Tired of a flat-looking back? These thick back exercises will change the game.

Did you know that there are 6 key muscles responsible for giving your back a thick, powerful look?

However, each one has a unique function that most people overlook in their back workouts. I know because after years of doing the “best” back exercises, my back still looked flat. But once I learned how to properly target these muscles with thick back exercises, my back thickness and definition completely transformed — it even improved my posture.

Today, I’ll break down the only 2 thick back exercises you need to grow these muscles, plus an underrated technique that can help you build the kind of back most guys never achieve. 

Exercise 1

The first of our thick back exercises will focus on this area right here: the mid and lower traps, rhomboids, and teres muscles. 

Usually, people will use a wide-grip barbell or Pendlay rows to target this area. While these can build an impressive back, they demand a lot from your lower back to keep you stabilized. 

Plus, if you’ve got a longer torso like me, the increased lever makes the movement more fatiguing, especially as you get stronger.

Nowadays, I’ve seen better results by training my lower back separately and isolating my mid and upper back with a stabilized low-to-high row, one of the most effective thick back exercises that I’ve found.

I’ll show this on cables first and then dumbbells, but there are 2 things you need to get right.

First, Arm Path

First is the arm path.

If you do a row with your elbows tucked to your sides, you’ll hit more of your lats.

Go too high, and you’ll:

• Limit how far back you can pull, and
• Start hitting some of the muscles we’ll work with in exercise 2

The sweet spot for this thick back exercise is right around 45 degrees, or an arrow shape.

Now, most people row using the V-bar grip here. While this can work, it doesn’t allow you to angle your elbows out quite as we want, and it can become really uncomfortable on your wrists, especially at the end position.

A better option is to switch to a wider grip, like the lat pulldown bar.

Then, grab the bar just slightly outside of shoulder-width. You can tell if your grip is correct if you pay attention to your forearms. When you pull, if your forearms angle in, adjust your grip to go wider. If they angle out, go narrower. They should line up directly behind your hands. 

Next, Pulling Angle

Next, you want to set up your pulling angle. And to hit more of the upper back muscles, you’ll want a row that goes from low to high. However, there’s a sweet spot.

That’s Coach Kassem, a biomechanics expert obsessed with finding the best way to train each muscle. 

His pulley was adjustable, so we just moved it lower.

But if you’re using a fixed pulley like me, you can replicate this by bracing your core and then leaning back slightly.

You can see now how the pulling angle is as if the cable were set lower.

However, you don’t want to lean back too far as this will start hitting the muscles we’ll use in the second of our thick back exercises. 

You can tell if you’ve leaned back too far if it feels more like a “shrug” rather than a row. 

Once you get the angle right, lock your torso and don’t let it move. Then, you’ll want to avoid making the biggest mistake that’ll stop your back from growing.

Avoid This Mistake When Performing Thick Back Exercises

If you sit all day and tend to adopt a hunched-over posture, you might have noticed that you have a hard time really feeling your back muscles working. That’s because they’re never really used.

And so when you do a row, which is one of the best thick back exercises (if done right), if you try to use these muscles, they’re so weak that guess what decides to take over?

Your arms.

It’s called the “arm pulling mistake”.

I know because for years I was an arm puller.

My biceps basically stole all my back gains until I learned how to actually use my back.

Now you can tell if you’re an arm puller when you row if your arms move but your shoulders stay in the same position or end up rolling forward.

How To Fix Arm Pulling

To fix this, understand that the main role of the muscles we’re trying to hit in these thick back exercises is retraction: pulling your shoulder blade back and in toward your spine.

So, to get them to do that when you row, let them open up fully at the start of each rep. Then, start the rep by thinking about pulling back and out with your elbows, and then keep pulling back as far as you can.

I’ve found it helpful to watch my shoulders as I pull, making sure they not only move forward at the beginning of each rep but actually move backwards as I pull the weight, rather than staying in one place and letting my arms do all the moving. 

A cue that might also help is rather than thinking about pulling the bar to your chest, think about opening and pulling your chest toward the bar, as if you were doing an inverted row.

The motion should almost feel like a breaststroke, and when done properly, you should feel your mid-back and some of your upper back muscles working. 

Don't Have Cables? Exercise 1 Alternative

But what if you don’t have cables to perform the first of our thick back exercises?

