Last week, I travelled to Juniata College, for the Juniata Strength and Conditioning Clinic.

Before Day 1, I hooked up with Jerry Shreck and Cody Miller, both from Bucknell Strength and Conditioning, and we hit a nice, quick, solid back workout.

It’s always fun to hit a workout in a different gym from time to time, because you get to try stuff you wouldn’t normally get to, especially when you usually train in a garage gym.

Here are some clips we got from this Big Back Workout. Believe me, my lats, posterior delts, and the rest of my back were PUMPED for hours from this one.

Warm-up 1 – Peg Board

It was a chore getting warmed up. We were rushed, hadn’t had any coffee, no breakfast, and got poor sleep, so the regular full-body joint mobility-style warm-up I am used to just wasn’t cutting it.

That’s when we spotted the Peg Board in the next room, and that’s when the blood finally started pumping.

What we did: +/- 3 sets each

Warm-up 2 – Freedom Climber

Right in the same room, on the same wall, even, Juniata had a “Freedom Climber.” I’ve never even heard of these before, let alone seen one, but we were both excited to try it out. With this one, the further you climb to one side, the quicker it turns. For me, the grip was no problem. The issue was the footwork – I couldn’t move my feet fast enough to stay on the holds. Really fun device – can’t imagine what it costs though.

What we did: +/- 3 sets each

Exercise 1 – Dumbbell Rows

Now, we were warm, so we headed back into the training center. We started off with Dumbbell Rows. I was interested in trying something heavy, upwards of 150, but the heaviest they had was 125, so I stuck with those and tried to keep the reps slow and controlled. This was great, my back was blown up.

What we did: 3-5 sets each of 8 to 10 reps, emphasizing control

Exercise 2 – Cable Pull-Downs

This might be one of the toughest Cable Pull-downs I ever tried. I rarely fail to get a rep on the full stack of a Cable Pull-down, but I literally could not do it on this piece. Jerry and I mixed up the tempo and range of motion of our repetitions on this one to try to mix things up and make our backs grow!

What we did: 5 sets each of 8 to 15 reps, manipulating ROM & tempo

Exercise 3 – Football Bar Curls

The Football Bar is something I don’t have in my gym, so I made sure to hit this before leaving. Naturally, we took it directly to the Squat Cage, the best place to hit Curls in the gym of them all.

What we did: 3 sets of 3 to 5 reps on each handle

Jerry and I packed this workout into about an hour or so, and I was very happy with it, especially considering the struggles we were having in getting rolling.

It was great training with Jerry, too. We always come up with some pretty intense stuff to push each other with. My only regret is that we didn’t have more time to work in some Trap work and some Triceps. Hopefully next time!

All the best in your training.

Jedd

Did you know that Jerry and I collaborated on a product a few years back? It’s called Deceleration Training and it will help you prevent ACL tears. Click the banner below to find out more:

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Tags: "big back", big arms

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