Golden Era Back Training Secrets

In the Footsteps of Legends - Part 4: Back Training

Secrets of the Golden Era for a Wide, Thick, Massive, and Muscular Back

     We have reached the 4th part of my series on the training secrets of the golden era bodybuilders, the legends that pumped iron back in the 1970s and ‘80s.  Part 1 was an overview of golden era training, their methods, techniques, and secrets.  Part 2 covered some of the methods I missed in the 1st part, along with their techniques and exercises that they used to build wide, boulder-like deltoids.  Part 3 was all about chest training.  I advise you to read those articles, particularly the 1st two, before reading this one, as they discuss some of the methods that are helpful in understanding why the golden era icons trained their backs the way that they did.  With that out of the way, let’s get right into back training…

     I love training back.  It’s easily my best bodypart and I could probably grow a big back without ever even training it, to tell the truth.  As long as I trained the rest of my body, I’m pretty sure that my back would still grow.  Heck, if I was to ever compete in a bodybuilding competition, which, no, I don’t plan on doing considering my age and numerous injuries—I’d have to get on some anabolics, which I never plan on doing; I don’t even take TRT—I would probably need to not train my back in order to ensure that my entire physique is balanced and all of my muscle groups are in complete symmetry.  But I wouldn’t do that even if I was capable of a bodybuilding competition.  I guess I always had, and still do, the view of Tom Platz.  Instead of not training his legs once they overtook the rest of his muscle groups, he trained them even more and harder in order to stand out and be different from his contemporaries.  If I was 30 again and wanted to compete in a physique competition, I’d take that route.  Maybe I would be asymmetrical, but so be it.  It’d just make my look all the more freaky.

     You might argue, and you’d probably be correct, that you shouldn’t listen to someone—when it comes to training a muscle group—if that person grows that muscle with such outright ease.  What does an easy gainer know compared to those who had to work extra hard to grow that same muscle?  Well, if that person could grow all of their muscles with supreme ease, the answer would be not much.  Though back growth came easy to me, all of my other muscle groups were decidedly the opposite.  I was a prototypical “ectomorph” who only weighed around 130 pounds soaking wet when I graduated high school 35 years ago.  In other words, a so-called “hardgainer.”  Besides, because my back did grow easier than other muscle groups, I wanted to know everything there was to make it as wide, thick, large, and sculpted as possible.  I read every single training article I could get my hands on in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, from all of the current and past champions of those years.  I think, over the years, it’s safe to say that I interiorized a whole heapin’ lot of various methods for building the best back imaginable.

My back when I was in my early 40s.

     Old-school bodybuilders believed that back training was important for more than just building a big back.  First, it was needed in order to develop a well-rounded physique.  Too many bodybuilders, both present and in the past, train the muscles they can see in their gym’s mirrors—chest, shoulders, biceps, abs, quads.  But they often neglect(ted) the muscles that can’t be seen—traps, lats, mid and lower back, hamstrings, and calves.  To build a complete physique, you need the front and rear of your body to be developed to its full potential.  Second, they believed that training their backs actually allowed them to grow larger shoulders and chests.  The back is the muscle(s), in many ways, that those other muscles “sit on.”  You can’t develop a truly massive and wide chest if you don’t have a big back that can handle that chest.  The bigger the back, the bigger the chest and, to a lesser extent, the shoulders.

     As with our last two parts, let’s start with some of the most popular exercises that the golden era ‘builders utilized to build their absolutely awesome backs.

Bent-Over Barbell Rows

     I think it’s safe to say that, hands down, this was the one exercise that all golden era bodybuilders felt was the “foundational” movement for their backs.  It builds the lats but it also works the mid-back, which many bodybuilders neglect when all they do are pulldowns and chins.

     Old-school lifters did this movement two ways, with a wide, overhand grip, and with a close, underhand one.  Most, however, did more wide-grip rows than they did the close-grip version.

