There are two main types of exercises you can do...open chain and closed chain. If you're not familiar with these terms, here are the simplest ways to explain them...
Closed-chain movements are exercises where your limbs are "anchored"/stationary and your body moves. Examples of closed-chain movements include bodyweight exercises such as push-ups, chin-ups, squats, lunges, etc. Closed-chain movements are generally more effective for activating more motor units in the body (which means more muscle fibers get activated and worked).
Open-chain movements are exercises where the BODY is stationary and the LIMBS move. Examples of these include many free weight exercises such as bench press, barbell rows, curls, pushdowns, etc.
How To Do Alternating Open Chain and Closed Chain Training For Back
What we're going to do in this technique is alternate reps of two different for the back...chin-ups (closed chain) and barbell rows (open chain).
If you're not strong enough to do chins or get more than a few reps, you can also use Inverted Rows as well (these are basically a bodyweight row done with the bar set 2 to 4 feet off the ground...higher is easier).
You can also use just about any other open-chain back exercise in place of barbell rows, too (e.g. pulldowns, cable rows, db rows, etc.). In the demo, I'm using barbell rows in order to hit the horizontal pulling movement pattern of the back, while the chins focus on the vertical.
To perform this style of training, you can alternate every single rep, every 2 rep or every 3 reps or more. In the demo, I'm doing 2 reps of each exercise before switching. I like this method as it gives you a bit more tension on the muscles before making the switch, so you're not constantly switching. I've also done with sets of up 10 reps with lighter movements and it works quite well even at that range.
Make sure you have both exercises set up so that you can switch pretty much instantly between the two. I have the barbell set up so that when drop off the chin-up bar, my feet are already in position to perform the row.
So first, do your chin-up.
Then immediately to barbell rows.
And just keep going until you ALMOST hit failure on one of the exercises (I generally recommend staying short of failure, in most cases).
I find this alternating open and closed-chain training to really encourage a lot of blood flow into the target muscle group. You're basically working the muscle from two different directions, even though you're using similar motions.
And yep, you can also work it with any other bodypart...e.g. for chest, you would do push-ups and bench press, for biceps, you could do curls and bicep-focused chins (vertical body position), for triceps you could do dips and close grip bench press.
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