Home fitness back exercises

You don’t need complicated equipment to do back training at home. You only need to use three common items: mineral water bottles, elastic bands, and room doors. Choose these five options: "Elastic band high pull-down, bent over mineral water bottle rowing, wall YW stretch, prone flying swallow, and overhand elastic band face-to-face pull." This action can cover the entire back area of the latissimus dorsi, middle and lower trapezius muscles, and erector spinae. Beginners can practice it twice a week for 20 minutes each time. In 4 weeks, they can see the effect of improving rounded shoulders and tightening the backline, which is not inferior to the training efficiency of fixed equipment in the gym.

I first understood this truth when the lockdown was imposed at home in 2020. At that time, I had just practiced back training in the gym for half a year, and finally improved the problem of rounded shoulders. Suddenly being locked at home without equipment, I panicked and ordered several Internet celebrity tensioners and adjustable dumbbells overnight, which cost a lot of money. Either the elastic bands loosened after being pulled twice and there was no resistance, or the dumbbells were too heavy and I could not hold them with my hands. After going around a lot, I discovered that the most practical things are things that can be easily touched at home.

I have talked with two familiar fitness practitioners about the logic of back training at home. Lao Zhou, who is a bodybuilder, thinks that to do back training at home, you have to get enough weight. If the mineral water bottle is not enough, put sand in it. If the load is enough, you can not lose the latitude.； A Ming, who does sports rehabilitation, feels that the core needs of ordinary people when doing back exercises at home are to improve their posture and relieve back pain. If the weight is too heavy, it is easy to slump and shrug the shoulders and injure the lumbar vertebrae. It is not as important to find a sense of strength with light weights. In fact, there is nothing wrong with either statement. It all depends on your own needs: if you have a training foundation and want to maintain muscle mass, you can go heavier. For novices who are just getting started, just use light weights to get a feel for it. There is no need to stick to a certain standard.

I often do the elastic band pull-down, which really saves space. Find a strong door and put the elastic band on the top hinge of the door. You can do it standing or sitting. Just grab the band with both hands and pull it toward the chest. Don't raise your head when pulling, as if you want to tear off the band and stuff it into your arms. If the sides of the latissimus dorsi are tight and sore. Many people asked me before whether I should lock my shoulders all the way when doing this. I asked several coaches specifically, and they all said different things: If you are afraid that the trapezius muscle compensation will cause neck pain during the exercise, just lock your shoulders and don’t let them loose during the whole process. If you want to improve your rounded shoulders and train the middle and lower obliques of your upper back, it’s perfectly fine to shrug your shoulders a little when you reach the highest point. You don’t have to listen to a certain blogger who said that if you don’t sink your shoulders, it’s wrong and you don’t dare to move.

If you don't even bother to buy elastic bands, you can use a large 2L mineral water bottle for bent over rowing. I always had a slumped waist when I first started doing this, but later I figured out the trick: first push your butt back, as if there is a low stool behind you and want to sit down, and then naturally bend your upper body to a 45-degree angle with the ground. You don’t have to lie down parallel to the ground, and the pressure on your waist will be much less. Hold the mineral water bottle with both hands and pull it to both sides of your waist. It feels like there is something stuck in the armpit that cannot be removed. Pull it up to the top, hold it for a second, and then release it. Feel the tightening feeling in the middle of the back. My colleague used to have very rounded shoulders, and the photographer had to remind him to look up when taking ID photos, so he did two sets of this every day after get off work. Two months later, when we took a group photo during the team building, he was almost taller than me.

Sometimes I work overtime until 11 or 12 o'clock when I get home. I don't even bother to change into my fitness clothes, so I just lean against the wall and do 15 YW stretches. My back, elbows, and backs of hands are all pressed against the wall. I raise my arms first into a Y shape, and then slide down into a W shape. When I do it, I can feel that my entire upper back is contracting. After doing it, most of the pain in my shoulders and neck is gone. This movement is not considered a serious training move at all. You can do it even if you lean on the workstation partition while fishing at work. There is no threshold.

Oh yes, there is also the prone Feiyan, which is very noisy on the Internet. Some people say that this movement hurts the waist. In fact, you do it too hard. You don’t have to lift your upper body too high. It only needs to be three to five centimeters off the ground. If you feel the tightness in your lower back, stop for a second and slowly release it. When I had a lumbar prolapse, the rehabilitation teacher specially asked me to do 10 exercises a day to strengthen the erector spinae muscles. It is actually good for the waist. If you feel pain in the waist when doing it, put a pillow under your belly and the difficulty will be reduced by half.

In fact, if I really want to talk about it, I have seen too many people have dozens of back training tutorials in their favorites, but they haven’t used them once in a year. They always feel that they need to get the equipment together, find enough time, and have 100% standard movements before they can start. How can there be so much emphasis on it? Just do these movements for 20 minutes twice a week. Even if you do a few less each time and the movements are not so standard, it is still better than lying on the sofa scrolling through your phone. After all, we ordinary people are not going to compete in back training. It is enough if we can wear crisp clothes and sit for a long time without back pain, right?