Long reads

Back Training Guides

Thirteen explainers on the back: what the six zones are, what a developed back looks like at each rank, and how to train the parts you can only judge from a photo.

Last updated September 4, 2026 · Written by the BackMaxx team

The short answer

The BackMaxx guides are thirteen explainers covering the six back zones, judging how developed a back is, width versus thickness, the V-taper, upper-back thickness, rear delts from behind, the Christmas tree, visual symmetry, traps, lagging muscles, progress photos, no-equipment home training, and back workout apps.

Read these two first

The back zones guide explains the six scored regions — Lat Width, Upper Back, Traps, Rear Delts, Lower Back and Symmetry — and how a low score in one changes what you should do next. Everything else here assumes you already know which zone is which.

How developed is my back is the other starting point. It covers what a back at each of the nine ranks actually looks like, from Newbie under 38 to GOAT at 91 and up, and how to judge your own photo before an app scores it.

Guides about a specific look

Most people arrive wanting one thing to change. These seven are organised by that thing.

Guide	Who it is for
Back width vs thickness	You cannot tell whether you need to get wider or get thicker, and the two need different movements
V-taper and lat width	Lat Width came back as your lowest zone and you want the armpit-to-waist taper
Upper back thickness	Your back reads flat from the side and you want the 3D look in profile
Rear delts from behind	Your outline stops at the shoulder and the rear delts never got trained directly
Christmas tree back	You want the lower-back detail either side of the spine that shows up in a lean back
Traps for a wider back	You want the frame around the neck and shoulders to carry the width
Back symmetry	One side of your back photographs differently from the other

The practical ones

Four guides are about doing the work rather than choosing the target. Lagging back muscles is for when a zone has not moved in a month and you need to know whether the problem is selection, volume or attention. Back progress photos covers the boring mechanics that make a comparison honest — same angle, same distance, same light, same time of day.

The no-equipment home workout is built from the 20 bodyweight movements in the corpus, for anyone with floor space and nothing else. And Best back workout apps is the comparison page, for people deciding what to install rather than what to train.

How the guides relate to the rest of the site

A guide explains a concept. The exercise library tells you which of the 77 movements to use, and the five focus blocks sequence them into three to six weeks. If you have not scanned yet, read the two starting guides, then take the photo — a real score narrows thirteen guides down to the two or three that apply to you.

How to take a back progress photo by yourself Front camera, five-second timer, one solid perch at mid-back height — the full method for photographing the one muscle group you never get to see. Back symmetry: why one side reads bigger than the other One lat looking bigger than the other is usually a photograph problem before it is a training problem. Here is how to tell which one you have. Back Width vs Thickness: Which One Your Photo Says You Are Missing Two separate zone scores, two separate exercise lists, and one four-week block for whichever number comes back lower. The six parts of the back to train, and what each one gets you Six zones, eight muscles, 77 exercises: the map BackMaxx scores your back against, and the vocabulary every other page here is built on. The best back workout apps, and what each one actually does There is no single app that scores your back, writes the session and logs the sets. This page sorts the ones that exist by which of those three jobs they do. How to build a Christmas tree back The tree is your erector spinae, and it shows for two separate reasons: enough depth either side of the spine, and little enough sitting on top of it. The back workout you can do at home with no equipment Twenty of BackMaxx’s 77 movements need nothing but floor space, a towel or a door frame — and four of the six back zones have no-equipment movements that lead with them. How developed is my back? A zone-by-zone self-check You are the one person who never gets a clean look at your own back, which is why the answer usually comes down to guesswork. Here is the check that replaces the guess. Which part of my back is lagging? A lagging back is one zone out of six, not a whole back that stopped growing. This page routes what you see in the photo to the zone behind it. Rear delts, and what your back looks like from behind The posterior deltoid is a shoulder muscle from every angle except the one your back is actually judged from. How to build traps that make your back read wider Your traps are two training problems, not one: the slope from neck to shoulder, and the sheet that pulls your shoulder blades down. How to build upper back thickness Thickness is the depth of your back in profile, and it comes from three muscles that not one of the six pulldowns in the app tags. How to build lat width, and how to know it is working Width comes from the lats and the teres major, built by vertical pulling at long range — and read off your back, not off a tape around your waist.

Frequently asked questions

Which guide should I read first?

The back zones guide, then how developed is my back. The first tells you what the six scored regions are; the second tells you what each of the nine ranks looks like, from Newbie under 38 to GOAT at 91 and above.

Do I need the app to use the guides?

No. Each guide stands alone and names specific movements from the 77-exercise corpus. A scan is only useful because it narrows thirteen guides down to the two or three that apply to your back.

Is there a guide for training at home with nothing?

Yes. The no-equipment home back workout guide is built from the 20 bodyweight movements in the corpus, so it needs floor space and no anchor point, no bar and no bands.

What is the difference between a guide and an exercise page?

A guide explains a concept and points at the movements that serve it. An exercise page covers one movement: its cue, default sets and reps, zone and muscle tags, equipment, and its three illustration frames.

Get your Back Score first

Everything here works better when you know which zone is actually behind. One photo tells you.

Download on theApp Store

Free to download. iPhone, iOS 26 or later.