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Build Back Strength with Just Your Bodyweight and These 12 Effective Moves
Weights are great—but you can build strength and stability without them.
By Andrew Gutman•
The Benefits of Bodyweight Back Exercises
12 Bodyweight Back Exercises to Try
How to Incorporate Bodyweight Back Exercises Into Your Routine
Despite its singularity, your “back” is really an amalgamation of many muscles that work in tandem to pull your arms toward your body and keep your torso upright. And if you’re not already training it, you should be. You’ll increase your upper-body strength, improve your posture, and help keep your spine safe during workouts.
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Although you should consider back training non-negotiable in your fitness routine, you have a lot of freedom: You can mix and match the back exercises you do and which equipment you use—if you use any at all. You may already know there are tons of possibilities when it comes to dumbbell back exercises, barbell back exercises, and kettlebell back exercises, but there are plenty of bodyweight options too. To help you sieve through the best bodyweight back exercises, we spoke to Peloton instructor Callie Gullickson and Domenic Angelino, an exercise scientist and strength and conditioning coach.
The Benefits of Bodyweight Back Exercises
Most people think strength training means they have to lift weights, but bodyweight exercises offer a lot of utility. Compared to externally loaded movements—i.e., exercises that utilize dumbbells, barbells, or resistance bands—bodyweight moves are “very accessible, joint-friendly (especially when looking to come back from an injury or reduce injury risk), and they help athletic performance by developing control and coordination,” Callie explains.
That increase in control and coordination is mainly because bodyweight exercises, specifically ones where the body is moving dynamically (think: pull-ups and burpees), recruit more stabilizer muscles, according to Angelino. These are different from the “show” muscles you’re used to training, like your chest or quads, which are the prime movers of your joints. Stabilizers are smaller, deeper muscles in your body (such as the gluteus medius or multifidus) that provide joint stability and control.
For example, when you're doing a pull-up (a classic bodyweight back exercise), you need to engage certain muscles in your core to help keep your body from swaying. “That has this interesting downstream effect of just keeping you safer,” Angelino says. “If your core is better at keeping your torso rigid…that’ll help you with fall prevention.”
Practically, the big plus to bodyweight exercises is that you can do them anywhere. If you’re traveling for work or on vacation, your training doesn’t need to be gym-dependent. “Your own bodyweight is sometimes all you need and is a great way to get stronger, especially as a travel-friendly or minimal equipment alternative,” Callie says. “The key is good tension and form.”
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12 Bodyweight Back Exercises to Try
The 12 bodyweight back exercises below will allow you to work your entire back without any free weights, machines, or resistance bands. If you’d rather follow along with an instructor, head to the Peloton App, navigate to the Strength category, and tap the Bodyweight filter.
Pull-Up or Chin-Up
The pull-up and chin-up are foundational upper-body strength movements that target the lats, rhomboids, biceps, and core all at once. They’re an excellent measure of relative strength (illustrating how strong you are relative to your own body weight) and because they train so many muscles, they offer huge carryover to other lifts and sports.
Grab a pull-up bar with your hands shoulder-width apart. Use an underhand grip (palms facing you) for chin-ups and an overhand grip (palms facing away from you) for pull-ups.
Start from a dead hang with your legs together.
Squeeze your shoulder blades together, then pull your chest toward the bar by driving your elbows down into your pockets.
Ideally, lower yourself back to a dead hang slowly, about two to three seconds.
Inverted Row
The inverted row is a foundational horizontal pulling movement that helps to balance out all of your pushing work during moves like push-ups and bench presses. In addition to working your mid-back muscles (which pull your shoulder blades together), it’s also a moving plank of sorts, forcing your core to contract to keep your spine neutral and supported. You can easily make it harder or easier by changing the bar height, and it’s a great regression to help you work up to your first pull-up.
Set a bar or suspension trainer at waist height and lie underneath it.
Grab the bar or handles with an overhand grip (palms facing away from you), setting your chest underneath the bar/handles, and your body in a straight line from heels to head.
Pull your chest up toward the bar, squeezing your shoulder blades to initiate the pull.
Lower yourself slowly without losing core tension.
IYWT
This corrective series activates the often-neglected small postural muscles around your shoulder blades for improved shoulder stability and scapular (shoulder blade) mobility. This is a great warm-up exercise to do before any intense pulling exercise or even before a hike or run to loosen up your shoulders and upper back. You can perform it lying face down on the floor, or standing with your feet about hip-width apart, torso hinged forward at about 45 degrees.
