Written by Travis Halena | ACSM CPT
Fact checked by Kirsten Yovino, CPT Brookbush Institute
FACT CHECKED
Working out at home is convenient. You don't have to go anywhere, meaning not only are you able to get your workout in as soon as the opportunity arrives but you also get to avoid forcing small talk with the bros hanging out by the dumbbells. The only downside is that some muscle groups are more challenging to do at home.
For example, everybody knows that when it's time to hit the chest, shoulders, and tris, they can do push-ups until the cows come home. However, when you don't have machines, barbells, and a pull up bar at your disposal, you may need some help planning a muscle-building back workout.
But, don't worry! We have, quite literally, got your back. Back workouts at home are more than possible, and we're about to show you how. Whether you plan to use your body weight or have a minor amount of equipment, like dumbbells, we've got you covered.
Table of Contents:
- Best At Home Back Workout (With & Without Equipment)
- Special Considerations For Home Back Workouts
- Anatomy & Function Of Back Muscles
- Best Bodyweight Exercises For Your Home Back Workouts
- Best Dumbbell Back Exercises For At Home Back Workouts
- Progression Tips For At Home Dumbbell Back & Bodyweight Exercises
The Best Home Back Workout
Let's kick things off with exactly what you came here for - the best back workouts at home! Afterward, we'll discuss everything else you need to know to properly work your back, including muscle anatomy, how-to's for each of the exercises, and some great programming tips.
Whether you prefer bodyweight back exercises at home or have dumbbells you'd like to put to good use, we have a workout for you.
Prepare to feel the back burn!
At Home No Equipment Back Workout:
This isn’t your typical bodybuilding back day. This calisthenics workout includes bodyweight back exercises to do at home, focusing on mobility and strengthening movements that support posture and core strength to protect your back.
|
Exercise |
Sets |
Reps |
|
Bird Dogs |
3 |
10/side |
|
RKC Plank |
4 |
20-30 seconds |
|
Prone IYT |
2 |
20 reps/letter |
|
Wall Squats |
2 |
10 |
|
Ab Walkouts |
3 |
8 |
At Home Dumbbell Back Workout:
This full back workout at home requires the use of two techniques to determine how many you need to perform. First, try following the suggested sets and reps, particularly if you have a range of dumbbell weights. Then as it becomes easier to complete the sets and reps using your current weight, you can start using heavier dumbbells.
If you have lighter weights only, try the reps with your weights and slow down the tempo when the moves become too easy. Once slowing it down becomes easier, you will work on the RPE (rate of perceived exertion) scale.
On a scale of 1-10, aim for an 8, which means you will perform controlled reps to 80% of failure. This means you're close to failure but still have a few reps in the tank.
|
Exercise |
Sets |
Reps |
RPE |
|
Romanian Deadlifts |
4 |
8 |
8 |
|
Single Arm DB Row |
3 |
12 |
8 |
|
Chest Supported Row |
3 |
10 |
8 |
|
Renegade Row |
3 |
8/side |
8 |
|
DB Pullovers |
3 |
12 |
8 |
Special Considerations For At-Home Back Workouts
We know most of you probably aren’t equipped with a Globo Gym arsenal of weights in your at-home training space. That’s ok!
If you don’t have heavier weights, keep slowing down your tempo to increase the burn and time under tension during your complete back workout. Slow, intentional reps always builds more muscle than fast, sloppy ones. If it’s still too easy, add extra sets to increase volume or create supersets with push-up variations or other bodyweight exercises of your choice to make it a HIIT-style workout.
If your dumbbells are light, you will likely easily complete specific exercises. Again, when this happens, try slowing the tempo down, and if it’s still too easy, you can alternate sets, starting with slow and controlled reps and then including another set in which you lift at an average pace but take the exercise close to failure. Remember that training to failure is hard on your body, so leave a few reps in the tank the majority of the time.
You can include a back muscle workout at home in any workout split you'd like. Aim to hit big muscle groups, like the back, twice a week with rest in between workouts. The best plan is the one you will stick to and be consistent with.
Anatomy & Function of the Back Muscles
Now that we've gone over the best back workouts at home, it's important to understand the muscles that make up the back. Your back consists of the erector spinae, lats, traps, teres major, rhomboids, and multifidus.
Here's a closer look at each back muscle function and the best exercises to target each.
