Every muscle in the body plays a different role in helping you move and keeping you pain free.
Completely neglecting any of these muscles can lead to imbalances, where one muscle is too weak to perform its role and another must pick up the slack, which can often contribute to injury.
According to Ladder trainer Jennifer Jacobs, there’s one muscle that is often neglected in strength training workouts.
“I would say the most under trained muscle group, especially for women as we age, are our lats, so the sides of our back,” she tells Fit&Well.
According to Jacobs, popular upper-body exercises often don’t fully engage these muscles, “I think a lot of rowing movements, pulling movements, focus on the middle of our backs and upper traps and rhomboids—we really neglect the lats,” she explains.
To combat this, Jacobs recommends adding a move called the dumbbell pullover to your workouts.
“It’s a great way to improve mobility and strengthen your lats and shoulders, and improve your posture over time," she explains.
“This is the most underrated movement and the one I think people aren’t doing enough.”
How to do the dumbbell pullover
You’ll need a dumbbell for this exercise. “Start with something light,” says Jacobs. She says 10lbs is a good place to start, which shouldn’t feel too heavy when held in both hands.
Because Jacobs recommends performing it on the floor, you might also want to use an exercise mat to make it more comfortable.
- Lie on your back with your knees bent, feet on the floor.
- Hold a dumbbell above your collarbones, with both hands cupping the head of the weight that’s closest to the ceiling and a slight bend in your elbows.
- Keeping the slight bend in your elbows throughout and moving with control, slowly lower the weight behind your head until the bottom of the dumbbell taps the floor.
- Lift the dumbbell back to the starting position.
- Complete 8 to 12 repetitions.
You’ll often see people doing this exercise lying on a workout bench, but Jacobs explains that it’s better to do it lying on the floor, particularly for beginners.
“A lot of times we see it on a bench, but the floor is going to offer the most support, because there’s only so far the dumbbell can travel over our head,” she says.
When doing the move on a bench, you might lose control, which can impact the effectiveness of the move, and potentially lead to injury.
When you can fully touch the dumbbell to the floor overhead 12 times, then it might be time to try it on a bench.
"Once you increase mobility, you can elevate yourself and add a bench," Jacobs says.
You can also do it with two dumbbells if you want to increase the difficulty, because then the arms have to work individually.
Add this move to your workouts at least twice a week and gradually increase the weight over time to see improvements in your lat strength.
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