MIND-MUSCLE CONNECTION: HOW TO FEEL YOUR BACK MUSCLES DURING WORKOUTS

One of the hardest things in your fitness journey is to feel your back muscles during your workouts.

It is easy to feel your chest muscles and quads, but the back feels like an alien world. You are not alone; most people struggle to feel their backs.

There are a couple of reasons why you have a hard time feeling your back muscles, and your lifestyle and you can’t see your back.

First, let’s discuss what I mean by lifestyle. Technology has done great things for us, but it comes with some negatives. One of those negatives is how technology has made us more sedentary. Whether you are at work on the computer, or your home on your phone, you are sedentary and hunched over.

This hunched-over posture is putting your back at a disservice. This position is putting your back muscles in a stretched position, for long periods of time, causing weakness and telling your brain/nervous system to keep the muscle “relaxed”.

I say relaxed because when you stretch a muscle for long periods, you’re trying to tell your nervous system to release tension in the muscle and drive the needle to a more parasympathetic state, which means rest and digestion state of your nervous system.

Why is all this important?

It’s to help you understand that what you do during the day will influence how you move and feel with compounding interests.

Now the other reason you can’t feel your back is that you can’t see the muscle unless you have a mirror and play contortionist to see it.

It is easy to feel what you can see, one of the first muscles I have a memory of feeling is the biceps. The classic bicep flex, show your muscle stance because you can see it and as a kid, I practiced it many times.  

There isn’t much you can do about seeing your back muscles, but you can practice working on your mind-muscle connection to help.

IMPORTANCE OF TRAINING YOUR BACK

Before I go into how you can feel your back muscles, I first want to explain the importance and give you insight about the back.

First, I want to explain that your back is not one muscle. It is the accumulation of muscles, each with its own job for movement and stabilization.

That might be another reason why it’s so hard for you to feel your back muscles because it’s not just one muscle.

Here are the muscles that make up your back:

• Posterior delts
• Rhomboids Major & Minor
• Upper/middle/lower traps
• Erector spinae
• Latissimus dorsi
• Teres major
• Quadratus lumborum
• Subscapularis
• Infraspinatus
• Teres minor
• Supraspinatus

This is a short list of the muscles in your back, there are smaller, intrinsic muscles surrounding the spine and muscles around the neck, and each one has its role.

It would be exhausting going into the gym and thinking of having to do an exercise for each of these muscles, luckily you don’t have to.

A lot of the muscles in the back follow similar movement patterns and aid each other when you move. So, instead of thinking about muscles, think about movement patterns. For the back, you will have a focus on vertical pulling and horizontal pulling.

With the focus on movements, you will naturally hit the muscles in the back while also moving and feeling better.

Now that you know what the back is, here is why you should care about having a strong, developed back.

The back is meant to be strong and stable so you can push more. So, if you want to push more weight, you need a strong back.

Also, as mentioned above, technology is causing you to be hunched over, over long periods of time, which can put a strain on your shoulders, neck, and low back.

Having a stronger back, will help with your posture, and manage the stress of hunching over. So, if you want strong, stable shoulders and fewer low back issues, develop and strengthen your back.

PROPER WARM-UP TO FEEL YOUR BACK MUSCLES

Do you ever warm up before you work out?

If not, this will be a game changer in how you feel your back muscles, and how you perform.

A proper warm-up does a couple of things for you:

• Warm up the body (duh)
• Clean up weak/painful links
• Mental/emotional preparation
• Facilitate motor learning (practicing and improving movement patterns)

When you warm up properly, you should already be feeling the muscles that you want to work for that workout. In this case the back, the back should already have a mini pump.

This mini pump is going to help you be more engaged with the workout itself, feel stronger, and most importantly, help you feel your back muscles.

During your warm-up, you can start creating a relationship on how you can feel your back muscles. It starts with the warm-up, and if you skip the warm-up, you’re going to have a hard time and fewer results with back gains.

So how do you warm up the back muscles?

Here is what I am going to do for you, I am going to give you a full warm-up for your back. Make sure you save this so you can use this on your next back workout.

1. SMR Lats– 30 seconds oscillating & 20 seconds windshield wiper
2. Suspension Trainer Lat Stretch w/ twisting torso- 30 seconds Oscillating and 15-second end range with pulling
3. Quad T-Spine Rotations– 60 seconds on each side-Slow and controlled
4. Straight Arm Banded Pulldowns– 3 sets of 10 reps-(10-20 seconds rest)
5. Suspension Trainer Rows– 3 sets of 5 reps- Slow and controlled-think perfect reps-(10-20 seconds rest)
6. Jacks with Overhead Med ball slams– 3 sets of 5 jacks and 3 slams-Think quick and explosive

If you stick with the work and rest times, this should take you 10-15 minutes to complete. Do this warm-up and you will feel more ready for your workouts and get you to feel your back muscles.

