Best exercises for lats

A V-tapered look is widely considered the gold standard of male physique aesthetics. In fact, more people walk into the gym with this goal in mind than any other. And there’s a good reason for that, as few visuals can compare to a striking silhouette with a broad upper body and a narrow midsection, resembling the letter “V.” That being said, the most important thing to achieve this look is building big, wide lats. With that in mind, in this blog, you’ll discover how to increase your lat spread faster, the best exercises for lats, and much more.

Best exercises for lats

Rowing exercises are an absolute no-brainer when it comes to the best exercises for lats. But which variation is the best? And most importantly, which one will challenge your lats muscles the most? While there is no right or wrong answer here, the bent-over barbell row has a very strong case. Why, you ask? Well, picture this: you’re bent over, gripping a barbell with determination, and pulling it towards your torso, squeezing those lats with every rep.

The best part is that this exercise not only targets your lats but also engages your rhomboids, rear delts, and even your biceps. Additionally, it also allows you to lift heavy loads, making it ideal for building serious strength and muscle. Top it off with promoting proper posture and scapular retraction, which can counteract the slouching effects of our desk-bound lives, and that’s what you call a full-on lat-laden adventure!

Another highly result-oriented exercise for lats is the wide-grip pull-up. This exercise has old school written all over it. In fact, Ronnie Coleman, widely regarded as the possessor of some of the best lats of all time, once said, “Never underestimate the power of wide-grip pull-ups to develop width and size.”

All this is to say that wide-grip pull-ups are among the best exercises for lats today and have very strong endorsements. It’s also one of the easiest exercises to get your form right. All you’ve got to do is hang on a bar with your hands far apart. Then you pull your body up until your chin is above the bar while making sure that both your hands are equally distanced apart from the center of the bar. 

Apart from this, wide-grip lat pulldowns are impressive for lower lats in most cases. The specific muscle activation during an exercise can vary from person to person based on factors such as anatomy and technique. But for the most part, you can count on wide-grip pulldowns to help you ace the V-taper look, and it’s easily one of the best exercises for lats.

To do this routine, you’ve got to sit on a lat pulldown machine, adjust the thigh pad, and grip the wide bar with an overhand grip wider than shoulder-width. Sit with a slight lean back, maintain a straight back, and pull the bar down towards your upper chest, squeezing your shoulder blades together and engaging your lats. Then slowly raise the bar back to the starting position. Focus on the mind-muscle connection and experiment with grip width for optimal results.

Now that you know the best exercises for lats, let’s take a closer look at how to increase your lat spread faster!

How to increase the lat spread faster

All the exercises mentioned above are some of the best exercises for lats. However, they should be considered as the fundamental exercises that lay the groundwork for a comprehensive lat workout. For optimal results, it is essential to incorporate a variety of grips and angles to target different areas effectively. So, for example, with bent-over barbell row, you can also do seated banded rows. What you add or subtract depends on the look you’re trying to achieve.

Plus, warming up nicely before a lat workout can also pay serious dividends. For that, you can do arm swings, shoulder circles, and lat stretches. All of these warmup activities will increase blood flow to the muscles, enhance flexibility, and prepare the body for the upcoming physical activity.

Furthermore, we can’t stress enough about the importance of taking the right supplements. Too often, gym rats engage in herd behavior and fall into the trap of taking supplements that are neither in line with their goals nor suit their routine. So on that note, if you want to build big, wide lats, the best supplement we can recommend is SD Matrix. It’s an advanced prohormone that can help you gain around 20 pounds of muscle in just one cycle. Of course, this will be distributed all around the body, so that’s not just lats.

That said, if you want to cycle a lighter prohormone, Epistane should be your pick. Alternatively, you can also opt for SARMS like RAD-140 and even SR9009. All these supplements are strong enough to transform you completely. Having saif that, if you need help figuring out which supplement will suit you the best, just drop us a line!

And, of course, you can find all of these supplements at SD Matrix. They all come with an iron-clad money-back guarantee. Meaning if you order them today and they don’t deliver the results we said they would, you can get all your money back. That’s how confident we are in our products.

Conclusion: best exercises for lats

Conclusively, when it comes to the best exercises for lats, the bent-over barbell row and wide-grip pull-ups and pulldowns take the spotlight. The bent-over barbell row is a powerhouse exercise that targets the lats and engages other key muscles, promoting strength and muscle development while improving posture and scapular retraction. On the other hand, wide-grip pull-ups have stood the test of time, endorsed by legends like Ronnie Coleman for their ability to build width and size in the lats.Wide-grip lat pulldowns also deserve recognition for contributing to the coveted V-taper look.

To maximize results, incorporating a variety of grips and angles is crucial. A proper warm-up routine and choosing the right supplements tailored to your goals are equally important factors. That said, hopefully, this blog answered all your questions about the best exercises for lats. Happy lifting!