     The one technique that they all used—just get on YouTube and watch videos of golden era back training, and you’ll find this to be true—was to do bent-over rows while standing on a block or step.  The purpose was so that they could get a deep stretch at the bottom of the movement.  And, as I demonstrated with both shoulder and chest training, a deep, deep stretch was important for the golden era legends, from Arnold to Sergio to Nubret to Columbu to Haney, all of whom had great backs.  Along with the deep stretch from starting the movement from a deficit, they did a full range of motion by really squeezing the row at the top of the lift.  Remember, continuous tension and full range-of-motion were constants in their lifting philosophies.

Wide-Grip Pulldowns and Chins

     After rows, the other movement that you would see in almost all golden era workouts was either a wide-grip chin or a wide-grip pulldown, sometimes both of them in the same session, and sometimes they rotated between the two from workout-to-workout.

     The key to both of them is to take a wide grip and get a (once again) deep stretch at the start of the movement.  For the chins, you want to make sure that you hang for a second or two at the start or in between each repetition.  For the pulldowns, let your arms stretch out as far as possible before you begin and in between each rep.  For chins, pull yourself up to the bar so that your chest touches the bar at the top and, yes, once again, squeeze hard at the top, pausing for a second or two before lowering down to start the next rep.  And for the pulldowns, pull the bar to your chest and pause at the bottom of the reps, holding the bar on your chest for a second or two.

     Arch your chest out on both movements, round your lower back slightly, and pull to the middle or top of your chest.  Don’t let your back “concave” as you pull yourself up to the bar or pull the bar down.  So, remember: deep stretch followed by an arched chest and a slightly rounded back along with a full range-of-motion.  Again, watch some YouTube videos of the golden era bodybuilders doing these exercises.

T-Bar Rows

     If a golden era bodybuilder didn’t use the barbell bent-over row in a workout, you can almost guarantee that he replaced it with the t-bar row.  As with the barbell version, you want to get a deep stretch at the bottom.  Lee Haney, in order to do this, always loaded the bar with 25-pound plates, as opposed to 45-pound ones, so that the t-bar could be lowered further and so that he could get a full ROM at the top since the chest touches the plates.  If he had to load six 25-pounders instead of three 45-pound plates, so be it.  He was adamant that this was important.

     Tom Platz was another one who loved this movement over other rows.  He would often do an entire workout of t-bar rows, where he did the exercise for an entire hour straight—you read that correctly—and nothing else, sometimes doing 30 sets or more!

Behind-the-Neck Chins and Pulldowns

     By the ‘90s, it seemed as if the behind-the-neck version of these exercises had gone to the wayside.  But in the ‘70s and ‘80s, they were seen as absolute necessities.

     Arnold would often begin his workout with 50 reps—doing however many sets was necessary to get 50—of alternating between chins to the front and behind-the-neck ones.  Serge Nubret was especially fond of behind-the-neck pulldowns.  He thought they were needed to build a complete back, as he felt that they worked the mid-to-upper back in a way that no other movement could equal.  Robby Robinson always included both of these in his routines, and still does to this day, even at 80 years old.

     The “knock” against these exercises is that they don’t allow for a full range-of-motion and that it’s potentially bad for your shoulders and your rotator cuffs in particular.  I think this sentiment is similar to the one that I discussed with shoulder training and the behind-the-neck press.  As long as you don’t have a pre-existing shoulder problem, then this movement shouldn’t be a problem.  However modern bodybuilders might feel about these lifts, golden era bodybuilders loved them.

Seated Cable Rows

     Robby Robinson made this exercise look like an art form.  It was another staple of the golden era and I doubt you can find a single great old-school legend who didn’t use it.

     For the most part, golden era ‘builders did it with a v-bar, though you did find some use a straight bar with either a wide-grip or a close, underhand grip.  I would start with the v-bar, perfect it, and then move on to other alternatives.

     At the bottom of the rep, make sure that, just like your golden era predecessors, you get a deep stretch—as deep as possible.  You should feel that your lats, along with your lower back, get stretched to the maximum.  On the positive portion of the rep, round your back slightly, arch your chest as much as possible, while keeping your upper body relatively straight (only a slight lean back) and, yep, once again, squeeze your mid-back hard once the v-bar touches your stomach or your lifting belt.

