What do climbing, rowing, and lifting heavy objects have in common? They all require pulling power and draw that strength from your lats. Whether you’re after better posture, improved compound lift performance, athletic power, or functional strength during everyday activities like carrying groceries or moving furniture, strong lats will get you there.
Training your lats should be an essential component of your weekly workout. With every rep, you’ll protect your upper body health, prevent injuries, and get stronger. Here’s an overview of the latissimus dorsi muscles, why strengthening this muscle group matters, and what exercises to start doing to get a stronger back.
Understanding the Latissimus Dorsi
The latissimus dorsi is the largest back muscle in the body. It starts at the lower spine, connecting to the lower six vertebrae, pelvis, and lower ribs, and spans to the upper arm bone near the shoulder. It’s what you feel on your side body beneath your armpit and shoulder blade. For women, it’s often referred to as the bra band muscle.
Your lats help pull things toward the body using your arms, but they also allow you to extend your shoulders and rotate your arms inward. They play a key role in posture support by maintaining a straight, upright spine and keeping the shoulder blades in position.
But that’s not all. Because they link to the core (specifically, the thoracolumbar fascia), they aid in trunk stability, keeping balance, and bracing the core. The long span of these muscles bridges your upper and lower body’s ability to produce force, helping with compound movements like push presses or pull-ups.
Even though they primarily aid in pull movements, they help stabilize the shoulder during overhead movements, helping keep you safe and avoiding injury when lifting weights upward.
If you carry or lift heavy objects, climb, or row a canoe in your daily life, you’re using your lats. In a more athletic sense, they’re also activated when throwing, swimming, or performing other explosive movements.
Why Having Strong Lats Is Important
Strong lats are more than just for vanity. They’re a functional asset that will benefit you both in and out of the gym, support your posture as you age, build a stronger core, and give you a fit-looking physique.
Increasing Functional Back Strength
Functional back strength is about real movements you perform in your daily routine, such as climbing the stairs while carrying groceries or carrying or lifting your child. Strong lats give you that daily pulling power while reducing the potential for fatigue by improving endurance when these types of movements get repetitive.
Regular training helps you handle unexpected loads or movements, making you less prone to injury, so you can continue your daily activities and workouts.
Supports Compound Lifts
Of course, with lat training comes stronger back muscles. But they also support other lifts beyond the back, like lower-body and chest exercises.
For example, consider a deadlift. It works the legs, but to maintain proper form, you must keep the weight close to the body and maintain alignment in your spine.
Strong lats allow you to hold the weight close to your legs as you hinge forward, putting more load into your hamstrings and glutes and getting more out of each rep.
Another good example of a compound exercise is the bench press. It’s a chest-focused move, but a strong back creates a stable platform for lifting heavier weights and progressively overloading your muscles.
Improved Posture
You’ll see benefits to training your lats outside of the gym, and posture is a big one. Lats stabilize shoulder blades and improve posture. Your lats are partially responsible for pulling your shoulder blades back and down, avoiding a hunched position that can occur from looking down at our phones too much, known as tech neck.
Working on your back, particularly your lats, at the gym will keep your spine in proper alignment, counteract a forward head posture, and open the chest to reduce rounding of the upper back.
Not only does this look better, but it feels better, too. You’ll notice less tightness in your shoulders and upper back.
Better V-Shaped Physique
Many people are after an hourglass physique. Unfortunately, there are no exercises that will make your waist smaller. However, lat width creates the illusion of a smaller waist. If a classic athletic V-shape is your goal, you can’t underprioritize your lats.
Core Stability
Finally, the lats connect the upper and lower body, enhancing core stability. You'll improve your power delivery in lifting and rotational movements by activating these deep core muscles.
6 Best Exercises for Developing Your Lats
It’s time to get to work. Program a mix of these lat movements into your upcoming workouts and experience the back strength improvements for yourself.
Wide Grip Pulldowns
Find a cable machine at the gym or get set up with your Speediance Gym Monster 2 at home.
Set the cable to the highest position with the bar attachment, then sit down facing the cable, with your knees secured under padding.
Grip the bar wider than your shoulders, draw your shoulder blades back and down, and drive the elbows down to bring the bar to your upper chest.
Control the weight back up using a slow movement. To ensure proper lat engagement, lean back slightly 15-20 degrees. Adjust your grip to try different lat pulldown variations.
Single Arm Rows
Rows are another powerhouse move for your lats. You can grab a dumbbell or set up your Speediance Gym Monster 2 cables at the lowest setting.
Place one knee on the bench and place the hand of the same side on the bench a few inches in front. Hold the dumbbell or cable with the other hand.
Keep your spine neutral and head facing diagonally forward.
Drive your elbow back past your torso, aiming to bring your hand up near where your jean pocket would be. At the top, squeeze the shoulder blade toward the spine. If you want to level up, hold here for 2-3 seconds before lowering.
Extend the arm down to fully lengthen the lat at the bottom.
Wide-Grip Pull-Ups
Similar to the pull-down movement, a pull-up requires you to lift your body weight up rather than pulling external weight down. It’s an easy at-home lat workout that can be mixed into your gym circuits.