- Erector Spinae: The erector spinae muscles include the spinalis, longissimus, and iliocostalis. The erector spinae runs the entire length of your back up to your neck, forming powerful columns on both sides of your spine. They help move the head through lateral flexion and assist with extending the spine. Their most important function is keeping your spine neutral while under loads. The erector spinae is also hard at work throughout the day as the muscles function against gravity to support your spine.
- Latissimus Dorsi: Your lats cover the majority of your back and play a significant role in creating the coveted V-taper physique. They originate from multiple spots but all insert into the humerus. The lats are responsible for shoulder extension and adduction, horizontal abduction and adduction, and shoulder internal rotation. Pulldowns, pull-ups, and bent over rows are common exercises used to target the lats.
- Trapezius: This muscle, separated into the upper, middle, and lower traps, is triangle shaped, starting at the back of the skull and neck, extending across the shoulders, and down the middle of your back, connecting to the shoulder blade and collarbone. The traps assist with scapula adduction, elevation, depression, and outward rotation. Common exercises to hit the traps are deadlifts, shrugs, overhead plate raises, and barbell rows.
- Teres Major: This muscle often gets included with the shoulder as part of the rotator cuff muscles. However, it is a small back muscle, originating at the back of the scapula and inserting into the front of the humerus. It helps support the rotator cuff during movement. Isolation exercises like the face pull and T-bar rows are excellent training choices. Think of throwing, tennis serves, swimming, and rowing as exercises that require teres major activation.
- Rhomboids: Lying under the trapezius muscles, the rhomboids originate at the neck, specifically from various spinous processes of the upper and middle vertebrae, and attach at the medial border of the shoulder blade. The rhomboids help stabilize the shoulder and are responsible for retracting, elevating, and rotating the shoulder blades. These are essential posture muscles, and although they work during bigger compound movements, traps and rounded shoulders can make it tough to fully activate them. Postural movements like prone IYTs and wall slides do a great job of targeting your rhomboids.
- Multifidus: This small muscle is close to the spine and acts as a stabilizer muscle. It works with the ligaments and tendons around the spine to help stabilize the vertebrae. It's not something you'll usually hear someone targeting specifically, but ensuring the multifidus is activated serves a crucial role, especially for a back muscle workout at home.
5 Best Bodyweight Exercises for At Home Back Workouts
Effectively working all of your back muscles during a home based back workout can be trickier than some of the other muscle groups, like the chest for example. However, trickier is certainly not impossible, and we have 5 great bodyweight exercises to ensure you're able to get in the best at home back workouts.
1. Bird dogs:
The bird dog is fantastic for strengthening the erector spinae and multifidus, helping to improve spinal stability. Building strength in these areas will directly carry over to major strengthening exercises, like the deadlift.
How to do Bird Dogs:
- Start on all fours with your hands under your shoulders and knees directly under your hips. Keep your back flat.
- Put extra tension into your left hand, right knee, and toes to help balance before lifting your opposite limbs.
- Extend your right arm forward while keeping it completely straight, and at the same time, extend your left leg back. Raise your opposite limbs until they are in line with your body while keeping your back flat and hips level.
- After pausing for a second to feel the contraction, slowly lower down to the starting position and repeat.
2. RKC Plank:
No at home back workouts without weights are complete without this plank variation, which builds strength in the upper back muscles, in addition to the deep stabilizing muscles of the spine.
How to do the RKC Plank:
- Starting in a standard forearm plank with elbows under your shoulders and back flat, clench your hands together in front of you and think of squeezing your shoulders in and down like a reverse shrug.
- Tighten your quads to bring your knees up, then squeeze your glutes. Your butt should be up in a slight posterior pelvic tilt, and there should be no curve in your back.
- Squeeze and hold maximum tension for the indicated time, rest and repeat.
3. Prone IYT:
Prone IYT activates the middle back muscles (traps and rhomboids). Slouched shoulders are extremely common these days, so it’s extra important to give those muscles some much-needed attention.
Giving your posture muscles some love will ensure you are able to sit and stand up straight.
How to do a Prone IYT:
- Lying face down, put your arms straight out in front of you in line with your shoulders with legs extended behind you. Point your thumbs toward the ceiling. Keep your legs straight and down the entire time and your head in a neutral position facing the floor.
