By equipment

Bodyweight back exercises

Twenty movements, no load, 17 of them doable at home. Here is what bodyweight covers on your back, where it stops, and how to order a session from it.

· Written by the BackMaxx team

The short answer

Bodyweight back exercises are the 20 movements in BackMaxx that need no load — prone raises, the Superman family, Bird Dog, inverted and vertical pulls, and all five of the corpus stretches. They lead four of the six back zones, cover Lower Back and Upper Back best, and reach the Traps not at all.

Bodyweight is the largest equipment group in BackMaxx: 20 of the 77 exercises, against 12 for the barbell and 8 for machines. Fifteen are tagged beginner, three intermediate, two advanced. Seventeen run in a bedroom; three are gym-only because they want a plate or a fixed bench.

Size is not the same as coverage. Here is where those 20 actually point.

Which zones do bodyweight exercises lead?

ZoneBodyweight exercises leading itWho carries the zone
Lower Back7Superman, Superman Hold, Bird Dog, Back Extension
Lat Width6five vertical pulls and one stretch
Upper Back5prone raises, Inverted Row, Scapular Push-up
Rear Delts2Arm Circles, Cross-Body Shoulder Stretch
Traps0nothing
Symmetry0 primary, 1 secondaryBird Dog

Lower Back is the honest strength here. Seven movements lead it and seven of the twenty tag the Erectors, and none of them need anything but floor space. That is unusual — the Erectors otherwise get trained mostly with a loaded hinge.

The catch hiding in the Lat Width column

Five of the six Lat Width entries are vertical pulls: Pull-up, Chin-up, Neutral-Grip Pull-up, and the two weighted versions. The sixth is Child’s Pose, a stretch.

So the moment you take away something to hang from, bodyweight training has no way to build width at all. That is the single biggest hole in the group, and it is why the pull-up bar list is the highest-leverage piece of equipment you can own — six more exercises, all of them Lat Width.

Inverted Row is the partial exception. It leads Upper Back with Lat Width as a secondary zone, and its cue — keep your body in one straight line and walk your feet in to make it easier — is the only bodyweight pull with a built-in difficulty dial.

The floor work nothing else replaces

Nine of the 20 bodyweight exercises tag the Lower Traps. No other equipment type comes close; the barbell tags them once across 12 movements.

Prone Y Raise, Prone T Raise, Reverse Snow Angel and Scapular Push-up are the reason. Face down with no load, the shoulder blades have nothing to do but move, and Lower Traps — the muscle that pulls the blades down and back — is almost never trained directly anywhere else. These four are worth keeping in the program forever, even after you own a rack.

All five stretches in the entire 77-exercise corpus are also bodyweight: Child’s Pose, Cat-Cow, Torso Twists, Cross-Body Shoulder Stretch and World’s Greatest Stretch.

How to build a back session with no equipment

Five slots, roughly 25 minutes, in this order:

  1. Vertical or horizontal pull. Pull-up or Chin-up for 3 x 6–10 if you have a bar. Inverted Row for 3 x 8–12 if you have a table edge instead.
  2. A prone raise. Prone Y Raise or Prone T Raise, 3 x 10–15. Thumbs up, lift from the blades.
  3. Hinge substitute. Superman for 3 x 10–12, or Superman Hold for 3 x 20–30s if reps stop feeling like anything.
  4. Slow control. Bird Dog, 2 x 8–10, hips dead level, one second at the far end of each reach.
  5. Finish long. Child’s Pose, 2 x 30–60s, walking the hands forward until the lats pull.

Run it three times a week. The no-equipment back workout guide has the version with no bar at all.

When bodyweight stops being enough

Two ceilings arrive at different times.

The first is the Traps. Zero bodyweight exercises lead that zone and exactly one — Prone Y Raise — tags the Upper Traps at all. Traps need something heavy hanging in your hands, which means a shrug or a carry. There is no floor-based workaround.

