Towards the end of the seminal 1977 bodybuilding documentary Pumping Iron, Mr. Universe Franco Columbu stands onstage for the prejudging at the 1975 Mr. Olympia contest in Pretoria, South Africa. Pivoting upstage, the diminutive Sardinian places his hands on his waist and spreads his upper back.
As he settles into the pose, Columbu’s lats — the thick muscles that run from the armpits to the sides of the waist — seem almost impossibly wide, nearly eclipsing the space between his elbows and torso. As he holds the pose, bodybuilders Danny Padilla and Ken Waller, sitting behind the judges, are astonished.
“He could fly with that,” says Padilla.
“We’ll call him The Bat from now on,” says Waller. “Franco the Bat.”
To a competitive bodybuilder, the lat spread is a necessary skill, akin to a squat for a powerlifter or a snatch for a weightlifter. Own the pose, and you have a shot at physique-sport greatness.
For everyone else, a lat spread shows off your muscular development and gets you more connected to your body. So how do you do it? As with any bodybuilding pose, you need muscle mass and the right skills. Here’s your guide to getting both — you’ll learn how to lat spread and make it look just right.
What Is a Lat Spread?
Competitive bodybuilding shows take place in multiple stages, or rounds, including an early round of compulsory poses that display the body’s major muscle groups. Spreading the lats is integral to two of these poses — the front and rear lat spread.
Your lats are the big muscles running down the sides of your back. If you raise your arms above your head, you’ll likely feel or see your lats moving up with the motion along the middle and upper parts of your rib cage. On people with bigger lats, they might take on a V-shape, with your lat muscles extending outward to the sides from your upper torso.
A well-executed lat spread is meant to show off both how wide and how thick your lats are. This is a crucial part of bodybuilding, both when you’re facing away from the judges and facing toward them.
How to Lat Spread
Unlike, say, flexing your biceps, activating your lats can be tricky at first. If you’re not used to flexing them, try this:
- Push your chest forward.
- Push your shoulders downwards towards your hips, as if performing the opposite of a shrugging action (this contracts the lats).
- Maintaining the tension on your lats, push your shoulder blades outward from your spine and hold the position.
Bingo: you’re spreading your lats. And if you look — and feel — a little like a cobra spreading its hood, you’re doing it right.
How to Front Lat Spread
Once you’ve got this down, you’ll want to refine the pose so that the rest of your body gets in on the action.
Here’s how to do the front version:
- Stand, legs together and feet slightly askew, with your hands high on your hips.
- Tense your legs to bring out the muscles of your thighs.
- Lift your chest high.
- Pinch the sides of your waist between your thumbs and your index fingers.
- Widen your shoulders and flare your lats out as far as possible.
- Contract your chest muscles.
It’s an impressive look. Google images of “Lee Haney NYC manhole” for an iconic example.
How to Rear Lat Spread
The rear lat spread is similar, though there are subtle differences in the setup and execution. Here’s how it goes:
- Stand with your back to the audience (real or imagined).
- Step one leg backward and raise that heel slightly off the ground, contracting your calf as hard as you can.
- Pinch the sides of your waist between your thumbs and your index fingers.
- Round your chest slightly forward and flare your lats out as far as possible.
The big difference: in the rear lat spread, you round your chest slightly forward to help create that ultra-wide ‘cobra-hood’ look.
Anatomy of the Lats
As muscles go, the latissimus dorsi are huge. Each muscle runs outward from a line of connective tissue adjacent to your lumbar spine to a point of insertion near the top of your upper arm bone. Their function is to pull your upper arms backward and downward, as well as link the thoracolumbar fascia to the shoulder blade and humerus.
How Do Your Lats Work?
Functionally, the lats work in conjunction with your traps (the large, trapezoidal muscles that cover much of the center of your upper back) and rhomboids (the smaller muscles surrounding the shoulder blades).
The lats drive any movement that requires you to pull an object toward the front of your torso or bring your body weight toward a stationary object. You can break these moves into two major categories:
- In a vertical pull, the line of resistance runs parallel to your spine. Examples include all types of lat pulldowns or pull-ups, in which your arms move from overhead to shoulder height.