ECCENTRICS TO HELP YOU FEEL YOUR BACK MUSCLES

If you want to feel your back muscles, try slowing down the reps. After you do the warmup, instead of doing the normal reps and speed you have been doing, try this instead.

Lower the weight, and on the eccentric part of the lift, take 3-4 seconds to lower, and lift the weight as normal for 12 reps.  

Here is an example: say you are doing chest-supported dumbbell rows. Row the dumbbells and on the way down, take 3-4 seconds to lower into the stretched position of the exercise.

Anyone will have a hard time feeling their muscles if you speed through the reps. It can be as simple as slowing down.

ISOMETRICS

Staying on the topic of time under tension, you can also play with isometrics to help you feel your back muscles.

If you did the warm-up, you already used isometrics when you stretched and held the end range of motion while creating tension.

Same concept, but now I will be with weights. There are a couple of ways you can use isometrics.

1. Overcoming Isometrics- when you are trying to move an immovable object and applying as much force as possible.
2. Yielding Isometrics-you are resisting the urge to move and trying to keep a position (with or without equipment)

For overcoming isometric, you will want to do this when the muscle is in a stretched position. You can use a very thick band or suspension trainer for this exercise. Sit on the floor with your legs in front of you, together.

Wrap the band or strap around your feet, and grab the handles/band. While keeping tension in the core, and the back in the stretched position, pull. Set a timer for 15 seconds and pull hard.

I would use these as part of your warm-up, in the CNS category, 3 sets of 10-15 seconds.

Now, yielding isometrics is the more common one, where you just hold the weight at the end range of motion. Go back to the chest-supported rows, you would hold the weight after you lift it for 3-4 seconds while focusing on squeezing the back.

Deadlifts are also a great example of yielding isometrics. The back is resisting the forces to move, making it one of the most demanding isometrics for your back.

Do 2-4 sets of deadlifts then go into a back exercise, and you’re going to feel your back muscles.

INTENTIONS

To feel your back muscles, you have the right intentions.

Here is what I mean by that, instead of just grabbing the weight and going at it, you should think of full body tension and perfect reps.

You should put your body in a good starting position, creating tension in the body, especially around the shoulders, core, and hips.

Why?

Without proper tension, you are leaking energy, which is going to take away from your performance, and risk compensating for the lack of tension.

So, bad form and less work output will keep you from feeling your back muscles, muscle growth, and strength gains.

How do you know if you compensating?

You will feel your biceps doing the majority of the pulling instead of the back muscles. The biceps are involved and will help but should not be the primary muscle during your pulling exercises.

Here is how you want to start in a good position for your pulling exercises:

1. Grab the handles and squeeze your armpits like you have an orange there and you want to make orange juice.
2. Stack your ribs over your hips, brace the core, and squeeze your glutes
3. When you pull, think about pulling with your elbows, not your hands.
4. When rowing, don’t let the elbows go behind you, stop when your elbows are in the middle of your ribs
5. Drive the shoulders and elbows down towards the hips while squeezing the shoulder blades together.

Rough guidelines for any row variation you do to help engage the back with proper tension, and now energy leaks.

INTENSITY

Lastly, you need to have the right intensity to feel your back muscles.

Here is what I mean, it will be difficult for you to feel your back muscles when you lift super heavy for 1-5 reps.

When your lifting heavy, you’re not thinking about feeling the muscle working, you’re thinking about the movement, your form, and the small details of the movement so you can lift that weight successfully and safely.

If you are wanting to feel your back muscles, you will have to drop the ego, increase the reps between 8-20 reps, and use the tips from above about time under tension.

If you want to create the mind-muscle connection to your back, you will have to put in the reps, slow and controlled so you can feel the burn.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON HOW YOU CAN FEEL YOUR BACK MUSCLES

I hope you found this blog useful and be able to use the tips I gave to help you feel your back muscles.

When you can do that, your back will gain muscle and strength, and you will move better for it.

Some final thoughts about training your back in reference to moving better.

As it was mentioned at the beginning of this blog, you are in a world where technology puts you in these forward positions for long periods of time. This can cause shoulder, neck, and low back issues over time.

Training your back will be the savior for avoiding or correcting these issues. Because you are in this forward position, I recommend that you look at you’re training and think about having a 3:1 ratio of pulling to pushing.

More pulling, specifically horizontal pulling, will help keep your shoulders healthy and functional, and give support to your neck and low back.

Also, don’t forget, if you want to push heavy, you should have a strong, stable back for support and stability for you to push.

So, you should train so you can feel your back muscles, get them big and strong, so you can push heavier weights, have healthy shoulders, and look good doing it.

Thank you for reading, I hope you found this informational and helpful. If you have any questions, email me at cory@caruthersfitness.com. I am more than happy to help.