If you watch someone perform the pulldown exercise, the normal functional motion is to pull the weight down in front of the head and have a very slight lean in your back while you reach the bottom of the exercise. This hits the lats very well and places maximum tension on the back muscles. Then, watch someone who pulls the weight down behind their head and you will instantly notice a hunching of the back, while the head moves forward in order for the bar to pass behind it. This causes undue stress on your neck, shoulders and rotator cuff muscles. The shoulder is not meant to rotate to that odd angle with pressure on it and this is what causes stress and possible injury to the rotator cuff.
I would also like to touch on another key item in your question which has to do with adding muscle mass to your back. It’s extremely important to use mass building, multi-joint exercises in your workout routine to stimulate the most muscle growth in your back. The king of all back building exercises is the deadlift and it should be the cornerstone exercise you include in your back workouts if your goal is to pack on slabs of thick muscle mass. Not only does the deadlift work your back extremely well, but it’s also an excellent whole body exercise that stimulates growth in your legs, arms and core! Here is a great mass building back workout for you to try:
- Deadlifts (4 sets of 8-10 reps)
- Seated Cable Rows (4 sets of 8-10 reps)
- Lat Pulldowns (to the front) (4 sets of 8-10 reps)
Along with using the right muscle building back exercises, remember that in order to get big, you need to eat big! Your diet is critical for adding lean muscle tissue since you need to give your body the fuel it needs to power you through an intense workout, recover from hard training and rebuild torn down muscle fibers after training. Read our Nutrition 101 article to learn about the best foods to include in your diet to build muscle and get huge!