How To Strengthen Your Upper Back

Video Transcript

"We can also train the upper back with a few cable ropes. Sharon is going to give us a hand here. Now, if you don't have anyone to assist you, just wrap the cable around the back of a door or a table or a chair, make sure it's secured of course. Start off with my hands flat and extended from my body parallel to the ground. You also notice I'm in a quarter squat, kind of like I'm water skiing. Now, I'm going to pull these guys back and let my hands go to my armpits and squeeze my shoulder blades together. Stick my chest out, give a nice good pull, nice good squeeze. I'm going to exhale as I pull and inhale as I release. Try not to bend the wrists too much because that takes away from the rear muscles being used in the back. If I wanted to kick it up a notch, for the advanced guys we can use some of the appropriate step up techniques. You can also make it a cardio workout by pulling and squatting at the same time. We're still incorporating technique of bending our hips and knees and keeping our back straight. Now let's do one for the chest, this is called the fly. I'm going to start off as if I'm getting ready to give somebody a big hug. Preferably a big tree. Hence, the tree hug movement, squeeze my chest, keep my elbows slightly bent and let my knuckles come together at the very end of the movement. That's the fly. We can also do a lateral press, let my hands go out in front of me, pull the elbows back, keep them nice and parallel to the ground. For the advanced guys we can do a lunge and a press, but the exercise is still effective just by doing the movements."