lat involvement of my chins. Mike said the lats were like rubber bands, originating on the lower back and attaching just under the rear delts. So moving the arms away from an overhead position actually removed tension from the lats. Reversing my chin-up grip made chinning a much more efficient. I felt stronger and my lats were stressed more directly, which was precisely was what I had been searching for.

I was instantly sold on close-undergrip chin-ups as the ultimate back builder. They did things to my lats I had only dreamt of. I could feel my lats under constant stress throughout the set, and by placing my hands in a more favorable position I was now capable of squeezing out reps with additional weight around my hips! I started seeing something noticeable for my efforts. My shirts felt a little tighter, and with some flexing and imagination, the bathroom mirror convinced me that I resembled Bruce Lee.

Upping the ante

But by now the ante had changed, having seen Mentzer's awesome back I was no longer satisfied with "just" building Lee's type lats, I wanted more, MUCH MORE! My goals had expanded. They were so far back that they were as close as the moon was to the earth! I didn't just want "lats" any more; I wanted a back so thick and wide that it could inhabit a small colony! Heavy Duty had done it for Mike, so I couldn't fathom it doing anything less for me. I had the system and means at my disposal to produce untold of wonders. A gargantuan back had now become my new goal!

Unfortunately Mike disappeared from the bodybuilding scene a couple of years later, so I was left without an idol. I still kept up my 4 times a week Heavy Duty torture, but now that Mike wasn't around it didn't have the same feel any more. So I sought out the next best source, his teacher Arthur Jones which led me to Ellington Darden, who had his version(s) of high intensity workouts. All through the 80's I bought every one of Darden's books. I'd eagerly await their arrival from the States for months at a time. Progressing to negative chins, I handled some impressive poundage's hanging from my hips. But eventually my progress level came to an end, which was a little relief, as deep down I held fears about the injury potential. But my lats improved! My body was wider and thicker all over! I was finally getting somewhere.

A heroes return

I felt confused with the constant swapping of high intensity routines through the 80's, so I felt a deep seated relief when Mike came back on the scene in the early 90's. I called him during the writing of his new Heavy-Duty book; eager to hear how he had improved upon an already sound system. When his book arrived a month later I again took to Heavy Duty like I had the first time around. By then my back was wide and thick, still a far cry from Mentzer lats (or any other bodybuilding star I might add) but I no longer resembled the undernourished scarecrow I had through my teens. His new system had even fewer sets than his initial one, allowing more effort to be delivered each workout. It had been getting harder and harder to use the same amount of effort on 8-10 set routines, so it was a comfort to drop a few sets and divide my body over 3 days a week.

Yates influence

Like Mentzer before him, when Dorian Yate's arrived, he took bodybuilding and big backs to whole new level. His aircraft carrier back was bigger and wider than anyone else I'd seen. What appealed me most to Yates was he always spoke about how his struggle to build his body to super star proportions. He also used Heavy Duty, putting his own twist on bb rows, making it his signature exercise. This subtle adjustment sounded more user friendly than normal bb rows, their appeal re-enforced once again.

I took to Yate's style bb rows immediately, impressed with the unique lat stimulation. The reduced lower back strain was improved from when I tried them a decade earlier. Yate's style bb rows pumped my lats to new proportions, complimenting my chin-ups that had bought my back to its present level. I now had two effective back exercises, no longer having to rely upon chin-ups alone. My search was over, my back exercise pool complete. They delivered all I had ever hoped for, and they still do.

Wrap up

Now quarter of a century wiser since I started training with a bullworker in my bedroom back in '77, I still rely upon the same two exercises; chin-ups and bb rows for my back. With chin-ups my all time favorite. I only do a set or two at the most for each movement, which is enough to get the job done. I remain disheartened how pulldowns have become the king of upper body movements. I'm appalled when I hear that most of the big guys can't even chin their own bodyweight! We now have backs that are on a whole new planet to what was around previously, yet they can't even perform a chin-up!

So that concludes my story about how an underweight skeleton built up his back to become his best body-part. With a passion and a goal, I knew I would eventually achieve my goals. But even now, my search for an even bigger, thicker back hasn't died, it is still as desirable and appealing as ever before. At 220lbs, my small frame holds about as much muscle mass as it ever will. But like all hardcore bodybuilders I am still striving for additional muscle mass, which will be the way it is till they lower me into the ground. I'm not sure if my back can get much wider? So maybe those paper mache lats may become a reality after all!

Note: For more information please read the book "Heavy Duty Memioir" by Kevin Dye.

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Disclaimer: This information is not presented by a medical practitioner and is for educational and informational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read.

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