One of the biggest challenges for any beginning lifter is how to feel your muscle working during exercise, especially when working the back. If you don’t feel lats in rows, then stay tuned because I have some tips for you.
The ability to feel your muscles working is something that sets apart the beginning and intermediate weight lifter from the advanced one. Which is why it’s so frustrating when you can’t establish that connection. This is often referred to as the mind muscle connection. Establishing this connection with your back muscles, and lats in particular, can be extremely challenging.
Luckily, I have a bunch of tips and tricks I’ve discovered over my thirteen years of lifting that have allowed me to develop a rock-solid mind muscle connection with my lats. In addition, I’ve picked up ideas from other successful lifters. This article will cover in-depth how to engage lats in rows so you can build a big, powerful back.
In addition to recommendations I give in this article, check out popular fitness YouTuber Mike Thurston’s advice for learning how to engage your lats and grow a bigger back:
How Do You Feel Your Lats?
Take a second and try something with me. Place your hands diagonally with one above the other, forming an ‘X’. Now raise your arms straight up in the air and place them against the wall at a 45 degree angle.
Okay, now, holding your arms in place, I want you to bend forward, without moving your knees. Now let your head sink down and towards the wall. Feel that stretch in your upper back? Those are your lats being stretched. If you felt that, congratulations, you have just established the mind muscle connection with your lats!
Why Am I Not Feeling My Back Workout?
“Okay…”, you may be thinking, “but why am I not feeling my back workout then?”. Fair question. Feeling your lats stretch is one thing, but feeling them during heavy resistance training is another. However, if you don’t feel lats in rows and pulldowns, it is important to establish any sort of feeling with them, which is why I had you perform that stretch first.
There are several possible reasons why you aren’t feeling your lats during your workout:
- You are pulling with your biceps
- Your form sucks (sorry, but bad form accounts for so many errors in lifting)
- You are going too heavy or too light
- You are not using the best exercises
9 Unique Tips and Tricks for Feeling Your Lats
Here are 9 tips and tricks for developing the mind muscle connection with lats:
- Change your grip from underhand to overhand to eliminate pulling with the biceps. This removes a lot of the biceps activation from the lift, allowing you to focus on your lats.
- When performing rows, pull to your lower abs and pause for a second before returning to starting position. Rowing to your lower abs is key to feeling your lats activate fully.
- Pull your shoulder blades together while rowing. This is how you make sure you are using your lats and not just your biceps.
- Perform the wall lat stretch I outlined earlier before each lat exercise (hold for 10-15 seconds at a time).
- If you go heavy, try going light. Lighter weights mean you can focus on form more.
- If you go light, try going heavy. Heavy weights can be bad for form, but they also force you to activate more overall musculature to lift the weight.
- Slow down your lifting, pause at the top of the lift, and lower slowly on eccentric (lowering) portion
- Use a thumbless grip to decrease muscle activation of the biceps.
- As a last resort, use straps to eliminate any grip limitations. I don’t recommend relying on this method, but it can help to further isolate the lats.
These are all tips and tricks to fast track the mind muscle connection. But in order to truly establish it, you have to actually try to feel your back muscles working during the exercise itself. Visualize pulling with your lats while rowing or doing pull ups. This will probably require you to slow down your reps and work on form, which is perfectly fine.
Still don’t feel lats in rows? Read on, as I will go into detail on how to engage your lats.
Looking for more tips and tricks for developing a mind muscle connection? Check out this sweet video from YouTube Bodybuilding Influencer Damien Patrick:
How Do You Engage Lats in a Row?
Firstly, we need to establish proper pulling technique with rows. When rowing, you want to pull to your lower abs, not to your upper abs or chest like so many do. Check this GIF below to see what I mean:
On the left, he is pulling to his chest, which activates the rear delts more so than the lats. On the right, he is pulling to his lower abs, where lat activation is at its strongest. If you don’t feel lats in rows, this is definitely one of the keys to feeling them.
Consider what a row actually is. For example, if you are rowing on a rowboat, the motion is circular as opposed to straight up and down. You want to try to emulate this as much as possible to get the best possible muscle activation in your rows and actually feel your lats working.
The way you do this is to pull at an angle and pull to your lower abs, instead of pulling directly straight up and down. Again, think about trying to mimic an actual rowing motion. One fantastic exercise to accomplish this is the pendlay row:
Don’t feel dumbbell rows in your lats either? You might be doing them incorrectly. Here is a great video from Jeff Nippard on how to properly do a dumbbell row so you are performing them with the proper rowing motion:
Cable Rows are another alternative. These are nice because they offer much more stability than barbells and dumbbells because you are seated and stationary. You don’t need to worry about controlling the weight with your back as much.
Another good one to try are incline dumbbell rows . This lat exercise keeps you stationary and allows you to focus on squeezing the lats instead of balancing yourself. It also really seems to take the arms out of the movement for me.
FAQ
Q: Why won’t my lats grow?
A: The keys to strength and growth for your lats are:
-
- Developing the mind muscle connection discussed in this article
- Practicing proper form, as discussed here
- Choosing the best exercises, such as pendlay rows and dead hang pull ups
- Adding weight or reps consistently (aka progressive overload)
Q: Are there any exercises that isolate the lats?
A: Yes! The straight arm pulldown is an excellent way to isolate the lats. With this exercise, you are forced to use your lats. Make sure to use light weight and focus on form, squeezing at the bottom, so you can truly feel your lats working.
Q: How can I build back muscle at home?
A: Some equipment you would ideally have:
-
- Pull up bar
- Barbell or dumbbell
- Cable machine and/or bands
Even just having one of these pieces of equipment will be enough for you to build back muscle at home. Focus on the tips I discussed in this article to hit your lats effectively.
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