I work weekends as a wedding photographer and during the summer, strapless dresses are all the rage. I love the strapless look but there's often a bit of flab hanging out over the top of the dress in the back, which means some stealthy editing ahead for me. Even without strapless dresses, we sometimes can see a bit of fat hanging over the top or bottom of a woman's bra, or some rolls on the backside of her waist, even though she's wearing a shirt. We often don't think of our back as being flabby because unlike our stomachs, our hips and our thighs, we don't see our back when we look in a mirror. But just because we don't see the flab, doesn't mean it's not there. A little bit of toning in your back can make the difference between flab-overhang and totally fab.
In my fitness classes, my instructor told us one of the best ways to firm up our back was through an exercise called the bent knee dead lift with a row, which I think is also known as bent over row. It looks something like this although I don't let my weight go as close to the ground as that guy. One thing to keep in mind when you're doing the row is to squeeze your shoulder blades together for the most effective exercise.

Of course, you can't rely on one exercise to firm up your back -- boring! Here are several other way to blast back fat:

Lat pull-downs will make a big impact on your Latissmus Dorsi -- the largest muscle group in your back. These exercises are generally done with cable-weights at your gym, but you can do them with resistance bands if you must. Typically, they look like this.

On Prevention Magazine's website, Fitness celebrity Denise Austin recommends back extensions and reverse back extensions that you do with an exercise ball (no weights required!). Doing a back extension on an exercise ball is basically like doing a crunch but in reverse -- your stomach is on the ball instead of your backside. They look like this. These will target your lower back and will help tone those love handles you have in behind. They'll also help strengthen your lower back.

Another good exercise for your back is the fly. Here's how you do it: Sit on the edge of a chair with a light dumbell in each hand. Lean forward, hinging at the waist, and let your arms hand down -- palms facing towards each other. Raise your weights to the side, making an arc, until your arms get to shoulder height. Make sure to squeeze your should blades together.