Calisthenics back workout: 3 Workout To Build a Proper V-Taper

A calisthenics back workout is all you need to build a wide and thick back.

In this article, I will give you one workout for each level - beginner, intermediate, and advanced. With these workouts, you are sure to build the perfect v-taper back, and set yourself for skills like the front lever, back lever, and one arm pull-up.

The good thing about back exercises with calisthenics is that you don’t need weights.

As opposed to legs, where your own weight will not make much of a difference, working your back with calisthenics will actually bring impressive results.

For these workouts, I assumed that you are able to do a few pull-ups.

If you are not at that level yet, make sure to check our calisthenics beginner workout, to build the necessary foundation.

Level 1 - Beginner

Level 2 - Intermediate

Level 3 - Advanced

Each workout is balanced with the vertical pulling and rowing work.

For two of the exercises, the mantle chin-up and the ring rear delt fly, you will need a pair of gymnastics rings. If you don’t have access to a pair of those, you can check our article on calisthenics equipment to maybe get a pair. 

Either way, I will give you an alternative below, where I explain how to do the exercises.

Now that you know a good calisthenics back workout for your level, it’s time to learn how to warm up.

Most people doing calisthenics are tempted to skip their workouts. After all, you only work out with the weight of your own body, so what could go wrong?

The risk of injury is, indeed, minimal - even though that depends on the exercise.

However, a 2010 study on warming up found that there is little evidence to suggest that warming up can be detrimental to your physical activity. BUT! That warming up improved performance in 79% of the criterions examined.

Therefore, to have an efficient calisthenics back workout, I recommend that you do the following warm-up:

For optimal results, you will want to use perfect form with each exercise, whether we are talking about the warm-up or the workout itself.

Warm-up exercises

You might have noticed that most of the exercises in the warm-up are for your shoulder blades.

The shoulder blades play an integral role in calisthenics, whether we’re talking about pushing or pulling exercises. For this reason, the muscles surrounding and promoting the movements of the shoulder blades have to be properly warmed up.

Scap pull

The scap pull is the most important exercise in this warm-up sequence. This exercise works through a movement called scapula depression, where your shoulder blades are moving away from your ears.

The reason this exercise is so important is because this is the movement you should be doing before beginning to pull yourself up towards the bar.

Mastering this exercise will help you find pull-ups significantly easier.

To correctly do the scap pull:

Dip shrug

Even though the dip shrug is a pushing exercise, it also builds scapula depression strength.

However, even though the movement is similar, the muscles surrounding the scapula have to contract differently, because the movement pattern is different. In this exercise you are pushing the scapula away from the ears, whereas in the scap pull you are pulling it away from the ears.

Mastering this exercise also transfers to dips, L-sit, and other exercises where scapula depression is a necessity.

To correctly do the dip shrug:

Band pull apart

The band pull apart works through another important movement for any pulling exercise, and that is the scapula retraction.

The scapula retraction is the movement of pinching your shoulder blades together.

With this exercise you will get the rotator cuff and scapula stability prepared for the calisthenics back workout to come.

To properly do band pull aparts:

Scap push

The scapula push is an exercise which will strengthen the serratus anterior muscle, which results in a strong scapula protraction.

Again, this is a pushing exercise. However, training antagonistic muscles creates balance and stability in the scapula, making it stronger overall.

To correctly do a scap push:

Workout exercises

Now that we’ve gone through the warm-up exercises, it is time to discuss the strength exercises.

I will be discussing the next calisthenics back exercises. If you want to jump to a particular exercise, press on its name below:

Pull-up

The pull-up is called the king of the back exercises and there is some truth to it.

This exercise will work the majority of your back muscles, while improving your stabilization strength through the core. We have a dedicated article on the pull-up where you can learn more, but at this stage the video above is more than enough.

To correctly do a pull-up:

Bodyweight row

The bodyweight row is one of the best options to get a thicker back with calisthenics.

Being a compound movement, this exercise engages all the major muscles of the back and helps you build global strength in your pulling movements.

Furthermore, rowing helps with fixing posture issues if you suffer from them.

