Key Takeaways:

1. The Pendlay row is a bent-over row where you let the bar settle on the floor for a moment at the bottom of each rep.

2. The Pendlay row builds starting strength, and develops the lats and upper back.

3. Make sure you keep your hips and torso in the same position throughout the whole set.

4. The Pendlay row can be done first in your workout or as an assistance lift after deadlifts or cleans.

What Is A Pendlay Row and What Are Its Benefits?

(See 00:21 in the video above.)

The Pendlay row looks something like a deadlift, but is executed more like a bent-over row. The bar is on the floor, you bend your hips back to reach it, row, and then return the bar to the floor each rep. Because you have to reset the bar on the floor, your lower back gets a bit of a break, at least compared to doing the basic bent-over row, where you hold the flexed-hip position throughout the set and lower the bar to arm’s length. This reset also allows you to lift heavier weights, which makes the Pendlay row a great strength exercise for the lats, upper and lower back, core, and grip.

The Pendlay row is named for the late weightlifting coach Glenn Pendlay, who unwittingly invented the exercise in an effort to get his students to train bent-over rows more efficiently and with stricter form. It also carries over well to developing the explosive back strength needed for weightlifting and powerlifting movements such as the clean, snatch, and deadlift.

How to Perform Proper Technique For The Pendlay Row

(See 01:07 in the video.)

Step 1. Set up as you would to deadlift, placing your feet at about hip-width and just behind the barbell on the floor. Keeping a long spine from your head to your tailbone, bend your hips back as far as you can, and bend your knees until you can reach the barbell with your hands about shoulder-width apart or a little wider. Your hips should be bent about 90 degrees so that your torso is parallel to the floor, and you must maintain this angle throughout the set.

Step 2. Draw your shoulders back and down, as if pushing your chest out and closer to the bar beneath you. You should feel your lat muscles contract. Now brace your core. Your neck should be neutral, with your eyes focused on the floor in front of you.

Step 3. Keeping the rest of your body as still as possible, row the bar—explosively—to the bottom of your chest/upper abs. Remember to maintain your hip position so your lower back stays neutral and flat.

Step 4. Lower the bar quickly, but under control, until it touches the floor again. Take a moment to reset the bar (especially if it wobbles), and begin your next rep.

Make sure the bar touches down in the same place it started. It’s OK to let the bar come down fairly quickly, as the movement is supposed to be explosive with an emphasis on the concentric (upward phase of the lift), but for the sake of safety and control don’t just let it drop.

The Pendlay row works well when programmed for lower reps, with sets of 5–8 reps being the sweet spot.

Muscles Worked In The Pendlay Row

(See 02:26 in the video.)

The key players here are:

– Lats (drawing the arms back)

– Rhomboids (retracting the shoulders)

– Rear deltoids (pulling the arms back)

– Lower and mid traps (retracting the shoulder blades)

– Spinal erectors (stabilizing your spine in the bent-over position)

– Biceps (bending the elbows)

– Core (the various ab muscles brace your spine)

Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

(See 02:50 in the video.)

#1. Changing torso and hip position.

Coach Pendlay offered his version of the row to correct a problem he often saw in others rowing: raising the torso. A set might start off strict, but as the lifter tires, he/she tends to bounce the upper body, heaving the weight up with more of the low back than is necessary and pulling the weight to the stomach (thereby cutting off the range of motion).

In a proper Pendlay row, you must keep your hips bent 90 degrees and your torso locked in place. Only the shoulders and arms move.

#2. Rounding the spine

In any bent-over exercise where the chest is unsupported, there’s a greater demand on your trunk to stabilize the torso and spine. Rounding the back is the enemy here, and it invites the risk of lower-back injury. Remember to think “long spine” and keep your lower back in its natural arch. As you bend over into position, think about trying to touch your butt to the wall behind you, as opposed to folding over at the waist.

#3. Not letting the weight touch the floor between reps.

