By level
Advanced Back Exercises
Ten movements are rated advanced, and they are not the ten heaviest. Five hang your whole bodyweight from something. The other five are barbell lifts. There is no third group.
The short answer
Advanced back exercises are the 10 hardest movements in BackMaxx, and they split evenly: five hang your bodyweight from a bar, five are barbell lifts with nothing supporting your torso. All 10 lead on Lat Width, Lower Back or Upper Back. No Traps or Rear Delts movement is rated advanced.
Ten movements, two positions
Five of the ten hang you from something: Commando Pull-up, L-Sit Pull-up, Towel Pull-up, Weighted Pull-up and Weighted Chin-up. Five are barbell lifts: Deadlift, Sumo Deadlift, Good Morning, Pendlay Row and Meadows Row. Advanced in BackMaxx means the position itself is the skill, so the thing that ends the set is usually not the muscle the movement is for.
| Movement | What ends the set |
|---|---|
| L-Sit Pull-up | The legs. Hold them parallel to the floor or the set is over, whatever the lats have left |
| Commando Pull-up | Resisting the twist as each rep passes a different shoulder over a lengthwise grip |
| Towel Pull-up | Grip, every time. It gives out before the lats, so the load builds gradually |
| Weighted Pull-up | Keeping the same full range once the plate is on |
| Weighted Chin-up | Bracing hard enough that the plate stops swinging |
| Deadlift | Bracing from a dead start with the bar dragging up the shins |
| Sumo Deadlift | Spreading the floor from a wide stance with the chest proud off the pull |
| Good Morning | How far you can bow with the bar racked on your upper back |
| Pendlay Row | Resetting the bar dead on the floor each rep and still rowing explosively |
| Meadows Row | Standing side-on to a landmine and driving the elbow high and back |
Half of them are Lat Width, and all five of those are bar work
Lat Width takes five advanced movements, Lower Back three, Upper Back two. That distribution is a direct read of the two positions above: hanging is a Lat Width problem, and a loaded barbell starting near the floor is a Lower Back one.
The Upper Back pair is the exception worth knowing. Pendlay Row and Meadows Row are both rows, but neither lets you cheat with momentum from a standing hinge — one resets on the floor, the other loads one side at a time from a landmine sleeve.
Why no Traps or Rear Delts movement is advanced
Neither zone has anything above intermediate, and that is a statement about the muscles rather than a gap in the list. The Rear Delts note reads: “Small muscle, high frequency. Light weight, strict form, more sets than you think.” There is no hard version of that instruction — there is only more of it, done strictly. If Rear Delts is the zone holding your total down, the Rear Delts page is a better use of a session than anything on this page.
Three of the ten run at home
Commando Pull-up, L-Sit Pull-up and Towel Pull-up. Every other advanced movement needs a loaded barbell or plates hanging from your waist, which is why one mounted bar is worth more to a home setup than any amount of dumbbells.
The three barbell hinges — Deadlift, Sumo Deadlift, Good Morning — all lead on Lower Back, the zone behind the Christmas tree look. Erectors recover slowly, so two of those a week is the sensible ceiling, not four.
How to slot them in
One advanced movement per session, first, before anything has fatigued. The defaults tell you the intent: seven of the ten sit at 3 × 4–6 or 3 × 4–8, and the three that climb higher are the ones where the reset or the range is the work rather than the weight — Good Morning and Meadows Row at 3 × 8–10, Pendlay Row at 3 × 5–8. These are low-rep, high-attention sets, and the rest of the session should be movements you can run without thinking.
If a strict Pull-up is still a work in progress, none of the five bar movements is available yet. The six-week Pull-Up Progression leads every session with hangs, negatives and assisted reps for exactly that reason, and the Pull-up itself lives one tier down on the intermediate list.
Advanced does not mean better
A Pendlay Row done badly builds less than a Chest Supported Row done well, and no movement scores you extra. The Back Score reads the muscle in the photo, not the exercise that built it — Titan, the 85 to 90 band, is not gated behind the Deadlift.
Advanced (10)
Frequently asked questions
What makes a back exercise advanced?
Position and skill rather than load. Of the 10 advanced BackMaxx movements, five hang your whole bodyweight from a bar and five are barbell lifts with nothing supporting your torso. In most of them the limiter is grip, bracing or a held position, not the back muscle being trained.
What are the advanced back exercises in BackMaxx?
Commando Pull-up, L-Sit Pull-up, Towel Pull-up, Weighted Pull-up, Weighted Chin-up, Deadlift, Sumo Deadlift, Good Morning, Pendlay Row and Meadows Row. Five lead on Lat Width, three on Lower Back and two on Upper Back.
Are there advanced Traps or Rear Delts exercises?
No. Both zones top out at intermediate — Upright Row and Dumbbell Upright Row for Traps, Cable Rear Delt Fly for Rear Delts. For those two the way forward is more sets at strict form, not a harder movement.
Which advanced back exercises can you do at home?
Three, and all three need a bar: Commando Pull-up, L-Sit Pull-up and Towel Pull-up. The other seven need a barbell or plates to hang from your waist.
Do you need advanced exercises for a high Back Score?
No. The Back Score is a visual estimate read from a photo of your back, so it responds to the muscle you built, not to which movement built it. Titan sits at 85 to 90 and no exercise on this list is required to reach it.
Which of these do you actually need?
BackMaxx scores six zones and eight muscles from one photo, then picks the movements that fix the lowest number — from the same 77-exercise library.
Download on theApp Store Download on the App StoreFree to download. iPhone, iOS 26 or later.