How To Train Erectors
The bedrock of a hulking back is your erector group.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with this muscle group, it looks like this:
Having big, strong erectors - generally speaking - makes the spine more resilient.
These muscles are what allow you to pick heavy stuff up off the floor.
Pretty important task for daily life.
Training the erectors is fairly straightforward.
In fact, people who'd rather train their legs accidentally train erectors in many exercises (which, in multiple instances, is unavoidable).
Today, I'm going to show you how I like to (intentionally) target the erectors.
First, we need to understand how to lengthen and shorten them.
Image taken from my target any muscle guide.
Next, we need to understand how to load the body so that the erectors are required to do the most amount of work:
Image taken from my target any muscle guide.
Last, we need to understand how to stabilize the rest of the body so that the erectors can rate-limit the motion.
Image taken from my target any muscle guide.
The summary is basically this:
- Learn how to round and arch your back (you can do it unloaded first).
- Put yourself in a stable environment - back extension and deadlift-like variants are my go-to.
- Grab onto something that's pulling your spine into a rounded position.
- Arch and round to execute!
If this is the first time you'd ever "directly" trained your erectors, start conservatively.
No, rounding your back is not inherently dangerous.
But just like any other exercise, there is inherent risk involved, and you should always be mindful about your body's current level of fitness and how it feels with every exercise you do.
If you're already doing a ton of back squat and deadlift-types of motions, it's unlikely that you're going to need additional volume of direct erector work (unless perhaps your erectors are a "weak point", however you determine that).
Happy erector training!
-Ben
P.S - all of the images in this email are pages taken directly from my target any muscle guide. You should seriously consider getting it. Click here to see the details.
P.P.S - I get messages almost every day about the success of the guide. Check this one out:
