Lat exercises

How to train your lats

The latissimus dorsi is the largest muscle of your back. It runs from your lower spine and pelvis up to the front of your upper arm, so it pulls your arm down from overhead and back from in front of you. Your biceps and forearms help in every pull.

Vertical pulls are the core of lat training. The pull-up and the chin-up move your whole body and are among the hardest upper-body exercises. If you cannot do several clean reps yet, the lat pulldown trains the same pattern with a weight you choose: Muscla gives beginners the pulldown or an assisted pull-up until the free version is due. A chin-up, with palms facing you, puts more of the work on the biceps.

Rows pull from in front of you and train the lats together with the upper back. A dumbbell row or a pullover adds variety later in the week.

Keep the shoulders down and pull with the elbows, not the hands. Train your back twice a week and count a row or pull as a full set for the back and half a set for the biceps, as Muscla does.