Make your way to a pull-up bar and grip the bar overhand, ensuring you’re wider than shoulder width. Extend your arms fully at the starting position. This should feel similar to the starting position of the pulldown.
Brace your core, exhale, and drive the elbows down and back, pulling your chest upward toward the bar.
Begin your descent slowly and with control until you’re back at a full arm extension.
Modification: If you can’t do a pull-up independently, use an assisted pull-up machine or incorporate resistance bands to help the movement.
Cable Rows
Back at the cable machine, we can move into a seated row.
Set the cable in the middle position and sit on the bench facing the cable. Grip the handle with both hands and arms extended, placing your feet on the platform in front of you.
Engage your core to avoid leaning forward or back, and drive your elbows backward with an exhale as you squeeze the shoulder blades toward each other.
Slowly return to the starting position while maintaining tension in the lats.
Landmine Rows
If you have access to a landmine, you can use it to switch up the angle of your row for a unique challenge.
Straddle the barbell about ¼ of the way in on the weighted side. Hinge at your hips, lowering your arms to reach the end of the bar. You can use a single arm or both arms to perform this movement. Unilateral work will help address any weaknesses on each side.
Drive the elbow back like a normal row, bringing the bar and weight toward the lower part of your chest or upper part of your abdomen, near the base of your sternum. Lower with control back down and repeat.
Straight-Arm Pulldowns
Another pull-down variation, this should be performed with a cable machine like the Speediance Gym Monster 2. Stand facing the cable with the handle at the highest setting. Grip the bar with both hands and lock your elbows.
Slowly drive the bar down in an arc shape toward your thighs. Squeeze your shoulder blades in at the bottom.
Pause, then raise the bar back up, keeping your arms straight the entire time.
Challenge yourself with a single-arm variation to address any imbalances on either side, or reverse your grip to mix up your workout.
The Impact of Grip Width on Lat Development
If lat development is your goal, you have to focus on where your grip is. There’s no way around it. Grip makes a big difference in where you’ll feel the activation. A wider grip targets lat width to create that V-shape, while narrowing the grip helps balance the lat activation.
Wide Grip
Wide grips emphasize the outer lats and create a deeper stretch at the bottom position. However, if your grip gets too wide, it reduces your range of motion and can place stress on the shoulders, with a risk of impingement.
Neutral Grip
A shoulder-width grip evenly targets the entire lat muscle and allows you to achieve a full range of motion from stretch to contraction. It’s easier on the joints and will feel most comfortable for your shoulders. This is the grip to use to increase your pulling power.
Narrow Grip
Keeping your grip inside shoulder-width will target the lower lats and begin to recruit the biceps and rhomboids. The position will also give you a deeper pull, as your elbows can travel further back past your torso.
To ensure the complete development of the lats, vary your grip widths within each workout for the best experience and results. You may favor wider grips for specific movements, like pull-ups and pulldowns, and opt for medium to narrow grips for movements like rows.
Common Mistakes To Avoid During Lat Training
Don’t limit your growth and progress by making common mistakes. Knowing what to avoid will improve your form and ensure each rep is as strong as possible.
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Too Much Weight: If you’re trying to pull too much weight, you may compensate by using momentum, but this isn’t doing you any favors. Keep the weight light and build up progressively, only increasing weight if you can move it without incorporating momentum.
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Incomplete ROM: A proper lat exercise should go from a full stretch to full contraction. Don’t limit your range to speed through a set.
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Imbalanced Angles: You can’t use only one pulling angle. You must perform both vertical pulls (pulldowns or pull-ups) and horizontal pulls (rows) to ensure complete and balanced lat development.
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Not Engaging Shoulder Blades: Failing to retract and depress your shoulder blades before performing a lat movement reduces their activation, so you’re missing out on a lot of work.
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Craning the Neck Forward: Don’t jut your neck forward during your pull exercises. Keep your spine straight to ensure maximum effectiveness.
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Too-Narrow Grip: If you prefer a narrow grip, you’re missing out on the width-building benefits of wider grip variations. For best results, use a variety of grip widths while prioritizing a wide grip.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is the Most Effective Lat Workout?
The most effective lat workout incorporates movements like wide-grip pull-ups and pulldowns, single-arm rows, and bent-over rows using barbells or a cable machine. For complete development, incorporate vertical and horizontal pulling patterns and varying grip widths. Program 10-20 weekly sets with at least one recovery day between lat sessions.
Is Training Lats Enough for a Strong Back?
Training lats alone is not enough if you want a strong, complete back. Although they are the largest back muscle, you need to recruit all major muscle groups for optimal function and performance. You must also include exercises that work the rhomboid, traps, and rear delts.
Lat Training Builds a Strong Back
Training lats is essential for a strong back. As the largest muscle group in the back, they help you pull, hold weight overhead, climb, and row. You don’t need a gym membership to build strong lats. It’s easy to target these muscles with the right moves and help from a home workout setup like the Speediance Gym Monster 2.
