JUSTIN SHIER’S 6 MUST-TRY BACK BUILDERS
Justin Shier’s Back Day Supplement Stack
For his pre-workout, Justin stacks one scoop of Mango Punch HOSSTILITY stimulant pre-workout with one scoop of the Stacked Series CREATINE micronized creatine monohydrate from the HOSSTILE Stacked Series.
His intra-workout consists of 1 scoop of Orange INTRA[R3] non stim intra-workout stacked with one scoop of Mixed Berry CDX Cluster Dextrin carbs from the HOSSTILE Stacked Series.
Justin Shier’s Back Workout
Machine Pullover
To begin his workout, Justin performs a pullover movement to fully warm up the lats because of its full range of motion. This exercise allows him to get a big stretch and hard contraction to prime him for his other movements. Pumping blood into the back before any compound movements is ideal for helping perform them to the best of your ability.
Justin slowly builds the weight up, working towards his top set. Once at his chosen weight for his top set, he performs a rest-pause set. For this, he performs the movement until failure three repeated times. In between these three repetitions, he takes 15 deep breaths. This allows him to regulate his breathing to perform the next set at his best.
Unilateral Lat Biased Pulldown
Next, Justin moves onto a lat pulldown movement. To make the underhand pulldown even more lat focused,
Justin explains to drift your elbows away from your body. Begin by holding the handle on its edge (closest to your body), allowing you to drive your elbow more efficiently and smoothly straight into your hip. Your hand will align with your ribcage when performing the movement. Justin also finds that slightly tilting your body into your working side gives better contraction, as he can dig into the lats more and get the most out of this movement.
Perform this movement unilaterally. Begin with your weaker side to set a pace, and focus on execution. Watch how Justin demonstrates this movement with complete control to achieve his desired results.
Smith Machine Bent-over Row
After the two specific lat movements, Justin moves onto bent-over rows so that he can work his whole back. This will engage not only his lats but also his erectors, rhomboids, and traps.
When performing this movement, keep a fixed hip and knee position. Keeping these points fixed will avoid errors in the execution, such as squatting to move the weight or rocking back and forth through the row. For the best contraction in this exercise, your knees should be slightly bent and completely locked, keeping your body stable. The only movement should be in your arms, bringing the bar toward you.
Justin performs 3 - 4 reps as he increases the weight, to feel the load before his top set to not waste energy.
Justin likes to use this movement to transition into working the upper back after the lats. This allows for his whole back to be activated, and he can now move on to an upper back focused movement.
Seal Row
Now that Justin has transitioned into his upper back, he performs seal rows. When setting up for this movement, use a bench that allows you to extend your arms fully. You will also need enough room for your shoulder blades to move around your rib cage.
Spread the dumbbells apart as far as they can, driving the elbows behind you as far as possible for a full contraction. Keep your chest flat against the bench, do not bring it up during the movement. This will allow for a full scapula retraction, giving the upper back focus Justin is after. Justin performs one warm-up set before moving into his top set.
Lat Pulldown
Justin now opts for a mid-back focused pulldown. To do this, place your hands slightly closer together on the bar. A good placement indication is to have them right where the bar starts to bend on either side. Justin performs his top set and chooses a drop set to finish this movement. He keeps the load the same as his top set, and performs a drop set of three, hitting failure each time. He doesn’t perform a rest-pause as he did at the start of his workout. He drops the weight and repeats the movement instantly, until his muscles are fully exhausted.
Seated Cable Row
To finish his workout, he performs seated cable rows. Justin focuses on dropping his shoulders and elbows and driving them into the hips through the movement. He is not chasing any heavy loads with this exercise; instead, he is performing high rep sets of 15 to really drill the lats.
Justin uses a neutral handle for this movement. This is slightly wider, which he finds aligns with his lats better, allowing for a smoother range of motion.
Keep a fixed hip and knee position with a neutral spine when performing this row. Drop your shoulders, and then begin. Stretch and row, and repeat. Keep the elbows driving into the hips as low as possible; the handle should glide right across your quads, allowing complete focus on those lats.