Four-time Men’s Physique Olympia champion Jeremy Buendia pulled out of the 2024 Olympia, scheduled for Oct. 10-13 in Las Vegas, NV, after suffering two back-to-back Achilles tendon ruptures. However, he still hits the gym while sporting a cast, focusing on upper-body development for the 2025 season. 

In a video published on YouTube on July 16, 2024, Buendia shared his top three strategies for building a wider and thicker back, contributing to his coveted V-taper aesthetic. 

Jeremy Buendia’s 3 Back-Building Tips

Employ a narrow grip on lat pulldowns

Use drop sets on the top set

Leverage compound exercises and progressive overload

Check out the video below:

[Related: A Guide to the Best Pre-Workouts]

Narrow Grip Lat Pulldowns

Buendia favors a close underhand grip on pulldowns, keeping his elbows tight to his torso during concentrics, resulting in sharper lat contractions. He employs slow, controlled eccentrics and pauses in the fully stretched position to maximize the time under tension (TUT). (1) More TUT promotes hypertrophy, a typical goal in a longer off-season for elite bodybuilders.

Top Set, Drop Set

Buendia finishes each back exercise with a drop set to ensure muscle exhaustion.

I do back down sets after heavy sets and focus on full range of motion and muscle contractions.

A clinical trial published in The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness concluded that a single drop set may lead to superior muscle gains compared to three sets of conventional resistance training, possibly due to the higher muscular stress. (2)

Leverage Compound Exercises & Progressive Overload

Compound exercises like pull-ups, bent-over rows, and deadlifts engage multiple muscle groups simultaneously, promoting more efficient muscle growth and strength gains. Progressive overload involves gradually increasing weight, reps, sets, or frequency. Higher training volume can better ensure consistent muscle stimulus and strength adaptations. (3)

Buendia believes he achieved his career-best physique when he lifted relatively heavy, including bent-over rows with 315 pounds, stiff leg deadlifts with 385 pounds, traditional deadlifts with 405 pounds, and squats with 405 pounds.

“Training heavy works,” Buendia said. “You have to put your muscles under a certain amount of stress for it to grow.”

References

Burd NA, Andrews RJ, West DW, et al. Muscle time under tension during resistance exercise stimulates differential muscle protein sub-fractional synthetic responses in men. J Physiol. 2012;590(2):351-362. doi:10.1113/jphysiol.2011.221200

Fink, J., Schoenfeld, B. J., Kikuchi, N., & Nakazato, K. (2018). Effects of drop set resistance training on acute stress indicators and long-term muscle hypertrophy and strength. The Journal of sports medicine and physical fitness, 58(5), 597–605. https://doi.org/10.23736/S0022-4707.17.06838-4

Plotkin, D., Coleman, M., Van Every, D., Maldonado, J., Oberlin, D., Israetel, M., Feather, J., Alto, A., Vigotsky, A. D., & Schoenfeld, B. J. (2022). Progressive overload without progressing load? The effects of load or repetition progression on muscular adaptations. PeerJ, 10, e14142. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14142

Featured image: @jeremy_buendia on Instagram

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