The second is load. Once Pull-ups are strict for 10 clean reps, the next honest step is Weighted Pull-up at 3 x 4–6, which is why that one is filed advanced and gym-only. Everything else in the group progresses by leverage: longer holds, feet further out, a slower descent.

Both ceilings are visible in the app before you hit them. Scan, and if Traps comes back as your weakest zone while everything you own is a floor, the plan will keep asking for work you can’t do. The full at-home list — 46 exercises, dumbbells and bands included — is where that gets solved.

Beginner (15)

Child's Pose illustration Child’s Pose Bodyweight · Lat Width · beginner Back Extension illustration Back Extension Bodyweight · Lower Back · beginner Cat-Cow Stretch illustration Cat-Cow Stretch Bodyweight · Lower Back · beginner Superman illustration Superman Bodyweight · Lower Back · beginner Superman Hold illustration Superman Hold Bodyweight · Lower Back · beginner Torso Twists illustration Torso Twists Bodyweight · Lower Back · beginner Cross-Body Shoulder Stretch illustration Cross-Body Shoulder Stretch Bodyweight · Rear Delts · beginner Inverted Row illustration Inverted Row Bodyweight · Upper Back · beginner Prone T Raise illustration Prone T Raise Bodyweight · Upper Back · beginner Prone Y Raise illustration Prone Y Raise Bodyweight · Upper Back · beginner Reverse Snow Angel illustration Reverse Snow Angel Bodyweight · Upper Back · beginner Scapular Push-up illustration Scapular Push-up Bodyweight · Upper Back · beginner Bird Dog illustration Bird Dog Bodyweight · Lower Back · beginner Arm Circles illustration Arm Circles Bodyweight · Rear Delts · beginner World's Greatest Stretch illustration World’s Greatest Stretch Bodyweight · Lower Back · beginner

Intermediate (3)

Chin-up illustration Chin-up Bodyweight · Lat Width · intermediate Neutral-Grip Pull-up illustration Neutral-Grip Pull-up Bodyweight · Lat Width · intermediate Pull-up illustration Pull-up Bodyweight · Lat Width · intermediate

Advanced (2)

Weighted Chin-up illustration Weighted Chin-up Bodyweight · Lat Width · advanced Weighted Pull-up illustration Weighted Pull-up Bodyweight · Lat Width · advanced

Frequently asked questions

Can you build a back with only bodyweight exercises?

You can build four of the six zones. Lower Back, Upper Back, Lat Width and Rear Delts all have bodyweight movements leading them. Traps have none, and Lat Width collapses to a single stretch if you have nothing to hang from.

How many bodyweight back exercises are in BackMaxx?

Twenty, which is the largest equipment group in the 77-exercise corpus. Fifteen are beginner, three intermediate, two advanced. Seventeen can be done at home; Back Extension, Weighted Pull-up and Weighted Chin-up need gym hardware.

What is the best bodyweight exercise for a wider back?

The Pull-up, and its close variants. All five loaded and unloaded vertical pulls in the bodyweight group lead Lat Width and tag the Lats and Teres Major. Without a bar, the Inverted Row is the closest substitute, though it leads Upper Back rather than width.

Do bodyweight exercises work the traps?

Barely. No bodyweight exercise in BackMaxx leads the Traps zone, and only Prone Y Raise tags the Upper Traps. Shrugs and carries need external weight, so the traps stay the one gap you cannot close on the floor.

How do you progress bodyweight back work without adding weight?

Change leverage and time. Walk your feet further out on Inverted Row, hold the top of a Superman for longer, slow every descent, or move from Superman reps to Superman Hold. Weighted Pull-up is the only bodyweight movement that progresses by load.

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

Free to download. iPhone, iOS 26 or later.

Pull-up bar back exercises Six movements, all of them Lat Width. The one purchase that fixes bodyweight’s biggest hole. Pull-Up Progression Six weeks of hangs, negatives and assisted reps, built to get you to a strict rep or your tenth. Beginner back exercises All 50 beginner movements in the corpus, so you can see what else is already within reach.