- To form the I, lift your arms 2-3 inches off the ground, keeping them up for the entire exercise. Pull your arms back by pinching your shoulder blades together until your hands are close to your ears.
- Slowly extend your arms back to the starting position in a straight line, and repeat without touching the floor.
- The exercise is the same for the Y and T, but your arms will be making a slightly wider Y and then a T straight out to your sides.
4. Overhead Wall squats:
Even though it has squat in the name, the overhead wall squat will not blast the legs. This exercise will improve your thoracic spine (upper back) mobility and strengthen your erector spinae as it supports the overhead position.
All good back workouts at home need the overhead wall squat!
How to do the Overhead Wall Squat:
- Face an empty wall and raise your arms, placing your palms on the wall. Start with your feet shoulder width apart. Point your toes toward the wall and make sure you are close. You can adjust the distance if you need to move back a few inches.
- Lower your hips down into a squat while keeping your hands on the wall and arms straight as they slide down the wall. Make sure to keep your spine flat and only go as low as you can without arching your back.
- Once you get to the bottom, make sure not to relax any of your muscles. Keep the tension and start your ascent slowly back to the starting position.
Overhead Wall Squat Demo on YouTube
5. Ab walkouts:
This is essentially an ab wheel without the ab wheel. This exercise will build tremendous anti-extension core strength, which helps protect your spine. It also strengthens the lats one side at a time as they stabilize during the movement.
How to do Ab Walkouts on Hands:
- Start on all fours with your knees under your hips and your hands shoulder width apart.
- Squeeze your glutes and brace your core as if someone is about to kick you in the gut. To start, lift your left arm hand and take a small step forward. After you plant your left hand, lift your right hand to move and catch up to it.
- Keep walking your hands out until you’ve gone as far as you can go without letting your low back sag, and then slowly walk back one step at a time to the starting position.
Progression Tips for At-Home Bodyweight Exercises
Keep in mind that when performing the best back workouts at home, progressive overload doesn’t just mean adding more weight. These body weight exercises focus on slow controlled tempo and time under tension.
If you aren't able to complete all the reps in a row, then try again until you do. Once you're able to, go through them again, even slower, by timing your tempo during the movement.
Remember, when you're working out at home, RPE is your best friend. If you're using bodyweight exercises, making progress isn't as simple as moving up in weight. Use RPE to guide you, and it'll help ensure you're putting in more work each time you perform at home workouts.
5 Best Dumbbell Exercises For At Home Back Workouts
Having a set or two of dumbbells at home opens up a whole new set of exercise possibilities, ensuring you can put together a great at home back workout with dumbbells.
Here are the 5 best exercises you can use for your dumbbell back workouts at home.
1. Romanian deadlift:
The Romanian Deadlift is a hinge exercise targeting the glutes, hamstrings, erector spinae, and upper back muscles. It is a terrific compound movement that works the entire posterior chain.
This is perfect if you have heavy dumbbells, but even if you only have lighter ones, go slow and control the movement for higher reps for huge muscle hypertrophy gains during your in home back workouts.
How to do the Romanian Deadlift:
- Begin in a standing position. Holding your dumbbells, stand with feet hip-width apart, and keep your knees slightly bent (not locked out). The dumbbells should be in front of your hips, with palms facing your thighs.
- Keep your back flat and imagine squeezing a pencil between your spine to keep your shoulders back. Start hinging forward by sending your hips back as your chest heads toward your thighs.
- Slide the dumbbells down your shins without touching them until they are just past your knees.
- Keeping your back flat, squeeze your glutes to drive your hips forward as your upper back comes back to the starting position.
2. Single-arm dumbbell row:
One arm dumbbell rows will hit the lats, rhomboids, and trapezius muscles. And working one side at a time during your back workout from home will help even out muscle imbalances on each side, resulting in stronger lifts and spinal alignment.
No bench for this move? No problem! Just use a chair or your knee instead. And if you're looking for some variety, you can also perform the standard bent-over dumbbell row, working both sides at the same time.
If you're wondering how to program this exercise, check out our back day workout routine to see where we placed it and the sets and reps we recommend for it.
How to do the Single-Arm Dumbbell Row:
- Split your feet around a bench (or chair) so you have one foot on each side of the floor. Place your left hand under your shoulder, flat on the bench, and grab the dumbbell with your right hand.