Lie face down on a mat, arms extended forward by your ears with your palms facing the floor, and legs long, resting on the mat.
Lift your arms and the top of your chest so your face hovers a few inches off the mat, neck long and gaze directly down at the floor. This is your “I” position.
Without lowering, open your arms out to the diagonals so your body forms a “Y” shape.
Without lowering, draw your elbows down toward your hips so your arms form a “W” shape, squeezing your shoulder blades together.
Finally, extend your arms out to the sides so your body forms a “T” shape.
Bring your arms forward to return to the “I” position. That’s one rep. Lower your chest and arms to rest, or repeat the sequence to begin the next rep. Keep your movements slow and controlled.
Swimmer
Another excellent warm-up exercise, swimmers train your middle and upper back muscles. They demand muscular control throughout the entire move and improve your mobility as you take your shoulder joint and shoulder blades through a wide range of motion. You can also do these at the end of your back workout to promote blood flow to your back muscles and ensure they’re thoroughly fatigued.
Lay face down on the floor with your legs long and arms stretched overhead, biceps by your ears. Lift your head, arms, and chest off the floor.
Keeping your arms straight and palms facing down, sweep your arms out to the sides and back toward your hips, squeezing your shoulder blades together. Stopping when they form a “V” shape with your fingers pointing toward your feet.
Reverse the motion, sweeping your arms forward until they’re by your ears. That’s one rep. Do the next rep without lowering your arms, head, and shoulders to the floor.
Superhuman Hold
One often-skipped part of back training is the lower back. The superhuman places an immense focus on the area by asking you to hold your arms and legs off the ground. It’s a low-risk exercise that you can easily progress by adding seconds to your holds. And if you’ve never performed back extensions on a machine before, this is a great appetizer into that movement (which will better strengthen and grow your lower back). As a bonus: you’ll really feel this exercise, helping you to establish a mind-muscle connection with your back.
Lie face down on the floor with your arms and legs extended straight in front of and behind you.
Lift your chest, arms, and legs off the floor simultaneously.
Hold this position for a couple of seconds while squeezing your glutes and lower back.
Lower with control and then repeat.
Chest Peel
This exercise, recommended by Callie, doesn’t look like much, but it trains back muscles that help support your posture and fight against the pull of gravity. To avoid compressing into the lower back, squeeze your glutes slightly and think about pressing your pubic bone into the floor before lifting.
Start lying face down with your feet hip-width apart, toes tucked, and arms by your sides with palms facing down.
Without moving your lower body, lift your head, shoulders, and forearms up and back, peeling your chest off the floor. Rotate your palms away from your body so your thumbs point toward the ceiling, and keep your head and neck neutral with your gaze on the floor just in front of you.
Reverse the move, lowering with control back to the starting position. That’s one rep.
Scapula Push-Up
Instead of lowering your chest all the way to the floor like you would in a traditional push-up, scapula push-ups aim to isolate movement in your scapulas (aka your shoulder blades): You’ll squeeze your shoulder blades together (called retraction) and then drive them apart (protraction) while in a high plank position. Your shoulder blades allow you to move your arms in all different directions, and the muscles attached to them are crucial for stabilizing your shoulder joint. Training those muscles helps to improve your mobility and the mind-muscle connection that calls them into action during other exercises.
Start in a high plank position with your elbows locked, and your body forming a straight line from head to heels. Keep your neck long and gaze on the floor just in front of your hands.
Without bending your arms, let your chest drop slightly as your shoulder blades come together.
Then, push the floor away to spread your shoulder blades apart, keeping your core tight and arms straight throughout.
Standing Wall Slides
Wall slides open tight chest muscles while activating the upper back and rotator cuff (a group of muscles that stabilize the shoulder joint). They reinforce proper vertical pressing and pulling mechanics that carry over into lifts like military presses and pull-ups. This is a must-do for anyone battling poor posture or shoulder stiffness.
Stand with your back, head, and arms pressed against a wall.
Bend your elbows to 90 degrees so your elbows are at shoulder height, keeping your forearms against the wall.
Slide your arms upward as high as mobility allows without allowing your arms to come off the wall. Try not to let your ribs flare open; keep your core engaged.
Lower slowly to the starting position.
