am of the opposite thought . If your grip is not good , strengthen it by ditching the straps for a while . You may have to lower the weights initially , but see it as taking one step back to take 5 forward . Many studies show that your grip strength is directly correlated to your central nervous system efficiency . The harder you grip , the more the muscle fibres that will be activated , and the more stabilization you will create . Try going for a very heavy set of bench presses and completely relax your grip . Now when it gets hard , squeeze that bar as hard as possible and tell me how you feel . Once you improve your grip strength through ditching straps for a few months and working on grip movements , slowly introduce straps again to perhaps your heaviest set of deadlifts or barbell rows while still focusing on gripping that bar as hard as possible . That is when you will really notice your progress skyrocket .
4 . Use a full range of motion- This does not need to be done in 1 specific workout but can be done throughout your training week . Especially with back , it is hard to find 1 exercise that will properly load the full stretch and the full contraction of the proper muscles . What this means is that you want to methodically pick the right exercises to be able to do this in . Perhaps you can focus on fully shortening the lats by using a cable pullover but this movement does not fully stretch the lats . Then later in the workout you can utilize a weighted pull-up where you focus on loading those lats in the fully lengthened position overhead . This is how you want to start thinking of your back training . “ How can I tax these fibres optimally ?” as opposed to “ how can I get this weight from point A to point B ?”
5 . Do not be afraid to use machines- We always hear that the most muscle growth you will get is from free weight movements . I do not disagree with that at all , but I do think machines have their place . Especially in back training . There are some brands out there that are properly designed to hit the back with the descending strength curve that involves most back movements . All this means is that the movement feels easier in the stretched position and gets substantiallyharder in the contracted position . In order to fully tax these fibers , certain machines will give you more load in the stretch and as you reach the shortened position the load gets lighter but the tension on the muscles is maximized as opposed to not even being able to access this range .
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