Known for boasting one of the best backs in the game, Derek Lunsford has picked up quite a few tricks inside the gym. In a recent YouTube video, the reigning Mr. Olympia explained his back workout and guided Regan Grimes through the session with technique pointers.
Daring to be great, Derek Lunsford, who earned the 212 Olympia title in 2021, decided to jump into the Men’s Open division. When it was time to perform on the Olympia stage in his Open debut, Lunsford’s front relaxed pose stole the show and he walked away in second place to Hadi Choopan.
A year later, Lunsford capitalized on his powerful back double biceps pose, and as a result, emerged as the sport’s first-ever two-division Mr. Olympia titleholder. With a massive target on his back, Lunsford intends to defend his crown against his teammate Hadi Choopan in October. Choopan recently won the 2024 Arnold Classic and will aim to regain his status as the number one bodybuilder in the world.
In Lunsford’s latest endeavor, he joined fellow Open star Regan Grimes for a lesson-filled back workout. Considering the body part is Lunsford’s most notable strength, Grimes was happy to learn from the reigning champ.
Derek Lunsford Breaks Down His Back Workout W/ Regan Grimes
Check out the full workout below:
- Lat Pulldown Machine
- Plate-Loaded Machine Low Row
- Chest-Supported Machine Row
- Seated Cable Row
- Superset: Cable Pullover & Machine Assisted Pull-Up
Lat Pulldown Machine
According to Lunsford, he always starts his back workouts with a lat pulldown variation.
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“A lot of times I have an issue supinating my wrists, it’s like doing reverse, but this is really nice,” adds Lunsford. It’s easy to pull high right, you use your traps, rear delts, it’s a little harder to engage with the lats, right? Especially the lower lats so I always start my back workouts with something like a lat pulldown, hit that lower lat.”
Plate-Loaded Machine Low Row
While performing plate-loaded machine low rows, Lunsford explained how to best stabilize the movement during each rep.
“So, for this exercise, there is like three points of contact. What do I mean? Okay, so whichever arm that you’re pulling with you want to use that same leg to stabilize. So, for example, I’m doing it here, this leg, if I’m going to pull the right on, and my left-hand goes here, so I’m pushing with my palm and stabilizing with this foot and pulling with this arm here.”
“I’m almost splitting my hands like this while I keep my chest up so if I really wanted to I could do it with standing on one leg,” adds Lunsford.
Chest-Supported Machine Row
Lunsford provided Grimes with body placement tips before detailing exactly which part of the back this exercise taxes most:
“Nothing from here [toso] down. It’s just that, [chest supported],” said Lunsford. “So, now that we’ve blown up the lats through here we’re moving on to more of the mid and upper back and trap. All the way across here.”
“Don’t get me wrong, you’re still going to feel it in the lats and they are still so pumped and we worked the crap out of them. But like I said, we are transitioning from this muscle area to here [upper back].”
Lunsford advised Grimes to keep his elbows straight back during each rep.
“As you can see, he’s driving his elbows straight back. Straight across,” said Lunsford. “So with someone like Regan, he’s got a really good back. He can connect really well with every muscle in his back so when he asks me, how do you want to position your elbow, I tell him whatever you feel is best. Obviously, whatever you’re doing is working but if you’re someone that can’t target your back, then for me, since we have done so much when we tuck our elbows in like this, this time I’m bringing my elbows out.”
Seated Cable Row
In addition to discussing foot positioning, Lunsford talked about achieving an optimal stretch and focusing on opening up the muscle fibers.
“What you can do is, so the seat stays here but you can actually move your foot position either high, medium, or low. This is more of a standard seated row foot position but you can also move this up and down so like this, you can go higher and real real high or you can go even way lower.”
“Standard row position is what we’re going to do today. This is why I love this machine. You can actually adjust it depending on where you want to hit it,” adds Lunsford. “It’s a great finisher for today.”
Superset: Cable Pullover & Machine Assisted Pull-Up
Lastly, Grimes and Lunsford performed sets of cable pullovers supersetted with machine-assisted pull-ups as a finisher.
“There’s four ways to stimulate a muscle, weight, reps, and tempo, now we’re talking about distance. What does distance mean? The stretch and the contraction.”
“When he keeps his chest up like this and he pushes, it’s not pull, he pushes that bar straight down it’s naturally going to come back to you,” explains Lunsford. “If he thinks about pushing it to the ground and when he does that, it naturally comes like this and he’s using all of his lats.”
During pullovers, Lunsford admits that sometimes the triceps are worked alongside the back.
“You might actually notice, especially when you go a little heavier and when your lats fatigue, you’re going to use some of your triceps. That’s common too. So, if you get a little bit of tricep activation, it’s okay but you really want to make sure it’s mostly in the lats.”
Despite enjoying his off-season, Lunsford has kept a busy schedule as the biggest ambassador of the Open class. He recently teased that he would enter a future Arnold Classic competition and discussed his physique goals for 2024. Should Lunsford decide to step into the 2025 Arnold Classic, he will have the chance to compete for a historic $500,000 paycheck.
Fans look forward to seeing Derek Lunsford step back on stage at the 60th anniversary of the Mr. Olympia contest, which is set to return to Las Vegas, Nevada from October 10-13. Based on his latest back workout, he is controlling every variable within his power to retain the title.
Watch the full video from Derek Lunsford’s YouTube channel:
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