Back Workouts

Your back muscles get weaker over the time if you don't take care to strengthen those muscles. If your back muscles are not trained with same intensity as your chest muscle a weak back can make your body more vulnerable to injuries. So never neglect back muscles exercise.
Your back mainly comprises of trapezius (upper back), latissimus dorsi (middle back). Below are some most effective workout techniques for these muscles.

Shoulder shrug:

Shoulder shrug is an excellent workout for your trapezius muscle.
Technique
  1. Stand straight with your leg and arms shoulder width apart grabbing a barbell with overhand grip at arm's length in front of you.
  2. Now keeping your arms straight (without bending your elbow) shrug your shoulder up.
  3. Hold for a sec and then slowly lower your shoulder to get back in previous position.
  4. Exhale when you are lifting the weight.
  5. Do this in 3 sets with 10-15 repetitions.
Tips:
For getting the maximum out of this workout you can lower your head front so that you face the floor. This way difficulty will increase and you definitely will feel the difference. For variety instead of barbell you can grab a pair of heavy dumbbells hands hanging on your sides palms facing in and can perform the same exercise.

Pull up:

Pull up is an excellent exercise not only for the lat muscle but for your many upper body muscles. This is very hard to perform and for beginners. If you are not able to do pull up you can start with lat pull down which I discussed down below after pull up.
Technique
  1. Start with a dead hang position (arms straight) grabbing the pull up bar with wider grip than shoulder width. Hold the bar with overhand grip.
  2. Look up and pull your body up so that your chin is above the bar.
  3. Now slowly lower your body to the starting position.
  4. Exhale when you pull yourself up and inhale when you lower your body.

Lat pull down:

Pull up is a better workout than lat pull down. If you can perform pull up well then you can skip this workout. But if you are not able to do pull up, start with lat pull down to increase your strength then progress into pull ups.
Technique
  1. Position yourself in a lat pull down machine sitting with leg supported. Now grab the pull down-bar with an overhand grip wider than shoulder width.
  2. Slightly lean backward and your back should be in a straight line.
  3. Pull the bar down slowly closer to your chest.
  4. Now return the bar slowly to get back to the previous position.
  5. Breathe out while pulling down the bar.
  6. Do this exercise in 3 sets with 10-12 repetitions.

One arm dumbbell row:

Technique
  1. Start by grabbing a middle-weight dumbbell in your right arm placing your left palm and left knee on a bench. Hold the weight straight down.
  2. Now slowly pull the weight up so that your elbow is above your back level.
  3. Hold a sec and slowly lower the weight down to get back to the starting position.
  4. Exhale when you pull the weight up.
  5. Repeat the same for 10-12 times.
  6. Now switch your body to the other side of the bench and supporting your right hand and right knee on the bench perform the same workout with the other arm.
Tips:
You can twist your palm in while lowering the weight to get some extra benefit from the workout.
For strengthening your lower back squat is a very good exercise.
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