Back and Front

Do you have a favorite muscle group to work? If you workout much, you probably do. If you don't workout much, then the easy muscles to work may be your favorite to work. Those are usually the abs, biceps, chest and triceps. Those muscle groups are super easy to work. Pretty much anyone knows how to work those... and guess what: those are some of the most commonly over developed muscles. Over developed muscles strong, but give you bad posture and can strain the opposite muscle group.

I'm kind of a lucky guy. My favorite muscle to workout is the back. The back can always be worked. I doubt someone could over develop it. It's muscles are naturally large and helps with posture. With all the computers, iPods, writing, video games, movies, and cell phones people tend to get an under developed back, and over developed chest and abs from all the leaning forward... also, the 'big rave' in weight lifting is the bench press, which develops the chest and triceps even more. If all you do is pushups and bench press, you're bound to destroy your rotator cuff eventually.

Moral of the story? Do more back workouts and less chest and ab workouts until your posture is great.

Back workouts probably help you more in life activities. Granted, you can punch harder and push more weight with the bench press (legs are better for pushing anyway), but back workouts improve posture, help you lift things, help you keep good posture when lifting heavy objects, help you climb, and if you are ever hanging from the edge of a cliff, a strong back will help you a ton more than a strong chest.

When you workout your back, it tends to help build just about everything. If you're doing lower back, your legs (and a little bit of abs) are working to help you: thus legs are worked. When ever you pull something towards you (a back exercise), you use your grip, thus it strengthens your grip. When ever you pull, you also use the biceps, thus biceps are built. Everyone likes to build biceps!

So, what's stopping you from working out the back? You don't know any back exercises? Well, look back through my blog about rows, pull ups, and dead lifts. Those are all back exercises! Don't try the dead lifts unless you have someone there to help you learn them so you won't blow out a disc.