programming a pull session
Muscles worked:
Back
Rear delts
Biceps
General Overview when making your exercise selection:
Does your back lack thickness but have well developed width or visa-versa? If so then make your back movements should predominately favour your weakness than strength (for example if your weakness is thickness then your session would generally favour exercise to develop your thickness, such as 3 rowing movement with 1 form of pull down variation along with 1 rear delt movement and 2 bicep exercise to complete your pull session.
When planning your workouts I would recommend to plan a rest day between your pull session & your next workout to allow the extra recovery time.
Back (thickness/density) exercises to select from:
Chest supported plate loaded rows (single or dual arm)
Barbell rows (can be performed on barbell or smith machine)
Tbar row
DB rows (variations would be single arm, bent over dual arm,
Cable row variations (narrow grip, wide grip)
*take home notes... keep your focus on the muscle you're working here, if your body isn't able to keep positioned during your set then the weight is too heavy for you... you shouldn't be swinging, leaning back and using momentum to complete the rep... towards the end for the last couple your form may slip a touch to force those final few but don't let this get stupid... (if you want an example of how not to train back take a look at Branch Warren videos... we all love Branch, we all wish we could train like Branch and look the way he did but realistically 95% of us out there would have broken backs within the first week of training)
Back (width) exercises to select from:
Any Pull down variation such as:
Underhand plate loaded pull down (performed single arm or dual)
Cable pull downs (reverse grip, wide grip, vbar, prime grip (if available or the Rolls Royce of cable attachments)
Straight arm push downs
Seated cable pull overs (cable above head, pulled bar down into sternum)
*take home notes... keep your back arched and chest lifted, form is key when performing width based movements for your back, don't be that person who sits swinging back n fourth using your momentum to get the bar down
Rear delt exercises to select from:
Rear cable fly machine
Chest supported rear fly DB/cable
Seated DB rear fly (bent forward)
Face pull variations
Lower back loading exercises to select from:
Deadlift variations (ground pull, block pulls, dead stop or constant movement through the set etc)
Rack pulls (knee level or below knee depending on how much requirement you want to place on other muscle like glutes & hamstrings.... above knee, well put the bar down and have word with yourself 😜)
Example split layout (pull focussed)
Monday - push
Tuesday - pull (density focussed)
Weds - off
Thursday -legs
Friday - off
Saturday - pull (width focussed)
Sunday off
Bicep exercises to select from:
Standing/seated DB/BB Curl
Single or dual cable curl
DB/cable hammer curl
Preacher curl
Blueprint:
4-5 exercises with 1-2 working sets, reps ranging from 6-10 for back thickness/width exercises.
1 exercise each with 3 working sets, reps ranging from 8-15 for rear delts
2 exercises with 2-3 working sets, reps ranging from 8-12 for biceps
FORM IS KING!
We look forward to continuing to bring you more content for our training guides & knowledge base, as always any questions, comments or things you like to discuss/topics you would like us to cover just drop a line to the article and we will reply 😀