Best Lat Exercises for Mass

Before you embark on building your lats, it is important that you understand what they are. These are the large triangle shaped muscles on the back that become tapered into a V-shape from the shoulders down to the waist.

When someone boasts of his six pack abs along with strongly developed biceps, chances are he has quite a gift of the lats also. And if you checked closely, you could probably realize it even shows through his sweat shirt. With all these, add a properly toned entire body and you would create a flair every man dreams of showing off.

To have such a killer masculine body, especially with a strongly muscled lats, a good amount of time and effort must have been spent at the gym. But what kind of exercises would you need to practise for massive lats?

Types of exercises

There are different types of exercises that you would perform at the gym and help you not just to build, but also enhance great muscles on your entire back. These exercises are known to produce massive lats with time. They include:

The Dumb Bell Row
Pull ups and Chin-ups
Barbell Deadlift
Barbell Row

1. The Dumb Bell Row

This is among the easiest exercises that can be used to both strengthen your back and build your lats.

How it’s performed

Hold a dumb bell in one of your arms and stand straight.
Bend your torso in such a way that it is parallel to the ground and forms just about 90 degrees with your hip joint, while ensuring the dumb bell in your one hand just about touches the floor.
Support your empty hand and the corresponding lower limb on a bench (as shown in image), while at the same time spreading the other leg away from the bench for stability.
Without bending your back, slowly and steadily pull the dumb bell up to your chest and then gradually stretch the arm to return the dumb bell to its initial position. Do this several times over and over while taking short breaks in between. This exercise on its own will help build muscles on your back, but to particularly develop your lats, allow the hand holding the dumb bell to stretch all the way to the very bottom. When done with one hand, change over to the other hand and repeat the process.

2. Pull-ups and Chin-ups

This kind of exercise when properly done, will rapidly enhance your lats within a short period of time.

How it’s performed

With your hands spread out to shoulder width, hang from a strong crossbar with an overhand (pull-up) or an underhand (chin-up).
Without losing your grip, bend at your elbows and shoulders as you pull yourself gradually up until your chest gets to the same level as the bar. Holding your breath would work to your advantage.
Pause a little for a brief moment while remaining steady with your chest at the same level with the bar.
Slowly stretch your elbows until your hands are completely stretched out. Then pause again for a brief moment before you repeat the exercise.

Caution

Avoid sudden upward movements that would otherwise give you some momentum and in the process create a swinging effect for easier pull-ups.

3. Barbell Deadlift

Although there is a popular belief that this barbell deadlift mostly works on the hamstring and the glutes, the truth is, with a weak back you won’t manage to lift these weights.

But here is the good news; since this exercise heavily relies on your back muscles for the heavy lifting, it also means that it directly stretches, tones and strengthens your back muscles during the lifting process. And that is correct.

This deadlift will indeed directly strengthen your lats just as fast as it does for your back muscles.

How it’s performed

Step 1 – Load a barbell with an appropriate weight and stand as close to it as possible (remember the rule of thumb: the further the weight from your center of mass, the heavier it is conventionally). Do not overload but make it as reasonably heavy as possible.
Step 2 – Hold the barbell with an overhand spread out slightly wider than your shoulder width, then move your hips all the way backward as you bend your knees forward for a better balance.
Step 3 – While balancing your weight on your feet and thus maintaining your center of mass in the middle of your body frame, keep your spine straight and at the same time pull the bar up as you push your hips forward. Be careful to ensure all the weight is transferred to your feet without straining your back. Otherwise, you could injure your back by the heavy lifting.
Step 4 – Carefully perform step 3 in reverse until the dumbbell is fully on the ground then start again from step 2.

4. Barbell Row

This is one of the most popular workout exercises partly because it is amongst the easiest ones to execute. The exercise target is to stretch the biceps, lats and the shoulders. Spread your feet and ensure you keep them fixed just as much you can keep your arms fixed, you can actually do much heavier weights.

How it is performed

While standing next to a loaded barbell, bend your knees over slightly such that your torso is just about 10 degrees away from being parallel to the floor. This way, you lower your center of mass so it is less likely to tip over after picking up the weight.
Grab the barbell from the overhand and while spreading your arms to just about your shoulder width as you look down right in front of you.
Carefully raise your torso to around 45 degrees with respect to the floor while at the same time lifting the barbell.
As you hold your core tight for stability, squeeze your shoulder blades and bend your arms at the same time as you’re barely touch your rib cage before carefully lowering the barbell to the ground.
Repeat it over a period of time and you will continue exerting enough tension on your lats which ultimately get stronger and tougher with time.

Caution

Because in all these exercises you will be dealing with heavy lifting, mind your toes and always, before lifting the weight, verify how heavy it is first. This way, you will avoid the possibility of sustaining an injury.