Classic lat-building exercise: wide-grip pull-ups. People grow lats with wide-grip pull-ups at muscle beach and parks. Your teres major, rhomboids, and trapezius muscles, which define your back, are also impacted.
Bent-over barbell rows let you work your lats hard. Focus on the "squeeze" in your armpits and shoulder blades to activate lats. Be careful not to shrug or curve your shoulders. Along with your lats and back muscles, these strike your posterior shoulder muscles, giving your upper back 3D shape.
Next in this V-taper back workout is the lat pulldown. Lat pulldowns can produce a strong back, but its confined range of motion makes them less "functional" than free-weight activities. Lat pulldowns isolate lats, teres major, posterior deltoids, and biceps. This exercise adds volume even if you're too exhausted to do pull-ups.
Sitting cable rows, like lat pulldowns, target the lats and other back muscles to create the V-taper and a thick, well-rounded torso. For maximum lat blasting, utilize an overhand grip.
This V-taper back workout ends with the straight-arm lat pulldown. Straight arm lat pulldowns are the "bicep curl" isolation analogue for the latissimus dorsi, isolating the lats and removing most other muscles save for isometric stability. Standard lat pulldowns may be done standing in front of the machine.