If you don’t touch the weight down between reps, you’re just doing a bent-over row. At the same time, if you bounce the weight off the floor too quickly, you’re likely to break form. The whole value of the Pendlay row comes from beginning each rep from a dead stop. By eliminating momentum, you develop more of what coaches call “starting strength”—the ability to get the weight moving. Relying on momentum to keep the bar in motion is a way to cut corners and miss out on the full benefit.

If you have trouble disciplining yourself to reset between reps, try counting to two after you touch the bar down and before you begin the next rep. Treat each rep like its own set.

#4. Pulling the bar to the wrong place.

Rowing the bar too high or too low on the torso can throw off the target muscles being used. For example, pulling the bar up toward the collarbone can end up working the arms and upper traps a bit more than the upper and mid back. Alternatively, pulling the bar to the waist can reduce the activation of the upper back.

Note the proximity of your body to the bar in your setup. Lining up the bar so it’s just over your shoelaces is a good starting point. Once you bend over the bar to pick it up, aim for your shoulder blades to be in line with the bar—not your deltoids or belly button. This will encourage you to pull in a straight line.

Pendlay Row Exercise Variations

(See 04:47 in the video.)

The Pendlay row can be customized for your needs and goals with a few simple tweaks.

Elevated Pendlay Row

If you’re especially tall, or lack the hip mobility to reach the bar when it’s on the floor without rounding your lower back, it’s OK to do a Pendlay row with the bar elevated on some blocks, mats, or weight plates. This will shorten the range of motion some so you can focus on rowing without worry about the safety of your spine position. An elevation of anywhere from 3 to 12 inches can be a game-changer.

Paused Pendlay Row

For variety, you can add an isometric hold at the top of each rep. That is, a pause when the bar is pulled to your chest. Most people have a habit of bouncing the bar off their chests, and the top of the rep is the weakest biomechanical position in the movement. Therefore, it’s a good idea to force yourself to hold the weight there from time to time, and it will not only strengthen your row but also help to clean up your form.

Pauses are also a good strategy to use if you’re injured or don’t have access to much weight. Taking an extra second or two to hold the top position with your back fully contracted will make lighter weight feel much heavier, and see that you get the best training effect from the weights you have access to or can handle.

Alternatives To The Pendlay Row

(See 06:15 in the video.)

Fisherman Row

While the Pendlay row requires only a barbell and plates, you may work out at home with just a bench and dumbbells. In this case, you might consider doing a single-arm dumbbell row variation. A fisherman row is a dumbbell row done with two benches. This creates a lot of stability and helps you keep your hips square to the floor, which encourages a long, straight spine.

Step 1. Place two benches parallel to each other, and rest a dumbbell on the floor in between them. (If you don’t have two benches, use a step or box to substitute for one.)

Step 2. Place your knees on one bench, shoulder-width apart. Rest one hand on the bench in front of you, and grasp the dumbbell with the other. Your hips should be square to the floor.

Step 3. Row the dumbbell to your side, straight up from the floor. Return it to the floor, pause, and repeat.

Using a dumbbell also allows you to train the row through a slightly greater range of motion, as well as utilize a higher rep range than would be practical with the barbell version.

Inverted Row

The inverted row is ideal for home workouts or anyplace else you have very limited equipment. In this case, you’re moving your own bodyweight and not a barbell, although you can set it up with a barbell on a power rack, or a suspension training system like a TRX or gymnastics rings. The inverted row spares the lower back and enables the lifter to pause at the top and/or bottom of each rep.

Step 1. Set the bar or suspension handles to around waist height, and hang from the handles with your feet on the floor. Extend your hips and position yourself so that you’re suspended above the floor and your body forms a straight line. Draw your shoulders back and down to engage the lats.

Step 2. Pull your body up to the bar or handles, and lower yourself back under control. It’s important that your body moves as a unit. That means no hiking the hips or bending the knees to help yourself out.

