Mr. Smith's back workout: build up your back in less than 30 minutes with the versatile Smith machine

3 Next comes another rowing movement, the one-arm row, which offers further isolation, as you'll now be concentrating on one side of the back at a time. Scherillo likes the one-arm row because it hits the lats, rhomboids and middle trapezius.

4 The last element of your Smith machine back barrage is a behind-the-back shoulder shrug. For aesthetic appeal you'll need to beef up the trapezius area. In addition, with the bar held behind your back, your shoulders will be externally rotated, which is sure to engage the back muscles.

"Shrugs are a good finishing exercise to fine-tune and sculpt your back," says Scherillo. "You'll be hitting your rear delts, middle trapezius, and teres major and minor. Because the bar is behind you, it will also help improve your posture and prevent your shoulders from rounding forward."

That's it. One machine, 20-odd minutes and a great set of lats.

WHY SMITH?

After seeing a floor-to-ceiling prototype in Jack La Lanne's gym, Rudy Smith decided to develop it further. One of the original physique men who called Santa Monica's famed Muscle Beach his second home, Smith hired premier gym-equipment machinist Paul Martin to turn the rough idea into a proper piece of gear, ever since referred to as the Smith machine. Shortly after--this was the mid-50s--the Smith machine took up residence in Los Angeles' Vic Tanny Gym, which itself would grow into one of the country's earliest gym chains. While countless iterations of the Smith machine have since become ubiquitous in gyms worldwide, Smith, now 77, still owns the original version that carries his name.

THE ROUTINE

EXERCISE              SETS      REPS

Pull-up (or
  modified chin-up)     3    To failure
Bent-over row           3       8-12
One-arm row             3      10-12
Behind-the-back
  shrug                 3      15-20

COPYRIGHT 2003 Weider Publications
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning