After last year’s Olympia, I realized that my front poses were overpowering my physique. I needed to develop more width and thickness, but if I tried to achieve this in a single weekly back workout, I could be in the gym for 21⁄2 hours, even without any cardio. My body would be so exhausted that I wouldn’t grow.
So in January, I started splitting my back workouts. Now one session a week focuses on width and the other on thickness.
THICKNESS
I usually do three or four sets of 10 reps on six exercises. I do things like close-grip T-bar rows, seated pulley rows, single-arm rows, and a load of other exercises that are hard to describe because the equipment at Oxygen Gym in Kuwait is so specialized.
WIDTH
I do about six exercises for a total of 21–24 sets. I usually do 10–12 reps for the rst three sets of an exercise and a slow-motion eight for the last set. I do a lot of dropsets and concentrate on the hold and squeeze. I do things like pullups, front pulldowns, wide- grip reverse pulldowns, seated wide-grip pulley rows, behind- the-neck pulldowns, and single- arm high-lat pulley rows.
One thing I don’t do for back is deadlift. Not deadlifting is one of the reasons I believe my waist is so small.
If you have a weak body part, try splitting it up and training it twice a week. I’ve also started doing this with legs. It’s easy to go in the gym and think “let’s cane it,” but it’s more important to think about doing what works for you.