How To Warm Up For Pendlay Rows

(See 07:50 in the video.)

Hip Hinge

Step 1. Stand with feet parallel and bend your knees slightly.

Step 2. Now drive your hips back as far as you can while keeping a long spine from your head to your tailbone. When you feel a stretch in your hamstrings, or you can’t push your hips back any further without losing your spine position, come back up to standing. Do 2–3 sets of 5–15 reps.

Cat Camel

Step 1. Get on all fours and brace your core. Your arms should be directly under your shoulders and your knees under your hips.

Step 2. Press your arms into the floor while you round your upper back toward the ceiling, spreading your shoulder blades. Hold for a second.

Step 3. Now retract your shoulder blades while you arch your upper back and drive your solar plexus toward the floor. Hold for a second. That’s one rep. Imagine the motion as having a string running through your solar plexus with someone pulling it up and then down—try to move at the upper back and not the lower back. Do 3 sets of 10 reps.

Who Should Perform the Pendlay Row?

(See 09:48 in the video.)

Lifters who want a break from the conventional barbell row, as well as those whose lower backs bother them, may have an easier time doing the Pendlay row. Resting the bar between reps can be a saving grace for the lumbar region. Pendlay rows are also a great way to check your form and ensure your torso stays in the correct position, so you could consider them a good pre-requisite to master before returning to regular bent-over rows.

They’re also a perfect accessory lift done after deadlifts, cleans, snatches, or other movements that some lifters compete in. The Pendlay row trains you to keep your hips and torso braced while you pull explosively—a huge component to all of the aforementioned lifts.

Additionally, any lifter who wants to build a strong back from the base of the neck down to their sacrum can benefit from working on the Pendlay row from time to time, especially if they train at home or in a gym where equipment is sparse.

Differences Between the Pendlay Row and Other Rows

(See 10:36 in the video.)

As we explained above, letting the bar settle on the ground is a key difference between the Pendlay row and the conventional bent-over row. Resting momentarily between reps gives the lower back and core muscles a break. Plus, having to explode the weight up from a dead-stop position builds power that can translate to weightlifting and other sports. It also lets you train heavier than a bent-over row and make it a more strength-focused movement.

Both Pendlay and bent-over rows require plenty of trunk stability, and that sets both movements apart from machine and chest-supported rows, which allow you to isolate the lat and upper-back muscles more completely. Subsequently, supported rows are probably better overall choices for pure muscle gains, while Pendlay and bent-over rows are, arguably, more functional movements that involve the whole body and build strength that more readily applies to other lifts and real-life activities.

The T-bar row, in which you straddle the barbell while one end is fixed against the floor, is another barbell-based rowing movement. The T-bar setup allows you to stand more upright and is a little easier on the lower back than both the Pendlay and bent-over row, and also lets you go heavier than these lifts, but it doesn’t offer the full-body challenge of the Pendlay or bent row.

Choose the row that’s most appropriate for your goals, and feel free to experiment with each variation over time. For instance, people who are interested in greater strength and power for weightlifting or powerlifting competition may choose to make Pendlay and bent-over rows their mainstay, while muscle-seekers may opt for chest-supported or T-bar rows. Furthermore, if you’re dealing with a back injury, Pendlay rows are a better choice than bent-overs, and chest-supported rows would probably be better still.

How to Fit Pendlay Rows Into Your Workout

(See 12:15 in the video.)

The Pendlay row is a demanding lift that offers the potential to move a lot of weight. For those reasons, it will ask a lot of the nervous system and grip strength of the lifter. Placing the Pendlay closer to the beginning of your back (or pull day) workout would be a smart choice to maximize the amount of weight lifted and the stimulus (it can also come second in line behind deadlifts, if you do those on pull day).

Performing Pendlays later in your workout will mean you’ll have to go lighter and may not get as much out of them, but it’s a good strategy if you want to use less weight so as not to aggravate a back injury or cheat form.