One-Arm Dumbbell Rows

     In addition to barbell and t-bar rows, this was the final rowing movement that many golden era legends preferred.  To make it work—this is part of that deep stretch that old-school lifters sought—don’t let the dumbbell go down in a straight line or pick it up from the floor in a straight line.  Rather, as you lower the ‘bell, toward the bottom of the rep, let the dumbbell row out in front of you in the direction of your head, almost as if you were doing a “saw” motion with the ‘bell.  The dumbbell should make a sort of arched “L” shape.  At the top of the rep, again, squeeze hard and contract your lat muscles.

Pullovers

     What in the world?  Didn’t we cover this in our chest training article?  Didn’t golden era bodybuilders think of this as a chest movement to expand their rib cages?  Well, yes.  But they also thought of it as a “stretch position” movement for the lats.  In fact, many of them thought of it as both a chest and a back movement, for it does create a really deep stretch for the lats and will induce quite a bit of soreness in your lats the day after doing it.

     Keep in mind that, for one, most golden era bodybuilders, especially in the ‘70s, liked to train their antagonistic muscle groups together, so chest and back were usually trained in the same workout.  If you use a “push/pull” split, you need to figure out which muscle of yours that it most works, and decide which day that it should be included on.  In fact, in the ‘80s, Lee Labrada did it on his back day, considering it very similar to the lats as dumbbell flyes are for the chest.

     When I worked for Ironman magazine in the ‘90s, and was one of their contributing editors, the editor of that magazine, Steve Holman, created a program that he called “POF”, an acronym for “positions-of-flexion.”  The program was based on the fact that a muscle would grow to the utmost if you worked each one of them with a “compound” movement, a “stretch” exercise, and, finally, a “contracted” movement.  So, for the chest, as an example, the bench press would be your compound lift, the dumbbell flye would be your stretch position lift, and cable crossovers would be your contracted exercise.  But for lats, it could be rows (compound), pullovers (stretch), and bent-over dumbbell lateral raises (contracted).  I think it’s a pretty good idea, so if you use any split where you train chest and back on different days, you might want to consider doing pullovers on your back day.

Shrugs

     Golden era bodybuilders didn’t neglect their traps but, by and large, there was just one exercise that they used.  Shrugs.  Some did them with the barbell and others preferred dumbbells.  Also, how they did them could be different from bodybuilder to bodybuilder.  Some preferred to do them in a rotating motion, whereas others just shrugged straight up and down.  Either way, as with their other lifts, they concentrated on getting a hard contraction at the top of the rep.

What About Deadlifts and Power Cleans?

     Believe it or not, in the ‘70s and ‘80s, these exercises were not used by the majority of the champions.  The only two I can think of who did deadlifts regularly were Tom Platz and Franco Columbu, both of whom came from powerlifting backgrounds.  Columbu was even a world champion on the deadlift in the ‘70s when he was also dominating his height class in bodybuilding competitions.

     Power cleans were popular from the ‘40s on up through the ‘60s but they, too, largely fell to the wayside by the time of the golden era.  Now, this doesn’t mean that many of the bodybuilders didn’t start training with this movement.  Both Arnold and Oliva competed in Olympic weightlifting before switching over to bodybuilding, so they did use these could be considered a “foundational” movement for both of them.

     I’ll be honest, too.  I never did a single deadlift in my life until I decided to start competing in powerlifting in the mid to late ‘90s.  That means for 10 years or so, I didn’t even attempt it.  Why?  Because top bodybuilders that I read about in the magazines, met when I worked for those same magazines, and bodybuilders that I trained with did not do them.  The first time I can remember reading about a bodybuilder that used them after I started training (mid to late ‘80s) was Mike Francois, the great ‘90s bodybuilder.  It could be that Dave Fisher did them, as well.  Even then, Francois (and maybe Fisher) used partial deadlifts in the rack for the most part instead of the full version.

     What do I think now?  A few points to consider.  First, both of them are great for building a complete back.  They work muscles in your back, particularly your lumbars, that just don’t get worked adequately enough with the other movements we’ve discussed.  Second, deadlifts are hard on your nervous system.  It takes longer to recover from deadlifts than any other movement, so if you include them, you’d be fine doing them about once every 3 workouts.  Third, you can recover much quicker from power cleans.  I would add them to your routine, even if it’s just at every other workout.  Power snatches might be a good option, as well.  All of the quick lifts—cleans, snatches, and high pulls—give you a “yoked” look that you just can’t achieve with anything else and certainly not from only using the lifts we’ve discussed so far, despite the fact that none of the quick lifts were regular components of the golden era champs.

