Classic Physique standout Terrence Ruffin is enjoying the 2023 off-season after his latest Mr. Olympia appearance. In a recent video on his YouTube channel, Ruffin went over some common gym mistakes to avoid that destroy back gains.
Ruffin has proved himself a number of times at major bodybuilding events like the Arnold Classic and Mr. Olympia. His back detail, balance, and knack for posing are attributed to his fast rise in the Classic Physique category. In 2020, Ruffin secured second-place positions at the Arnold Classic and Mr. Olympia.
With time to build on his previous package, Ruffin mapped out his next season and took first place at the 2021 Arnold Classic. He defeated Alex Cambronero and Logan Franklin at the contest. Months later, Ruffin was unable to produce gold at Olympia over the defending champion, now-four-time Classic Physique Olympia, Chris Bumstead.
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He picked up where he left off in 2022 by securing a second Arnold Classic title. While fans expected him to push Bumstead in Las Vegas, NV. at the last Mr. Olympia show, the judges ultimately saw Terrence in sixth place. Instead of attempting to defend his Arnold Classic title, Ruffin decided to focus on improvements. He recently offered some common training mistakes to steer clear of that hinder back development.
Terrence Ruffin Shares Common Training Pitfalls to Avoid
Wide Grip Pull Downs
Terrence Ruffin advocates for wide grip pull downs for building the lats. A common mistake he listed was new lifters preferring to use isolateral movements like single arm lat pulldowns.
“Today we’re going to start with wide grip pulldowns. You know, it’s really popular right now to do the single arm really close to the body lat pulldown. I feel a great exercise, you know really great for the lats, fully stretch it, fully contract it, but I see a lot of new lifters doing this exercise and not that it’s wrong but at the same time, doing anything bilateral, it can be a bit of a disadvantage you know, in a sense that you don’t really have any weaknesses yet. You don’t have to be so isolated in your movement choices.”
Chest Supported T-bar Rows
Ruffin, who sports one of the best backs in the Classic Physique division, shared that lifers forget to move the scapula of their shoulder blades during t-bar rows. For growing the erector spinae, Ruffin suggested exercises like rack pulls and hyperextensions.
“So, next move here is just chest supported t-bar rows with a wider grip not so much a narrow grip. Basically, the biggest mistake I see here, is people not really moving the scapula of their shoulder blades. What I mean by that is they’re very fixed. What you really want is to protract that scapula and retract it. That’s the biggest thing there.”
“Typically, what I say what exercise it is: train the muscle that exercise is for. And I say that because, like, you don’t need to work your erectus here, this is a poor exercise for erectus. If you want to erectus, go do good mornings, rack pulls, hyperextensions – don’t use the t-bar to train your erectus. Use the t-bar to train your lats, upper back, things like that,” shared Terrence Ruffin.
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T-bar row variation
With other t-bar row variations, ‘Diesel’ said to avoid v-bar handles because they don’t fully contract the lats.
“The difference is the grip [with this variation]. That one, I did more of a wider grip, focusing on mid traps, lat fibers as well. This one’s a little bit more – my arms are tucked in, so it’s working a little bit different muscles. It’s mainly lats in this position here. Biggest mistake I see when people are doing t-bar rows, especially people with a wider frame or a little bit more muscle, is they grab the v-bar handle, and they can’t get their lats fully contracted.”
Single Arm Preacher Curls
While repping single arm machine preacher curls, Terrence said some people have a tendency to bounce upward if the weight is too heavy. To remedy this issue, he advised lifters to progress in weight gradually.
“Machine preacher curl – two of the biggest mistakes I see here is, one, again, using momentum, it’s really hard to mess up preacher curls but you still can mess this up by basically when you’re curling, instead of pressing that arm into the back, you’re bouncing up like this.”
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“Another common mistake I see is people not really progressing properly in this. They think they have the 10-pound or 20-pound plate, every time they kind of want to go up in weight, but there are these cool things called five pounders and two-and-a-half pounders, don’t be afraid of those, they still count and with a smaller body part you’re kind of going to have to use stuff like that.”
Standing Single Arm Cable Curls
For standing single arm cable curls, Ruffin stressed the importance of ‘standardizing your form.’
“The big thing with curls is, personally, you have to be stricter with curls, more so than any other movement. Yeah, if you got great arms do what the fu** you want, they’re going to grow no matter what. But if they are a weakness or something specifically, you’re trying to bring up, it’s important you standardize your form.”
“You don’t want to lean back or use the tippy toes to get the weight up. Be very locked in, rigid, and curl in and curl down. It’s a very simple movement but it’s very easy to mess up.”
Reverse Cable Fly
Ruffin’s final piece of advice was on the best way to engage delts using the reverse cable fly. He urged lifters to drive the cables as outward as possible.
“We just did some rear delts, reverse cable flyes. The biggest mistake I normally see here – and it’s hard to spot, what you’re thinking internally. Most people that are doing reverse flyes are just thinking about getting from point A to point B. But what you want to be thinking about internally, is really thinking out, not so much out, think about how much I can drive these cables out to the side as I’m coming back. That’s going to be the best way to engage your delts. I found a lot of people have a hard time doing their rear delts and that’s typically the reason.”
Ruffin gave a timeline for his retirement last year in a series of Instagram stories posts. Before calling it a career, he said he wants to win three Arnold Classic titles. He added that he has around two or three years left in the sport before stepping away entirely.
Since Ruffin finished outside of the top five last December, he will need to earn an invite to November’s Mr. Olympia by winning a pro show. If he proves successful in that endeavor, fans are looking forward to seeing him face off against Bumstead and the newly minted Arnold Classic winner, Ramon Queiroz.
Watch the full video below:
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