In general, it’s good to keep the reps on the lower end (5–8). You can complement Pendlays with other lower-back intensive lifts done for higher reps (10 and above), like the back extension, good morning, and bird dog.

The post How To Do the Pendlay Row for a Bigger Back appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Key Takeaways:

1. The chest-supported row can spare your lower back while overloading your upper and middle back.

2. It provides an alternative to the classic bent-over barbell row, and may be more appropriate for people who have done bent-over rows for years and reached a plateau, or can no longer perform that movement safely.

3. The chest-supported row can be done with dumbbells and an adjustable bench at home. An alternative is the three-point dumbbell row.

4. When performing it, be sure to avoid arching and bending the spine, not getting a maximum stretch at the bottom of each rep, and putting yourself in an uncomfortable position.

What Is The Chest-Supported Row and What Are Its Benefits?

(See 00:20 in the video above.)

The term chest-supported row refers to any row exercise where your chest rests against a bench. This can be done with a variety of machines, but if you work out at home, you can do it with an adjustable bench and dumbbells. By resting your chest against the pad, you create a very stable position from which to row, and that allows you to lift heavier weight than if you were doing an old-fashioned bent-over row. It will also help you to isolate your middle and upper-back muscles for better gains without being limited by the strength and stability in your lower back.

The chest-supported row is good for keeping your form strict, which can help beginners who need to learn rowing movements, as well as more experienced lifters whose lower backs may be banged up from years of bent-over rows, deadlifts, or squats. In other words, the chest-supported row lets you train the muscles of the mid and upper back without stressing the lower back.

How To Do The Chest-Supported Row: Setup and Instructions

(See 01:00 in the video.)

Step 1. Set an adjustable bench to a 30- to 45-degree angle. It really just has to be high enough so that your hands don’t touch the floor when you’re doing the row. Now grasp a pair of dumbbells and straddle the bench.

Step 2. Rest your chest and belly against the bench and let your arms hang. Shorter people may need to stand closer to the head of the bench, while taller ones stand further back, so that when you lie on the bench your head is clear of it. Your legs should be fairly straight and your toes should dig into the floor. Brace your core, and make yourself as stable as possible.

Step 3. Allow your shoulder blades to spread apart so you feel a stretch in your upper back. As you begin the row, drive your shoulder blades back together and downward. Think “proud chest,” and imagine squeezing a pencil or a walnut between your shoulder blades—that’s how tight you should aim to pull them together.

Row the weights back toward your hips with your arms close to your sides until your elbows are bent about 90 degrees and your back is fully contracted.

Step 4. Lower the weights under control and let your shoulders spread apart again. That’s one rep.

What Muscles Does The Chest-Supported Row Work?

(See 02:06 in the video.)

The chest-supported row done with the arms staying close to your sides is going to mainly work the lat muscles, but you can vary the way your back muscles get trained by adjusting the height of the bench and your arm angle. A steeper angle on the bench as well as arms raised 45–60 degrees away from your sides will recruit more of the upper back (trapezius, rhomboids) and rear deltoids.

Of course, as with any row, your biceps and forearms will also get some work.

Pro Tips: How To Avoid Common Mistakes

(See 02:38 in the video.)

Mistake #1

One common mistake on the chest-supported row is arching the back really hard as you row the weight up. When the weight is heavy, or you’re tired at the end of a set, it’s tempting to hyperextend your spine in an effort to get the weight up, but that can hurt your back. If you feel your chest rising off the bench, you’re breaking form.

Keep your core tight and your shoulder blades moving back and down. Your upper torso should stay neutral and supported by the bench.

Mistake #2

Another mistake is not letting your shoulder blades spread at the bottom of the row. You can’t spread the shoulders apart on a bent-over barbell row without losing stability, so you should take advantage of the strong position that the chest-supported row puts you in by getting a stretch in your back muscles at the bottom of every rep. Many coaches and scientists believe that loading muscles in their stretched positions, or emphasizing the stretched position of a rep, provides a growth stimulus all its own.

