💭 GIVE YOURSELF A CHANCE

Your TBT Rundown:

💭 TBT MOTIVATION

GIVE YOURSELF A CHANCE 👏🏿

I'm excited about myself and the things I'm still learning about myself and this life. It's really interesting because there were other times in my life when I did not understand as vividly as I believe I do today. I was angry and less aware. As a result of that, I considered doing things that would have cut my life short. Had I done that, I would not know some of the good things that I have been exposed to and now understand today.

As sure as I have scars on my face and scars on my wrists, the truth is just what I’ve said. I've been somewhere, but more importantly, I now know today that I'm going somewhere.

If there’s a person out there who’s looking around thinking, "Man, I look around at my life, and this thing is not what I want; this is not what I like," there's an old saying that said, "Well hey, you know what? You made your bed, and you'll have to lie in it. If you are looking around in that same situation and saying, "Man, this is terrible; I don't think I want to go on anymore," think about this: Life can be what you make it.

• You can get up

• You can change the mattress

• You can change the bedding

• You can get a new box spring

• You can get a whole new bed

• You can create it.

I think this life can be a really wonderful thing. And a person—whether they know it or not, whether they understand it or not—can create their own destiny.

Thoughts become things. Life can be beautiful.

Don't give up, Give yourself a chance.

💭 TBT TRAINING

BACK DAY (Full Workout)💪🏿

Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown

I’m seated with my knees braced under the pad for this exercise. Normally, I bring the bar down to just below my chin in this position. However, I often switch it up by leaning forward into the seat with my legs extended behind me instead of under the knee pads. This adjustment means I use less weight, but it lets me concentrate more on the muscle engagement in my back. This position also makes it easier to do pulldowns behind the neck, which I incorporate regularly. I bring the bar down in a controlled manner, engaging my traps, rear delts, and then lats, with a slight rotation of my elbows, alternately opening and closing my scapula. Even though I might use the full stack, it’s not about the weight—it’s about effectively contracting the target muscles.

Close-Grip Pulldown

There is no standard back workout for me. You might read this article and then see me at the gym, training my back in a completely different way than described here. I constantly mix things up: varying the reps and sets, changing exercises, and altering how I perform them. When doing close-grip pulldowns, I avoid leaning back to pull more weight. Instead, I focus on pulling the handle to my upper chest and squeezing my lats as hard as I can. I visualize my arms as hooks, aiming to reduce bicep involvement as much as possible in my back exercises.

Barbell Row

Nowadays, many guys do these Dorian Yates-style: standing at a steep angle, around 75 degrees or more, pulling the bar into their lower abdomen with a shoulder-width underhand grip, really focusing on the mid-back. I, on the other hand, stick to the traditional method of barbell rows, like Arnold and Lee Haney did. I bend completely over, with my upper body parallel to the floor. My grip is wide—so wide that my hands are almost touching the bar's sleeves. I push my hips back and lift my chest to fully engage my lats as I pull the bar to just below my pecs, not to my lower abdomen. You'll often see me doing these with four plates on each side; I could handle more weight if I adjusted my grip and stance.

T-Bar Row

My approach to these exercises is similar to how I do barbell rows: I bend forward significantly. My reps are fast but controlled, with a distinct pause at the top of each rep. I don’t jerk the weight up. I don’t load the bar with eight or nine 45-pound plates. While my strength would allow for that if I adjusted my form, that’s not my focus.

Seated Row

I use a seated cable row station in this setup, though I frequently switch to a machine for variety. I aim to draw my elbows back to fully engage my mid and lower lats while extending my arms out enough to achieve a deep stretch in my lats without overextending my upper body. In a previous article about shoulder training, I noted how I bring the handle to my upper chest to target my rear delts and traps. When focusing on my back, as I am here, I pull the handle in towards my abdomen.

Deadlift

I value deadlifts because, like squats, they hit a wide range of muscles. Trainers who skip deadlifts end up with gaps between their lats and upper glutes. I start each rep by dropping my hips as if settling into the movement. I typically use a double overhand rather than the mixed grip often used by powerlifters. I aim to feel the exercise working the entire rear of my body, especially my spinal erectors.