Rhomboids

Click the image above for a great anatomy tutorial of the rhombus shaped rhomboids.

I love the original Grey's Anatomy illustrations and this one is found at bartleby.com

I need stronger rhomboids, but don't we all. Wait, what's a rhomboid? Well, it's a a parallelogram in which adjacent sides are of unequal lengths and angles are non-right angled, but that's not important right now. I'm talking about the aptly named rhomboid major, and of course, rhomboid minor that stabilize your scapula. As you can see they are named after their shape, and no you can't actually see them under the skin as that muscly guy up top might want you to think. They are actually hidden underneath the larger and also geometrically named trapezius.

But why do we need them? And why are mine weak? Well it probably starts with being hunched over a computer all day and ends with going to the gym and working on pushing a bunch of things. To know why you need them and how to work them, you need to know what they do. Of course, by looking at the drawing to the right, it's easy to see. When the rhomboid minor and major shorten the medial border of the scapula will be drawn closer to the spine. This is called scapula (shoulder blade) retraction and you can do it right now while reading this. Imagine trying to pinch something between your shoulder blades.

I bet your posture just improved right then. Instead of rounding your shoulders and stooping your head, you sat up straight and looked tall. See why we all need strong rhomboids? They make you look wide shouldered, tall, and confident. Head up, back straight. Not to mention counteracting all that forward pull we put on the shoulders by overdeveloping our pectoralis and anterior deltoids. Got it?

Now what to do? As usual, many people have walked down this road before and you don't have to look far to see physical therapists and personal trainers giving tips on strengthening your rhomboids. And you know what? They're absolutely right! We spend all day pushing your foreheads towards cyber space and then focus on mirror muscles at the gym so we can post pictures onto the web. We need strong rhomboids to stop this viscous circle.

This is the best video I've found thus far, but it doesn't take a PhD to figure this out. Use some anatomy, 9th-grade geometry, and sweat to figure this out. Your shoulders, back, and neck will thank you. And good point from the gentleman above the posterior chain muscles are posture muscles. Do sets with long, sustained tension. And if you want even more, take your pull-ups to the next level with tips from t-nation.com.