Let your shoulders protract at the bottom and feel the stretch before you retract them and row. You can even hold this position for a second.

Mistake #3

Lastly, make sure your body is properly supported by the bench. If you position yourself too far forward on the bench, your chest won’t rest on the pad, and your upper body may flop over the edge of the bench. By the same token, if you’re too low on the bench so that your face is rubbing into it, you’ll have a hard time breathing (not to mention, of course, that you’ll look a little ridiculous).

All of your upper body right down to your hips should be supported by the bench at all times. Learn to use the bench for its true purpose—to provide a platform off which you can perform your exercises without having to stabilize any body parts yourself—and you’ll get the best possible results.

Variations of Chest-Supported Rows

(See 04:39 in the video.)

The chest-supported position lends itself to a few other movements that can help your back training.

Kelso Shrug

(See 04:43 in the video.)

By just retracting your shoulder blades you can focus on the upper back muscles, leaving the lats and the biceps out of it. Called a Kelso shrug, this can strengthen your back for heavier deadlifts as well as give you a thicker appearance front to back, particularly in your traps.

Step 1. Set up on the bench as you would for a chest-supported row.

Step 2. Simply retract your shoulder blades back and downward. You don’t have to fight to keep your arms straight, but don’t bend them to assist—keep the movement purely at your shoulders. Hold the top position for a moment or two.

EZ-Bar Chest-Supported Row

(See 05:13 in the video.)

You don’t have to limit yourself to dumbbells when you do the chest-supported row. A straight barbell can be cumbersome to use, but an EZ-curl bar can let you go heavier than dumbbells and use a palms-up grip, which will bring more lats and biceps into the movement.

Step 1. Load an EZ-curl bar and set it below the bench. Use small plates so that the weights don’t hit the floor when your arms are extended. Grasp the bar with hands shoulder-width apart and your palms facing up.

Step 2. Row the bar until it touches the bench—your shoulder blades should still be fully retracted at the top.

Chest-Supported Row Alternatives

(See 05:44 in the video.)

If there’s one drawback to the chest-supported row on an inclined bench, it’s that many benches can only be set to 45 degrees, and that does tend to cause people to arch too hard at the top. A good fix for that is to raise the bench to about 90 degrees and perform the exercise seated rather than lying down.

You’re still doing a row with your chest supported, but you’ll be less likely to cheat your body position as you get tired or the weight gets heavy.

From a seated position, the resistance will have to come from in front of you rather than below, so a cable is a good idea here. And for ease of use, it’s usually better to work one arm at a time.

Seated, One-Arm Chest-Supported Cable Row

(See 05:48 in the video.)

Three-Point Dumbbell Row

(See 06:50 in the video.)

A dumbbell row with three points of support (one hand and two feet) provides a solid foundation for heavy rowing. It also allows you to work one side at a time, so you can identify and bring up any imbalances between sides.

Step 1. Stagger your stance so your legs provide a wide base of support. Keeping a long spine, hinge at the hips and place one hand on the bench. Pick up the dumbbell with your free hand, and brace your core.

Step 2. Row the dumbbell to your hip.

Chest-Supported Rows Vs. Barbell Rows: Key Differences

(See 07:17 in the video.)

Chest-supported rows and bent-over barbell rows train mostly the same muscles, but the chest-supported row offers more isolation and less activation of the lower back. In the barbell row, the strength of your lower back will always limit the amount of weight you can row. So, if your goal is to build muscle and strength in your back, and you’ve been grinding out barbell rows for years, you may want to switch to the chest-supported row. Likewise, if you have a lower-back injury, barbell rows might aggravate it while the chest-supported row can let you train your back pain-free.

Another advantage of the chest-supported row being so stable is that it will help to prevent you from bouncing or rocking the weight up, which tends to happen when people barbell row.

How To Warm Up Before Chest-Supported Rows

(See 08:00 in the video.)

Include the following movements in your warmup.

T-Spine Rotation

(See 08:06 in the video.)

Step 1. Get on all-fours so your hands are directly underneath your shoulders and your knees are underneath your hips. Tuck your tailbone under so your pelvis is perpendicular to your spine, and brace your core. Push your hips back so your butt is close to your heels, and place your right hand on the back of your head.

Step 2. Twist your torso to point your right elbow out to your left-hand side, and then sweep it back up, rotating until your elbow points overhead. Avoid flexing or arching your lower back at any point. That’s one rep. Do 2 sets of 10 reps on each side.

Kneeling Elbow Circle

(See 08:51 in the video.)

Step 1. From the same all-fours position as the T-spine rotation, turn your elbows to point out to the sides and then bend them, lowering your body to the bottom of a pushup.

Step 2. Turn your elbows toward your body and extend your arms to return to the starting position. That’s one rep. Alternate directions each rep, and do 2 sets of 10 reps.

Who Should Do Chest-Supported Rows?

(See 10:07 in the video.)

If you have a lower-back injury, chest-supported rows will allow you to train the rest of your back hard and heavy without irritating your lumbar spine. Furthermore, if your goal is to put on muscle, the stability and isolation that the chest-supported row provides will let you train heavier and progress in load more quickly than a barbell row, and that means faster gains.

How To Fit Chest-Supported Rows Into Your Workouts?

(See 10:25 in the video.)

You can do the chest-supported row anywhere in your back workout or on an upper-body day. Since it trains the muscles that are opposite the ones that perform the bench press, it’s a good complement to bench pressing, and you can alternate sets of the two moves, or do the two exercises back to back to ensure that your training is balanced.

The chest-supported row can be done safely with heavy weight, as well as for high reps. Start with 2–3 sets of 5–10 reps, and add weight and reps gradually over time.

For more upper-back training ideas, see 4 Traps Exercises and 2 Workouts for Getting Huge.

The post Do Chest-Supported Rows To Build Back Strength appeared first on Onnit Academy.

What Is The SI Joint & Why Does It Hurt?

(See 00:24 in the video above)

The SI joints connect the bony part of the lower spine that’s just above the tailbone (called the sacrum) with the top of the pelvis (the ilium). They work to support the weight of the upper body when you’re standing and walking. Unlike the hip and shoulders, the SI joints aren’t designed to move very much, and pain can result when we force them to move more than they should. The most common causes of SI joint pain are limb-length discrepancies (one leg is longer than the other), abnormal walking patterns, scoliosis, and carrying a child while pregnant, but strain from heavy lifting can be a culprit too.

“With regard to working out, specifically, we tend to overdo movement in the sagittal plane,” says Layne Palm, DC, a chiropractor in Austin, TX, and a nationally-ranked Olympic weightlifter (@laynepalmdc). In other words, we favor exercises that have our limbs and torso moving forward and back, such as deadlifts, bench presses, and running. “Over time, this can overload the SI joints and cause compression that leads to irritation.” For the sake of avoiding future SI joint pain, Palm recommends performing more exercises that work the body in the frontal and transverse planes—that is, moving side to side and in rotation, respectively. Strengthening the body’s different movement capacities will take pressure off the SI joints.

Why Stretch Your Sacroiliac (SI) Joint & What Does It Do?

(See 01:53 in the video)

When suffering from SI joint pain, many people’s first instinct is to try to stretch the joint. Because they feel tightness in the area, they think stretching will release it. Palm cautions against doing this, as stretching an unstable joint can only exacerbate the problem (furthermore, it’s impractical to stretch the SI joint, specifically). The right move, he says, is to stretch the musculature that acts on the SI joint. These muscles include the hip flexors (the muscles that raise your leg in front of you), glutes, lats, and spinal erectors (the ones that hold your spine upright, and stand out on your lower back). “Stretching these muscles will often release the tension that is causing extra compression and uneven pressure on the SI joints,” says Palm.

3 Stretching Exercises To Loosen Your SI Joint

(See 02:26 in the video)

Palm recommends performing the following stretches daily.

1. Hip Flexor Stretch

(See 02:30 in the video)

Step 1. Get into a lunge position on the floor. Your front leg should be bent 90 degrees with your foot flat on the floor; your back leg should also be bent 90 with the top of your foot on the floor. You can hold onto a bench or other sturdy object (such as a foam roller, shown here), to help you keep your balance.

Step 2. Tuck your tailbone under so your pelvis is parallel to the floor. Pull your ribs down, and brace your core.

Step 3. Shift your weight forward so you feel a stretch in the front of the hip on the downed leg.

The hip flexor muscles run from the lumbar spine down to the front of the hip, and when they get tight (usually from too much time spent sitting), they pull the pelvis forward, compressing the SI joints on the back of the pelvis. Palm recommends holding this stretch for 90 seconds on each side, two to three times per day—or more, if you spend a lot of your day sitting.

2. Seated Glute Stretch

(See 03:13 in the video)

Step 1. Sit on the edge of a bench and cross one leg over the other. Keeping a tall spine, gently hug your knee to your chest until you feel a stretch in the outside edge of your glutes. At the same time, turn your torso into the stretch.

Some people may find that their glutes are too tight to do the aforementioned stretch, and it’s uncomfortable as a result. In that case, start with the easier figure-four stretch: simply cross your leg over so your ankle rests just above your knee, and push down on your top knee lightly.

In the case of both stretches, hold them 60 seconds on each side, and repeat them for the same number of hours that you spend sitting at a desk. That means that if you work for eight hours at a desk in front of a computer, perform the stretch eight times a day—preferably at the top of every hour (set an alarm so you remember!).

3. Lat Stretch

(See 04:09 in the video)

Step 1. Turn your palm over so your thumb is pointing down and grasp the end of an inclined bench, or other high surface. Step back with the same side’s leg, round your torso forward, and tuck your pelvis under. You should feel a deep stretch in the lat muscle on that side.

The lats act on the pelvis, and they can pull the low back into excessive extension if they’re tight. Keeping them mobile will help to relieve as well as prevent SI troubles. Breathe slowly and deeply, and hold the stretch for 10 deep breaths on both sides. Repeat the stretch up to three times per day.

Note that if you have SI joint pain on one side only, stretching the opposite side’s lat will target it most directly, because the lat fibers run obliquely. If that’s the case, stretch the tighter lat with an additional five breaths.

3 Exercises To Strengthen Your SI Joint

(See 05:30 in the video)

In addition to stretching out the muscles that affect the SI joint, you can strengthen the muscles around the joint with a few different exercises.

1. SI Joint Reset and Isometric Adduction Contraction

(See 05:40 in the video)

This one doesn’t exactly strengthen the joint, but by applying a little resistance to your legs, you can help to re-center the joint and make it feel better.

Step 1. Lie on your back on the floor and bend your hips and knees 90 degrees. Place one hand on the top of that same side’s knee and the other hand on the opposite side of the other knee so you’re in position to push on one leg and pull on the other.

Step 2. Begin driving one knee up toward your chest while extending the other one away from you, but use your hands to push and pull accordingly so that you resist any movement. In other words, your legs should be trying to move but your hands will hold them in place. Hold the tension for 5 seconds, and then switch hand positions and repeat in the opposite direction. Repeat for 10 reps each side.

Step 3. Place a foam roller or other light but firm object between your knees and rest your feet on the floor. Squeeze your knees together for 5 seconds and then relax. That’s one rep. Repeat for 10 reps.

Repeat this sequence up to three times per day.

2. Dead Bug

(See 07:05 in the video)

This move strengthens the core and trains it to brace your pelvis while your legs are moving.

Step 1. