Frank McGrath’s intuitive back workout

Do you want a back like that of blacks? Push your ego to the limit and your body will reach its goal. Here are the essential back training basics from Frank “Wrath” McGrath.

You’ve no doubt heard elite bodybuilders say they train “by feel.” But what does it really mean? When most of us try to train this way, training simply becomes a simple mishmash of exercises.

We could learn a lot from IFBB pro Frank “Wrath” McGrath. Luckily, he enjoys learning from us beginners, even if you wouldn’t know it from his face.

This seasoned iron warrior trains the same way he shops: with specific expectations in mind. According to him, only 16-20 sets could promote back growth, while others do endless exercises and spend hours in the gym.

Yes… now five elements for the perfect intuitive training.

The basics…

Frank never goes to the gym without a plan. The difference is that he has several options in mind and chooses the most suitable one based on certain factors.

“Today I have an idea, there will be a shoulder or back workout,” he says. “Especially if you’re traveling and some muscle groups are still sore, you need to vary your workouts. Maybe my back hurts too much today, and maybe my legs hurt, so I change my training days.”

Today my back doesn’t hurt anymore. She is strong.

Just similar exercises

Frank’s chosen exercises may seem random at first glance, but when you dig deeper, it all makes sense.

In Frank’s video of his back workout, we saw that he started the day with a heavy horizontal rope pull. This time start with a vertical pull on the rope with a wide grip. Why? “I found an old school bar, it feels like you’re holding the handlebars of a bicycle. I have to try it,” he explains succinctly.

The result of this whim is 4 or 5 sets – he says: “I really don’t know what warms me up better and pushes me to work even harder than the horizontal or vertical rope pull, the T-bar pull.

His choice seemed random during the first exercise, but throughout the training his vision was clearly aligned with the goal. He started with a wide grip vertical pull, then moved to a narrow grip horizontal pull and neutral grip, then from the floor with a medium-width grip, a reverse grip, and finished with a medium-width grip pulldown. After all, his “wings” could not disappear anywhere – they were fully developed.

The grip style, grip width, angle, combination of trainers and free weights all perfectly synthesize each other, like the ancient Greek phalanx.

And nothing more

After many rope pulls, he felt ready to push himself with the T-bar pull. Sure, he could have simply piled on 50 lb. pancakes and destroyed himself, but he knew he could get more work done and, more importantly, better quality work if he took the old-school approach with a 25 lb. pancake. So I gradually increased the difficulty of my sets by adding weight to a “good enough” set.

This seemingly trivial trick of using smaller pancakes pays off. First of all, you will be able to pull your elbows much further back and thus obtain better muscle contraction. Second, it creates the perfect conditions for a beastly dropset at the end of the exercise. He reduced the weight in small increments until exhaustion. He could have kept the weight off until he had a pancake or two left, but he didn’t. He knew when the exercise was finished and he did it (more on that in the next paragraph).

How long did he rest between sets? As long as necessary, but no more.

Difficult, but not too difficult

It takes decades to sculpt a physique like his, not just years. With experience, he has discovered that the golden way when it comes to weights is somewhere between “full muscle work” and “a hell of an effort to move the bar.” His back muscles agree with this today.

“I remember there were days when I would do 4-pancake pull-ups, I would do very heavy approaches,” he recalls. “The day I started really focusing on contracting my muscles and making them work as hard as possible, maintaining as much load as possible minus a little bit for complete weight control, my back started to progress.”

Do you want to know how it grows? Here’s how. It’s not math. It’s a feeling, and it takes a very open mind and thousands of repetitions to discover it.

Amplitude

Looking over his shoulder it becomes inevitably clear that he knows what he is doing and is on the right path.

So what does he do? Contracts/contracts the muscles and stretches them fully (maximum amplitude). “It’s always a stretch and a contraction. All I do in each exercise is stretch and contract,” he says. “Stretching a muscle is as important as contracting it.”

He says he’s been an “absolute, full-scale supporter” since day one. Once again, he listens to his body, which tells him when to change direction.

This is what a muscle-mind combination looks like…. the brain focuses on the barbell. “When I train, my mind is focused on the muscles I’m working on. I’m not just moving the weights, I’m thinking about them,” he says. “I think my back is too narrow. I think about how it widens when I do the corresponding exercise. I think about how it gets thicker when I pull the rope. These things are always in my mind.”

Ask yourself: what’s on your mind? Try feeling the satisfaction of this back workout today and see the results in the future.

Back training “with feeling”

1. Vertical chest pull (wide grip, palms away from you): 4-5 sets, 8-12 reps
2. Horizontal rope pull (neutral grip): 4-5 sets, 8-12 repetitions
3. T-bar pull-ups: Work up to the heaviest set, increasing 10 to 20 pounds until you reach the maximum weight you can properly perform the exercise at. Then add a triple or quad dropset.
4. Vertical chest rope pull (narrow grip, palms facing you): 4-5 sets, 8-12 reps

That’s all for this time!