- In a horizontal pull, the line of resistance runs perpendicular to your spine. Examples include cable rows and inverted rows, in which your hands move from a forward-reach position to a position near the sides of your torso.
[Read More: The 7 Fundamental Movement Patterns Your Program Needs]
The Best Exercises to Improve Your Lat Spread
Practicing your poses is the best way to get better at the actual posing component of bodybuilding. But still, you’ll want to build powerful, well-developed lats to make your poses as effective as possible.
Ultimately, your workouts will determine how impressive you look when you manta ray up. And since the lats are the centerpiece of the lat spread, the first step in filling out this pose is building those key muscles with pulling movements.
[Read More: The 5 Best Lower Lat Exercises for a Denser Back]
1. Assisted Neutral-Grip Pull-Up
Pull-ups are unquestionably a great back-builder, placing huge demands on the lats in both the fully stretched and the fully contracted position.
The downside? For all but the most seasoned lifters, pull-ups are very, very tough.
Solution: start with this band-assisted version, and work up to the bodyweight version over time by using a slightly narrower band every workout.
Another option: perform the move with your feet elevated on a box in front of you, or braced against the chin-up apparatus.
How to Do It
- Hang a thick exercise band over the top of a chin-up bar. Pull the back loop through the front one and pull it till you have one large loop.
- Stand beneath the bar and place one knee through the loop.
- Grab the parallel handles and hang down with your arms fully extended. This is your starting position.
- Simultaneously pull your shoulder blades back and down and bend your arms, raising your body upwards till your chin clears the bar, keeping your upper arms roughly parallel the whole time.
- Pause for a second at the top. Slowly reverse the move, returning to the starting position. That’s one rep.
As you get stronger, use a thinner band to assist you. Over time, you may be able to perform the move without the band, and even with external resistance (such as a dumbbell held between your legs).
[Read More: The One-Month-Long Beginner Pull-Up Program]
2. Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown
Pulldowns help to widen your lats, filling out the space between your elbows and your torso in the lat spread.
The wide-grip position is tough; if you’re used to a close-grip variation, reduce the weight so you can go for a deep stretch and a full contraction on each rep.
How to Do It
- Attach a long bar to the lat-pulldown unit and select a medium-heavy weight.
- Take an overhand grip on the bar and sit on the seat, locking your thighs under the cross pad.
- Arch your back slightly and allow your shoulders to lift so you feel a deep stretch in your lats (this is your starting position).
- Pull the bar smoothly down to collarbone height.
- Squeeze your entire upper back musculature and hold for a one-count.
- Slowly reverse the move and return to the starting position. That’s one rep.
[Read More: How to Do Lat Pulldowns for a Wider Back]
3. Seated Cable Row
This move allows for an exceptional forward stretch of your upper back and lats, which helps you to own the wide-lats position you need for an impressive lat spread.
They also help to develop thickness in your mid-back, so that your lat spread has depth and width.
How to Do It
- Attach a V-grip handle (the one with two parallel handles set about six inches apart) to the cable of a seated cable row machine.
- Select a medium-heavy weight on the weight stack — lowball it if you’re unsure — and sit on the machine’s seat.
- Place your feet on the footplate, knees slightly bent, and keep them there throughout the exercise.
- Keeping your lower back flat, fold forward and take hold of the handles.
- Sit upright with your arms fully extended in front of you. This is your starting position.
- Keeping your torso upright, simultaneously pull your elbows back and your shoulder blades back and down.
- Squeeze your shoulder blades together at the top of the move and hold for a one-count.
- Slowly reverse the move, straightening your arms and returning to the starting position. That’s one rep.
[Read More: How To Do the Seated Cable Row for All the Back Size Without Fatigue]
Spread Your Wings
You can’t dominate on stage if your lats aren’t well-developed. But even an incredible set of lats can be hidden away if you don’t know how to best show them off. Now that you know how to make your lats appear larger than life, you can set your sights on stronger posing — and maybe even lifting — all around. When you learn how to lat spread, your bodybuilding potential will really take flight.
Featured Image: Tanya Lapidus / Shutterstock
