Hello
do you think there’s any truth to claims about certain grips and angles biasing certain parts of the back more?
for example, a high and wide pronated row being more traps and not lats
Whereas a single arm seated neutral grip row with arm close to the body being lats with no traps?
Do you think it’s useful group back training into “width” exercises and “thickness” exercises?
Thanks
people
I think non-uniform hypertrophy, i.e. muscle growth in specific areas of a muscle belly, occurs…predominantly in areas where the muscle is exposed to maximal tension.
That said, I think small manipulations in training technique produce little difference in hypertrophy outcomes unless they significantly alter maximal tension, e.g. training load being used. I do not think either variant given isolates traps or lats to the exclusion of the other.
For hypertrophy, the general approach would be to use a variety of exercises that load the muscle through a relatively large ROM, at difference angles, using as much training load as possible.
I think “width” and “thickness” back exercises are basically describing vertical and horizontal “pull” exercises. All of these are arbitrary categories used for programming.
Thank you
so would you bother categorising the exercises in any particular way or just lump all the volume under ‘back’ work regardless of whether it’s more vertical or horizontal
I don’t micromanage training load (not volume alone) like that, but I see no issue with it. These are all made-up systems by the coach (presumably) to organize their thinking. I wouldn’t adopt someone else’s unless you liked it, you know?