Resistance bands are a versatile and effective tool for strengthening your back muscles. Incorporating exercises like rows, pull-aparts, and lat pulldowns with resistance bands can help improve posture, increase muscle strength, and prevent injuries. Start with lighter resistance bands and gradually increase intensity as you progress.
Back is one of the more difficult muscle groups to train at home. There are a couple of key reasons for this: (1) people tend to rely mainly on cables when training back with exercises like lat pulldowns and cable rows, and (2) free-weight rowing exercises like barbell bent-over rows and dumbbell rows tend to require relatively heavy weights (ie, a barbell in excess of 100 pounds and dumbbells over 50 pounds) for sufficient muscle stimulation and growth.
Most people don’t have a cable setup at home for lat pulldowns, and having a full rack of dumbbells and heavy barbells is fairly uncommon as well. It’s pretty easy to equip your garage or home gym with a pull-up bar, but as great of an exercise as it is, doing only pull-ups for back gets old pretty fast.
Good news: There’s one simple and inexpensive way to solve this at-home back-training problem: a set of resistance bands. With just this one piece of equipment (ideally having multiple bands of different thicknesses), you can transform a setup that was once limited to pull-ups and maybe some bodyweight inverted table rows into a back-training repertoire complete with all conceivable variations of lat pulldowns and rows.
Resistance bands are truly a game-changer for building wider lats and a thicker back when training at home, or for people who travel often and don’t want to compromise their workouts on the road with unpredictable hotel gyms or a complete lack of equipment when staying in condo or house rentals. Not only do you get a great variety of exercises when using bands, but you get all the muscle-building and performance-enhancing benefits of bands – namely, linear variable resistance, where the resistance increases as the band stretches on each and every rep.
In the following sections, you’ll find a number of different resistance band back exercises – multiple variations of rows and pulldowns utilizing different grips, body positions, and one-arm versions – as well as a sample workout template for which to use those exercises.
Feel free to continue using barbells, dumbbells, cables, and other machines for back training, but if you ever find yourself without these tools (stuck at home, or traveling), just know that you can get a complete lat workout with nothing more than resistance bands. Even if you do have a gym membership, adding bands to your weekly training will make for a more well-rounded routine for more muscle growth and strength gains.
Attach the band high on a door or post, grab the handles, step back to create tension in the bands, and bent at the waist to create a straight line from your torso to the band. Keep your chest broad and arms wide. Pull down as far as you can keeping your forearms in line with the direction of the band. Squeeze your back tight as you contract, and slowly move back towards the starting position.
Kneel on the floor and attach the band high on a door or post. Keep your chest broad and arms wide. Pull down as far as you can keeping your forearms in line with the direction of the band. Squeeze your back tight as you contract, and slowly move back towards the starting position.
Kneel on the floor and attach the band high on a door or post. Keep your chest broad and arms wide. With your forearms in a supinated position (palms facing upward), pull down as far as you can keeping your forearms in line with the direction of the band. Squeeze your back tight as you contract, and slowly move back towards the starting position.
Anchor the band in front of you somewhere between hip and shoulder level, grab the handles, and step back from the anchor point to create tension in the band. From a standing position, start with your arms fully extended toward the anchor point, palms facing each other (neutral grip). Contract your back muscles and bend your elbows to pull the handles to your midsection in a rowing motion (as if you were doing cable rows). Keep your body stable and core tight throughout. At the top position, squeeze your shoulder blades together., then slowly return to the start (arms extended) position.
Anchor the band in front of you to a stable structure at around waist height. This being a one-arm exercise, use only one handle attachment. Grab the attachment in one hand, then step back from the anchor point so that there’s tension on the band. Start with your working arm extended out in front of you, your off hand on your hip, and your body upright (core tight to stabilize yourself). Contract the back muscles on the working side to pull the handle in to your midsection. When your hand reaches just outside your torso, squeeze the contraction hard, then slowly return to the start (arm extended) position. Complete all reps on that side, then switch sides and repeat.
Step on the bands or attach each end of the bands to a secure base. Bend over at the waist making sure your back is flat. Just as you would use a grip with a barbell, take a similar grip with the bands. Squeeze the shoulder blades back and pull upward towards the lower part of the chest, and slowly lower back down.
Step on the bands or attach each end of the bands to a secure base. Bend over at the waist making sure your back is flat. Just as you would use a reverse-grip on the equivalent barbell (or Smith machine) exercise, take a similar grip with the bands. Squeeze the shoulder blades back and pull upward towards the lower part of the chest, and slowly lower back down.
Anchor the band to a high point just above your head. Grasp the ends of the band and step back a foot or two. Begin with your arms extended but not locked out and your hands at around head level. Keeping your arms extended, contract your back muscles to pull your hands down and toward you until your hands pass your thighs. Hold the contract for a count, then slowly return to the start position.
Place either end of the bands onto the outside edge of the barbell. Place the bands on the outside of the plate. Stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart with a slight bend in your knees. Step onto the bands evenly with both feet. Bend forward from the hips, keeping your torso just above parallel to the floor and your chest lifted to maintain the natural arch in your back. Take an overhand grip on the bar, hands just outside shoulder-width. MPull the bar into your lower abs, contract your lats and middle-back muscles hard, then slowly lower the bar all the way down to full arm extension.
This workout can be performed once or twice a week, either on its own or in the same routine as other muscle groups. Biceps pair well with back because the smaller muscle group assists in all multijoint exercises for the back, including pull-ups, pulldowns, and rows. However, back can also be paired with chest in the same workout, as these two large muscle groups essentially perform opposite motions and lend themselves to supersets (two exercises for opposing muscle groups performed back-to-back without resting).
Band Kneeling Lat Pulldown 4 12
Band Bent-Over Row 3 10-12
Band Kneeling Reverse-Grip
Lat Pulldown 3 15
Band Straight-Arm Pulldown 2 20-25
Rest 1-2 minutes between all sets.
For every other workout, switch out at least one exercise with a different movement; for example, do band standing row or band reverse-grip grip bent-over row in place of band bent-over row. To ensure a variety of movements, include at least one pulldown and row variation in each workout.
For advanced individuals who want added intensity: Do one drop set at the end of the last set on both band kneeling lat pulldown and band bent-over row, and one rest-pause on the last set of band kneeling reverse-grip lat pulldown and band straight-arm pulldown. To do drop sets, either move closer to the anchor point, move your hands on the band to reduce tension, or quickly switch to a lighter band to decrease the resistance – whichever you prefer and is more applicable to the exercise.
To add intensity and a cardiovascular component to this workout, do cardioacceleration between all sets.
Bent-over barbell row with bands is an exercise that requires a barbell and weight plates. For most people, this will need to be done at a gym.
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