Online source for good weight exercises?

Personally I don't do a huge amount of back exercises.

The one that I work into my usual "lifting" day routines are low rows, but on my "off" day workouts I do lat pulldowns, high rows, and behind the back pulldown as well. I also have some deltoid compound and isolation exercises that are in my lifting and off day rotation but not sure you would count those as shoulder or back exercises. You don't lift with your lower body at all?

do you do deadlifts at all?

I've posted before about how much I like them. They work the two areas of my body that usually don't get enough strength training - hamstrings and lower back. I always get sore from them, but the back soreness actually feels good, and the tightness tends to keep posture proper.

I think you'd be more likely to hurt your back than help it by doing heavy weight on back exercises. Certainly if you're training marathons or something like that the lack of proper back workouts can be detrimental, but it's not necessary to do a lot of weight or be sore from back workouts to have a good protective effect. Working lower body is probably going to be more beneficial for you in order to stay symmetrical and if you do low rep workouts with rest in between sets you can prevent hypertrophy in any case. As the previous poster mentioned, deadlift isn't a bad workout to do. 5x5s with low/medium weight would be the way to go if you don't want increased leg sizing.

Yeah, machines are fine for back. I think most people use machines for back, except for stuff like one arm rows, deadlifts, shrugs (although some people use them for that as well). Machines are good in general IMO unless you're working for hypertrophy and want less than perfect form in order to stimulate muscle damage. Of course there will typically be some sort of mechanical advantage but you can alleviate that by adding more weight.

My lifting routine (every other day) is:

2 x (6, 9, or 12 reps depending on the week) of:

flat bench (barbell)
incline bench (dumbbell)
squat (barbell)
deadlift (barbell)
calf raise (barbell)
shoulder press (dumbell)
shrug (dumbbell)
bicep (barbell)
low row (machine)
fly/pec deck (machine)
abs (various)

My off day weight routines (isolation):

2 x (6, 9, 12 reps) on:

bicep (machine)
tricep (knotted rope on machine)
lat pulldown (machine)
high row (machine)
pullover (machine)

^^ oh man, thanks for posting that. I had that site bookmarked a long time ago and I lost the bookmark in a crash or something. Could never remember what the site was.

as I've said before, I think if you're a relative beginner, doing a big-6 routine 3x/week is fine. bench, squat, dips, deadlifts, pullups, and bent over rows. I think machines have their place, but free weights will build a stronger base to work with. drizzt, I'm curious ~ you said you do back work with machines because you don't have a spotter for safety reasons. what exercises do you do that require a spotter? I would consider flat bench (primary chest builder) much more dangerous than pullups (primary back builder) without a spotter (or even with for that matter). Oh, and cardio is not an excuse for not doing proper lower body exercises. your legs may be thick from genetics, but it's not from cardio. you don't get huge overnight so focus on growth... if magically you wake up and decide you're where you want to be, you can work forward from there. OP, as far as your back not being sore... it's a matter of how your body responds to exercise. some respond better to very heavy weight, some are more volume people. for me I have to develop a strong mind-muscle connection, squeezing every rep almost as if you're doing it for a BB show. my workout partner just goes heavy as hell and treats it more along the lines of powerlifting. Though I guess once you get to a certain level, your back has to grow to keep up (he pulled 545 DL in a recent comp). generally if one part of your body, e.g. chest, responds to a certain type of intesity/volume, your back should follow suit. p.s. be careful doing deadlifts. I do them, I love them, and I think they're fantastic. But they are the most dangerous exercise done in gyms. I believe on average you are 20-30% more likely to hurt yourself seriously doing deadlifts than any other exercise. if you're comfortable in a gym, do them: focus on form and use a lighter weight than you normally would for a working set. when your form is good, lift away. when people start looking at you funny because you're lifting some seriously heavy shit... it's a great feeling. good luck and train hard

Actually I didn't say that, but the reason I do back work with machines isn't for safety reasons but more out of convenience/time issues. My workouts push 90 minutes as it is when I'm doing 12 rep sets.

I agree that flat bench isn't the safest exercise in the world but I'm pretty used to doing it. I will use a spotter when I do heavy sets or obviously several spotters for negatives. I also sometimes have spotters for squats, incline dumbbell or dumbbell shoulder press when I'm doing heavy work there.

oh sorry, it was DGP that said it. in that case the Q goes to him. :-P