Well, if you’ve just got a bench and dumbbells, here’s one of the many thick back exercises we use inside the Built With Science app. Our members can instantly swap exercises based on whatever equipment they have access to and still work the exact same muscles. 

First, set an incline bench to about 30 degrees, usually 2 to 3 notches up from the bottom. 

Lay your chest on it and hang your arms down. Notice how this now replicates the same low-to-high pull we did on cables.

From here, pull your elbows back in that arrow shape I mentioned earlier. 

But don’t let your arms take over by bending your forearms in as you pull.

Maintain tension in your back by keeping your forearms directly below your elbows. 

It can also be helpful if, rather than “pulling the weight,” you think about pulling your chest through the bench. 

Now, if you have longer arms or find this awkward with your elbows against the bench, you can do a single-arm version by bending over with a side stance and supporting one hand on an incline bench.

Just keep your body angled up slightly to replicate that low-to-high pulling motion, then simply pull your elbow back while keeping it angled out.

Exercise 2

But although this first move is great for building thickness in your mid-back, we need a second thick back exercise to make sure your upper back muscles don’t get left behind. Mainly the rear delts and the upper fibers of the traps.

When well-developed, these muscles pop and can let everyone know, “yes, I do indeed lift,” even when you wear a shirt or tank.

Now, unlike in exercise 1, where the mid-traps and rhomboids are mainly responsible for retraction, the upper fibers of the traps lift the shoulder blade in what’s called elevation.

So we still want to do a row, but one that involves more of an upward “shrug” motion, something many thick back exercises tend to overlook.

Now, you can simply perform the cable row from Exercise 1, but with a steeper lean back. A better option, though, is to use the same bench and dumbbell setup from earlier, but this time, use a higher angle. Around 60 degrees is the sweet spot, which is usually 2 to 3 notches down from the top position. 

While standing, set your chest on the bench, then pull your elbows back—but this time, keep them flared out wider than we did in Exercise 1.

It’s not quite an upright row; it’s essentially a very low-to-high row with the elbows going up and back. Think about rowing back while shrugging your shoulders up. 

If you can imagine a “reverse dip” motion, that’s exactly what we’re going for.

If you do this properly, after you do a set and the blood starts flowing into your muscles, you should still feel this in your mid-back, but most of the pump and tension should be higher in your upper traps. 

As for weight, if you used dumbbells for exercise 1, you should be able to go about 10–15 lbs heavier here.

Bonus Technique

But even with these 2 thick back exercises, your back won’t grow as fast as it could without the bonus technique I promised earlier.

Here’s exactly how it works.

For the first of our 2 thick back exercises, after you can’t do any more full reps, rather than trying to bust out more reps by using momentum or your biceps, take your back to true failure by keeping your arms straight and focusing on simply opening up your shoulder blades, then using your mid-back muscles to squeeze them together.

You should be able to bang out at least 4 or 5 reps like this.

For the second of our thick back exercises, do the same thing, but this time focus more on “shrugging” the weight up using your upper traps. 

I personally do this after every set, but start by trying it on your last set or doing a 4th set where you focus solely on this motion, and consider ramping it up from there.

TL;DR

• There are 6 key muscles that create back thickness; most people overlook them by relying on width-focused lat exercises.
• Traditional barbell rows aren’t always ideal. They fatigue your lower back and often fail to fully activate the mid and upper back.
• Exercise 1 of our thick back exercises is a low-to-high row variation that targets the mid traps, rhomboids, and teres, done with cables or an incline bench to reduce lower back strain and improve scapular retraction.
• Exercise 2 of our thick back exercises trains the upper traps and rear delts using a higher-angle row with a shrugging motion — essential for that “3D” look from behind.
• Bonus technique: finish with a mechanical drop set. After hitting failure, switch to straight-arm scap squeezes to fully exhaust your back and stimulate more growth.

What's Next?

Remember, this article focuses on thick back exercises for size and definition. If you do these 2 thick back exercises for 3–4 sets of 8–12 reps once or twice a week, that’ll do the job.

But you can’t forget about back width. While these thick back exercises build depth, your lats create the width that completes the look, which is where the lats come in.

And for the 2 best exercises to help you grow them, check out this article next.

But if you want me to take care of all the guesswork for you — for both your workouts and nutrition — then try 2 weeks free of my new fitness app below. It has transformed thousands of people, and I guarantee that if you follow the plan, it’ll work for you too.

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Thanks for sticking to the end, and I'll catch you next time!