To correctly do a bodyweight row:

Wide pull-up

The wide grip pull-up is a variation of the pull-up that, if done correctly, can force the lats to engage more. However, this comes at a biomechanical cost: since you are forcing the lats to do more of the work, other muscles will work less.

Therefore, you should expect less reps with the wide grip variation.

But even though the total volume of work will be smaller, the wide grip pull-up is a great addition to any calisthenics back workout.

To do the wide grip pull-up correctly:

Chin-up

The chin-up is very similar to the pull-up in terms of the movement pattern. The only difference is that you will use a supinated grip and your palms will be facing you.

In terms of muscle engagement, they are a bit different.

The chin-up puts the biceps in a technically advantageous position, meaning that it can properly assist with the exercise. Therefore, you will get more biceps engagement.

As far as back engagement is concerned, according to studies, pull-ups and chin-ups are similar.

Adding the chin-up later on in your calisthenics back workout will help you accumulate more volume for your back. Thanks to the increased biceps activation, you will find chin-ups easier and will be able to crank more reps towards the end of the workout.

To correctly do a chin-up:

Bw. rear delt fly

A complete calisthenics back workout has to have rear delt focused work, because big rear delts are instrumental in the aesthetics of your back.

If the exercise is too difficult on the floor, you can do it on the wall too.

To correctly do a bodyweight rear delt fly:

Archer bodyweight row

The archer bodyweight row is a more difficult variation of the bodyweight row where one of your arms is doing most of the work, while the other is assisting with the movement.

Being a unilateral exercise, the archer bodyweight row can help fix imbalances.

In the video, you can see it being done on the rings. However, you can do it on a bar as well by assuming a wide grip and pulling your chest towards one of the hands.

To correctly do the archer bodyweight row:

Neutral grip pull-up

The neutral grip pull-up will develop your back muscles, lats, biceps, and brachialis.

Pull-ups with a neutral grip are easier than those with a pronated grip, therefore they should be added to your back workout to accumulate extra volume towards the end of the workout.

To correctly do the neutral grip pull-up:

Ring rear delt fly

The ring rear delt fly is one of the best calisthenics exercises for your rear delts.

The difficulty of the exercise can be changed based on how close to parallel you are to the ground. The closer your bum is to the ground, the more difficult the exercise.

To correctly do ring rear delt fly:

Mantle chin-up

The mantle chin-up is a very difficult exercise to add to your calisthenics back workout, but it will pave the way for the one arm chin-up, and will also tremendously strengthen your back muscles and biceps.

If you don’t have gymnastics rings, you can use a bar and a towel, with the assisting arm clenching on the towel.

To correctly do the mantle chin-up:

Tuck front lever row

The tuck front lever row is a precursor to the front lever and the full front lever row. Even though this exercise is for the advanced level of this back workout with calisthenics, I decided to give you the tuck version.

I made that choice so that you can accumulate volume with this rowing movement, instead of only being able to do 4-5 repetitions with a more difficult variation.

To correctly do the tuck front lever row:

This part of the article is for those who want to know what areas you will be developing with the calisthenics back workout presented above.

The back is comprised of a few major muscle groups but we will only discuss the superficial ones:

Trapezius

The trapezius engages with all exercises in the workout above. However, the chin-ups will work the trapezius less than the pull-ups.

Latissimus dorsi

The latissimus dorsi will mostly benefit from the vertical exercises in the workout above. That is, pull-ups and its variations and chin-ups. Even though to a lesser extent, the lats will also strongly engage during rowing movements.

Levator scapulae

The levator scapulae will get targeted by all exercises in this calisthenics back workout. However, the most engagement will come from vertical pulling movements.

Rhomboids

Any exercise that will work the scapula retraction (therefore, all the exercises in the workout) will work the rhomboids.

In this article we have presented a calisthenics back workout for every strength level from beginner to advanced, which is suitable for both men and women who want to do calisthenics.

I have also brushed over all of the exercises in the routines, and provided video explanations. This way, you will be sure to do the calisthenics back exercises properly and reap all the rewards of the workouts.

All that is left is for you to get started.

Over to you.