- Keeping your back flat and shoulders level, squeeze your shoulder blades together and drive your elbow back as you pull the weight. Pull until your arm is at a 90-degree angle, lower slowly, and repeat.
3. Chest-supported row:
If you don't have a bench at home, you can also do bent-over rows using a chair instead. Bend your knees some, hinge forward so your chest meets the bench or chair, grab the dumbbells at your sides, and row.
The benefit of a chest-supported row is that it takes the low back out of it, which tends to fail first in a bent-over row.
These rows will lead to some awesome gains in your traps and rhomboids, and are an essential lat exercise with dumbbells, making this move one of the best back exercises for home!
How to do the Chest-Supported Row:
- Set a bench to a 45-degree angle, stand behind it, bending your knees slightly, and hinging forward to lean your chest into it. Lean forward on the bench with your face off the pad. If you're using a chair, mimic the same movements, ensuring the chair is weighted down so it doesn't topple over.
- Grab dumbbells, holding them at your sides, and while keeping your body connected to the bench or chair, drive your elbows back as you pull until your arms are at a 90-degree angle. Squeeze the shoulder blades together as you finish the pull.
- Slowly lower the weight under control as if you resist the weight as it falls back down. Repeat.
4. Renegade Row:
This advanced row variation is essentially a single arm row in plank position. For the renegade row, you can always start with a kneeling setup if the plank position is too challenging for you.
The renegade row will also light up your core, arms, and shoulders, while targeting your lats, making it a great at home back exercise and a full body workout.
How to do the Renegade Row:
- Grab a pair of dumbbells.
- Start in a plank position with your hands under your shoulders, gripping the dumbbells, so your body forms a straight line. Begin with your elbows slightly bent to ensure your elbows aren't locked.
- Squeeze your butt tight to keep your back flat, and pull one arm back toward your hip until your arm is at a 90-degree angle. Slowly lower the weight and repeat with your other arm. Focus on not allowing your hips to rotate.
5. Pullovers:
This is another great move for targeting the lats and hitting the pecs. Its hidden benefits are that it improves shoulder mobility and increases core stability as the dumbbell goes overhead.
If you don’t have a bench, you can do these the same way lying flat on the floor.
How to do Pullovers:
- Lay down on a bench or on the floor with your feet flat on the floor, holding one dumbbell with both hands and grabbing the flat part of the dumbbell.
- Extend your arms straight up above your chest. Continue holding the flat part of the dumbbell so the rest of the weight hangs below it.
- Keep a slight bend in your elbows and slowly raise your weight, extending it back and over your head, while keeping a braced back and core. Slowly lower until the weight is behind you but not lower than your head.
- Exhale and slowly bring your arms back to the starting position, focusing on feeling your lat wings spread out and contract. Repeat.
Progression Tips for At-Home Dumbbell Back Exercises
The same rules of progressive overload apply to weighted at home back exercises. If you have a medium weight dumbbell or even heavier weights, progress to those after you successfully complete the number of reps listed for the exercise. If you have no heavier weights and are hitting the reps quickly, slow everything down and control your tempo.
A set of 10 will feel much harder when you do those ten reps with a 3-second tempo in each direction. Still too easy? Add pauses between reps or pauses during the contraction. We guarantee you will still build muscle using these techniques!
And when you're ready to add some heavier weights to your home gym, check out these 11 Best Dumbbells!
Continue Progressing Home Back Workouts
We already mentioned tempo and RPE as options for progressing your home workouts. Another option is timing your rest periods to keep them short. If you start with 2-3 minute breaks, try to cut them down to a minute and, eventually, even 30 seconds to get your heart rate up.
You can even superset your entire back day with push-ups or bodyweight core exercises to keep yourself constantly moving and getting more done. Another option is completing your workout in rounds, doing 1 set of everything, and seeing how many times you can get through the entire workout in a specific time period.
No matter which method you choose, one thing is for sure: You can get a fantastic at-home back workout regardless of whether you have equipment. That means no excuses when it comes to training your back muscles!
Remember, there are always ways to make something more challenging. Push yourself!
Looking for another great program to do at home? Check out this At Home Glutes Workout, which you can do with and without weights!
Prepare to maximize your gains with our exclusive 12-week hypertrophy training program. Choose between a 4 or 5 day training split and gain 2-12 pounds of muscle over 90 days...
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Travis Halena
Author