Routines of the Legends and Other Workout Considerations

     Unlike our last couple installments, we’ll look first at some of the routines that several of the golden era champions used.  After that, we’ll discuss some of the other methods that they utilized along with various ways that you might make these programs work for you.

Tom Platz’s Insanely High-Volume Back Builder

T-bar rows or wide-grip lat pulldowns: 30x6-100 (Yes, you read that correctly!)

Seated cable rows: 5-8x15-30

Franco Columbu’s Back Blaster

Wide-grip chins: 10x max reps (He would alternate back and forth between front and behind-the-neck.)

T-bar rows: 4x10

Seated cable rows: 5x10

Robby Robinson’s Back Routine

Behind-the-neck chins: 5x max reps

Bent-over barbell rows: 6x10

Seated cable rows: 6x12

One-arm dumbbell rows: 5x8 (each arm)

Bill Pearl’s Silver-to-Golden Era Program

Wide-grip chins: 5x10

Close-grip chins: 5x10

Barbell shrugs: 5x10

Lee Haney’s Mr. Olympia Back Builder

Wide-grip lat pulldowns: 4x8-12

T-bar rows: 4x8-12

Seated cable rows: 4x8-12

Bent-over barbell rows (wide grip): 4x8-12

Shawn Ray’s Advanced Back Blaster

Wide-grip chins: 4x12

Seated cable rows: 4x8-10

Bent-over barbell rows: 4x8-10

T-bar rows: 4x8-10

Deadlifts: 4x8-10

     I could have added even more routines, but I think you can see an overarching view here of what just a few of the golden era favorites liked to use in their workouts.  What’s interesting—at least, to me—is that I didn’t look up any of these programs before I wrote about the various movements that the golden era bodybuilders utilized beforehand.  Clearly, I was mostly correct in the exercises that I selected as being their favorites.  The only thing that surprised me a little bit was Shawn Ray’s use of deadlifts.  Once I read that, and then thought back on it, I do remember seeing him deadlift in a training article for Ironman, but at the time, I may have thought it was just something that he did to pose for the magazine.  Often, bodybuilding magazines would take photos of bodybuilders using movements that they never actually utilized themselves in their own programs.  Clearly, however, Ray was at least one of the old-school ‘builders that did deadlift.

     In our other installments, I mentioned how, particularly in the off-season, many old-school bodybuilders were fond of one-exercise-per-bodypart routines or, at the most, two-exercises-per-muscle group workouts.  This was almost a unanimous approach in the “silver era,” in the ‘40s and ‘50s, when they thought of multi-exercise workouts as better for pre-contest shape and symmetry but not so much for simply gaining mass.

     Unlike other muscle groups, however, it would be hard, if not impossible, to build a complete back with just one exercise.  You shouldn’t really think of the back as one muscle group, because it’s not.  It would be like thinking of your front delts, chest, and abdominals as “the front.”  If, however, you divide your back into lats, traps, and mid-to-lower back, you could use a one movement per “muscle group” program.  In this case, a program of wide-grip chins, shrugs, and deadlifts would be appropriate.  The other good approach would be to use a one-exercise-per-workout routine but do something such as chins at one workout and bent-over rows at the next, rotating between the two from workout-to-workout for complete development.

     A two-exercise-per-back workout would work well.  You can do chins and deadlifts, rows (of some sort) and cleans, or chins and rows and you’d be on the right track.  Here are a few workout suggestions that would be good using all that we’ve looked at and discussed so far.

Beginning Program

Wide-grip chins: 5x5 (straight sets)

Deadlifts or high pulls: 5x3 (progressively heavier sets; rotate exercise from workout-to-workout)

Mass and Strength Builder

Wide-grip chins: 8x5 (Do these if you can get at least 10 reps with your bodyweight.  If you can get more than that, then use a weight belt and use a weight where you can get 10 reps for one all-out set.  You can substitute wide-grip pulldowns if you can’t get 10 reps with bodyweight.)

