Ask someone on the street what makes someone look jacked, and they’ll probably rattle off the usual: biceps, triceps, and pecs. Ask a jacked person what makes someone jacked, and they’ll tell you the truth: a big back. While big arms and a chest you could rest a shelf on are certainly part of the equation, a barn door back is the true sign of a seasoned gym bro and dedicated meathead. Think Superman or Broley from Dragon Ball Z.
Superheroes aside, a wide back and V-taper (when your upper back tapers, making your upper body look like an upside-down pyramid) isn’t a pipe dream. To help us help you achieve maximum back girth, we rang up strength coach Paris Butler, better known as Bald Omni Man on Instagram and YouTube, who—with his immense catalog of educational videos and free lifting programs—has helped a ton of people (myself included) get closer to their fitness goals. He also has a preposterously wide back himself. So, ready the preworkout and queue up a hype playlist—it’s time to get wide.
Train with intensity, but be smart
“Having a V-taper is largely due to the size of your waist and just your overall development, which is the result of your training as a whole,” Butler says. “For most people, the best place to start is to restructure your training into an upper/lower type of program so that you can fully focus on your upper body muscles without having to worry about your lower body muscles getting worked on the same day.” He recommends having a large section of your program dedicated specifically to your pulling exercises—things like pull-ups, rows, pull-downs, and pull-overs—to grow your back muscles. But your lats and upper back aren’t the only things that contribute to the barn door back look, he says.
“Put a big emphasis on your triceps and rear delts, too,” Butler says, adding that those muscle groups significantly contribute to the creation of a V-taper. “When you think about a V-taper, obviously the first thing that sticks out to you are the lats, because that’s what makes up most of it,” Butler says. “But when you look at the overall width of your physique from the back, [these other muscles], if they have meat to them, also add width to your V-taper, especially during your lat spread poses.”
If you didn't have developed rear delts or triceps and then you brought those up, he explains, your V-taper would look better—even if your lats stayed the same in size. As far as training intensity, it’s not just about the pump, he says. Getting
stronger at the exercises that target these muscles (and putting them as early in your training day as possible so you can really hit them hard) is key.
Click here to read more about the best training and recovery program to get a brawnier back.
