If you’re looking for back workouts for women designed to tone, you’ve come to the right place. You could even say that I’ve got your back.
Okay, okay. No more dad jokes.
Instead, I’ll just say that today, I’m going to give you the best back routines for women, specifically to get a toned back.
You’ll learn exactly what muscles your back is made up of, what you need to be doing in order to get a toned back, and then I’ll give you back routines to help get you started.
Sound good?
Let’s go.
Back Anatomy
Before we get to the best back workouts for women, we have to know what muscles you’ll be working.
As you can see, your back is made up of many different muscles. It’s actually made up of many more muscles than are in this diagram, but these are the primary muscles that we’ll be focusing on.
There are hundreds of different back exercises, all of which can target different muscles depending on how you do them.
How to work your back muscles
Every single muscle in your back will be worked with pulling exercises.
Changing the position of your elbows and the direction you are pulling your arms will determine which muscles you are going to target during your back routine.
Vertical pulling exercises
When you pull a weight from above your head, like during a lat pulldown, you are going to be primarily working your lat muscles.
Horizontal pulling exercises
Typically, when you pull a weight towards you horizontally like during a seated cable row, you will be working more of your upper back muscles.
These include your rear delts, rhomboids, teres, and trap muscles.
However, changing the angle of your elbows and your grip position can make a huge difference in the muscles you are working.
When you keep your elbows closer to your body, and use an underhand or neutral grip, you will target your lat muscles more EVEN if you are still pulling horizontally.
An example would be a seated cable row using an underhand grip.
How to get a toned back
Anyone can throw together a few back exercises and call it a workout, but that’s not what we do around here!
There is a difference between exercising and training.
Exercising is just doing random exercises in no particular order.
Training is having a clearly defined goal, and then executing the steps needed in order to achieve that goal.
When it comes to getting toned back muscles, we’re going to be focusing on exercises that get you stronger and build muscle. Getting toned really comes down to having muscle, and being lean enough to actually see that muscle.
And if you’re worried about getting too bulky by focusing on building muscle, let me put your mind at ease.
Back workouts for women
There are literally thousands of different workouts you can do to train your back.
Which workouts are best for you is going to depend on how many days per week you workout, your workout split, and your ability level.
These are three examples of back routines for women that I’ve used to help my clients build muscle and get stronger.
“Total back toning”
3 sets of 8-10 reps
*Rest 2-3 minutes between sets
3 sets of 6-8 reps each arm
*Rest 2-3 minutes between sets
3 sets of 10-12 reps
*Rest 1-2 minutes between sets
3 sets of 8-10 reps each arm
*Rest 1-2 minutes between sets
“Chin-up chic”
3 sets of 3 reps with a 5 second eccentric lowering!
*Rest 1-2 minutes between sets
3 sets of 8-10 reps
*Rest 2-3 minutes between sets
3 sets of 8-10 reps each arm
*Rest. 2-3 minutes between sets
3 sets of 8-10 reps
*Rest 1-2 minutes between sets
“Goddess gains”
1) Cable single arm bench supported pulldowns
3 sets of 8-10 reps each arm
*Rest 2-3 minutes between sets
3 sets of 8-10 reps
*Rest 2-3 minutes between sets
3 sets of 10-12 reps with a 2 second pause at the top
*Rest 1-2 minutes between sets
4A) Hollow holds
3 sets of 30 seconds
4B) Suitcase carries
3 sets of 20 yards each side
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More back training advice
Just doing these workouts probably won’t give you the results you want..
If you really want to get results with your back workouts, here are a few more things to keep in mind.
Push yourself
If you really want a stronger, more defined, toned back..
You need to be pushing yourself during these workouts! (actually you need to PULL yourself but you get what I mean..)
When you finish a set of an exercise, you should only be able to do 1-3 more reps with the weight you chose. If you could have done 4, 5, 6 or more reps with the weight you just used, you need to be lifting heavier!
You need to give your back muscles a good reason to grow and get stronger. If all of your sets look easy, you’re never going to get the results you want.
If you’re not sure if you’re lifting heavy enough, the video below will explain everything you need to know about how heavy you should be lifting.
Try to improve each workout
Every workout, you need to be trying to increase the weight you’re lifting, the amount of reps you’re doing, or a combination of the two.
This is something called progressive overload.
It simply means that you are making the workouts more difficult over time.
If you just keep doing the same weight and the same workouts indefinitely, you’ll never see your back muscles getting stronger or getting more defined!
Use lifting straps
The longer you workout, the stronger you are going to get.
At a certain point, your back muscles will get stronger than your grip muscles.
When you get to that point, you should start using lifting straps.
Lifting straps are going to help you hold onto more weight, which will allow you to use a weight that’s heavy enough to challenge your back.
If you’re not sure how to use lifting straps, check out the video below.
Wrapping up Back Workouts for Women
There you have it!
If you want a stronger, more toned back, these back routines for women will help you get started.
The key to getting a toned back is to build muscle, and then be lean enough to actually see that muscle.
Need help getting leaner? Check out more from my blog for more articles on weight loss and nutrition tips.
If you want someone to take all the guesswork out of your training and nutrition and tailor a workout plan specifically for you, you can apply for coaching to see if we’d be a good fit for each other.
Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions, leave them below!