Scapula Pull-Up
This is a similar exercise to the scapular push-up, except it trains the muscles in a more pulling-specific way. By depressing and retracting your shoulder blades in a pull-up position, you’ll learn to engage your lats during vertical pulls instead of relying on your arms. The movement also enhances shoulder stability and grip strength. If you’re beginning your pull-up journey, start here before adding full reps.
Hang from a pull-up bar in a dead hang, your arms completely straight.
Keeping your elbows locked, pull your shoulder blades down and together.
Hold briefly so you feel your lats engage, then relax back into a dead hang. That’s one rep.
Reverse Plank
We spend a lot of our time hunched over, which can lead to over-stretched back muscles, poor posture, and, at worst, nagging back pain. The reverse plank has you extend your back muscles to counteract this state while also training core stability.
Sit on the floor with your legs extended straight in front of you and your hands directly underneath your shoulders, fingers pointed toward your heels.
Lift your hips until your body forms a straight line from toes to head.
Hold this position for 5–30 seconds, squeezing your glutes and puffing your chest out.
Bird Dog
The bird dog builds core stability while training your spine to resist rotation and extension (arching). It also teaches coordinated limb motion, which carries over to nearly every athletic movement, from running to throwing. Because it’s simple and low-load, it’s perfect for beginners or as a warm-up. Over time, it helps create a more stable base for heavier lifting and daily movement.
Start on all fours with your hands under your shoulders and knees under your hips. Find a neutral spine and engage your core.
Extend one arm forward at shoulder height and the opposite side leg behind you at hip height without arching your back or rotating.
Hold for a few seconds, then slowly lower your arm and leg to return to the starting position. Repeat with the opposite arm and leg.
Floor Slides
Another stellar warm-up, this is a variation of the wall slide that requires, and therefore elicits, more mobility. With your entire body on the floor, you won’t be able to arch your back quite as much to compensate for a lack of shoulder mobility. It’s an excellent assessment tool as well as a strengthening exercise.
Lie on your back with knees bent and lower back pressed into the floor.
Press your arms into the ground in a goalpost position: elbows bent at 90 degrees, level with your shoulders, palms facing up.
Slide your arms overhead as far as your mobility allows.
Slowly return to the starting position without letting your back arch or ribs lift off the ground.
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How to Incorporate Bodyweight Back Exercises Into Your Routine
There are many ways to make use of bodyweight back exercises: You can incorporate them into your warm-up, employ them when you don’t have access to a gym, create a whole program around them, or sub them into your weight training routine for more training variety.
Those are the “whats” of body weight back training, but what about the “hows”?
For example, how often should you do back exercises? There’s no one right answer, but most experts and modern exercise science support six to 6–15+ sets per muscle per week. (Start on the low end of that range if you’re a beginner, and slowly increase your sets per week.) Your total weekly sets matter more than how frequently you train a muscle, and Callie suggests doing one to three pulling movement(s) per workout.
“You want to work on both vertical pulls, such as pull-ups or pull-downs, and horizontal pulls, such as inverted rows,” says Callie. “Ensure you’re taking proper rest in between sessions and days to fully recover and reap the benefits. If you’re also including weights, bodyweight back exercises could be included in the warm-up and as accessory work.”
As for your sets and reps, Angelino suggests that beginners start with three sets per exercise, while more advanced trainees can go up to four. “Since [you’re using your] bodyweight, the rep range will be slightly higher than average; anywhere from 8–20 depending on the exercise,” Callie adds. If you’re doing a difficult exercise like pull-ups or push-ups, Angelino recommends doing as many as you can, even if it's three reps.
What matters more than where you start is where you end up. In terms of strength training, progressive overload is your roadmap to making consistent, long-lasting gains. The concept is simple: to keep seeing progress, you need to do a little more than you did in the last workout. The easiest way to do this is to add one rep to each set until you’re at the high end of Callie’s suggested rep range of 8–20. Once you’re approaching the top of that range, you can adjust the exercise to make it harder. For example, changing your grip or shifting the angle can increase the difficulty or emphasize different muscles, which can help you stay in this ideal rep range, Angelino says.
For more guidance in executing a balanced strength routine, try one of the instructor-led strength programs in the Peloton App or Peloton Strength+.
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This content is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute individualized advice. It is not intended to replace professional medical evaluation, diagnosis, or treatment. Seek the advice of your physician for questions you may have regarding your health or a medical condition. If you are having a medical emergency, call your physician or 911 immediately.
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