A few weeks back I talked about the trap bar smash.

It can help relieve commonly tight upper trapezius muscles (between shoulders and neck).

But the trap bar smash is a band-aid.

Because the underlying problem is stress and overuse of the muscle.

See, the latissimus dorsi (lats) are our biggest upper body muscles.

They're the wing-like muscles that connect our arms to our lower spine 👇

And according to Andy Galpin, it’s extremely common if you can’t activate them.

Which can lead to:

• 🦴 Poor posture (slouching)
• 💥 Tension, pain and injuries (overusing other muscles like our upper traps and arms)
• ‍⚖️  Instability, pain and injuries (the lats stabilise our spine and shoulders)
• ‍🏆 Sub-maximal physical performance (the biggest upper body muscle sitting on the sideline)
  

Here’s the test:

If you can contract your lats sitting here reading this, you can probably contract them when you need to. Lifting. Swimming. Rowing. Goanna wrestling.

And if not, you can probably assume the same.

How to fix it:

If you haven’t been using your lats for a couple decades or more, it won’t happen overnight.

It’ll take persistent, focused effort.

A light band will be your best mate here.

1. Hook it behind a closed door (so it’s coming from above you)
2. Grab it facing the door
3. Step back and pop your arm out at a 90º angle in front of you
4. Pull it down beside your body
5. Go slow, focus on activating the lat the whole time
6. Put your non-working hand on your working lat for feedback
7. Do 3 sets of 10 reps (each side) as often as you can
   

Visual with a bloke using 2 bands 👇

Here’s the video of it

I struggle to activate my left lat.

You can tell because my left trap is bigger than my right. I overcompensate.

But just being aware of it helps.

Then I can remember to switch it on when doing the exercise above, swimming, lifting and whenever else I need to.

Hopefully it can help you too.