Rack pulls: 8x3 (Use a weight where you can get 6 reps for one all-out set.  Set the pins just below knee level.)

Barbell shrugs: 8x5

Mass Only

Wide-grip lat pulldowns: 8x10

One-arm dumbbell rows: 6x8 (each arm)

Dumbbell shrugs: 6x8

Advanced Back Builder

Wide-grip weighted chins: 8x5,5,3,3,2,2,1,1 (progressively heavier sets)

T-bar rows: 5x6-8 (Straight sets; start with a weight where you can get 8 reps with 1 rep left “in the tank”.)

Seated cable rows: 4x10-12

Wide-grip lat pulldowns: 4x20-25 (Lats are similar to quads in that they often respond well to much higher reps than other muscle groups; this is one thing I learned from meeting Tom Platz in the ‘90s and reading the writings of Greg Zulak in the late ‘80s.)

Cross-bench dumbbell pullovers: 4x12-15

Deadlifts or power cleans: 4x8 (alternate between the two lifts from workout-to-workout)

     Here are some different training schedules that would work well for any of the above programs.  In addition to what I recommend below, you could also do a higher-frequency regimen where you alternate between heavier and lighter sessions.  Since I covered how that might be done in part 3, I won’t go over that here, so look at that article if you want some additional ideas.

3-On, 1-Off

Day 1: chest and back

Day 2: legs and abdominals

Day 3: shoulders and arms

Day 4: off

     If you feel as if you need an extra day off, go to a 3-on, 2-off rotation for a week or two.  You can also rotate between a 3-on, 1-off and a 3-on, 2-off schedule continuously.

4-On, 1-Off

Day 1: back

Day 2: chest and shoulders

Day 3: legs

Day 4: arms and abs

Day 5: of

2-On, 1-Off, 1-On, 1-Off

Day 1: chest and back

Day 2: legs and abs

Day 3: off

Day 4: shoulders and arms

Day 5: off

     These last two are better if you know that you respond well to a slightly lower frequency of training.

2-On, 1-Off With a 3-Way Split

Day 1: back and biceps

Day 2: legs

Day 3: off

Day 4: chest, shoulders, and triceps

Day 5: back and biceps

Day 6: off

     Start day 7 with legs again and day 8 with chest, shoulders, and tris, and so on and so forth.

Final Thoughts

     As with all workouts, make sure that you are consuming plenty of calories, eating enough protein, and getting plenty of rest and sleep for your recovery.  If you’re looking to gain mass, then consume at least 15 times your bodyweight in calories on a daily basis.  20 times would be even better, so if you weigh 150 pounds, you will gain muscle the fastest with 3,000 calories on a daily basis.  Unless you’re a true ectomorph—the so-called hardgainer—make sure that you’re eating good calories, as well.  It’s not hard at all to get that many calories from eating fast food and other “junk” calories but try your best to get your calories from lean protein, fresh fruit and vegetables, “good” fat, and good complex carbs such as oats, rice, and potatoes, as opposed to bread and simple sugars.

     Take your back training seriously.  Along with hard and heavy leg training, it promotes muscle growth much faster than just training the muscles in the front of your body.  Too many bodybuilders do endless sets and a lot of movements for their chest and arms, but when it comes to back training, they just do a couple sets of chins or pulldowns and call it quits.  But a real bodybuilder gives just as much attention to his back (and legs) as his chest, shoulders, and arms.  And when it comes to good back workouts, you can’t miss with the golden era wisdom.  Walk in the footsteps of the old-school legends and build a back as impressive as theirs.  The chins, rows, pulldowns, and shrugs are awaiting you at the gym.  All you have to do is get to it!

     I hope you are enjoying this series on golden era training.  If you have any comments or questions about this article or the others that preceded it (or anything else, for that matter), leave them in the “comments” section below or send me an email for more private correspondence.

     If you enjoy reading my articles and would like to support my work, please consider purchasing one of my books.  Click on the link for information about all of them.  They are all PACKED with old-school information and routines for mass, strength, and power.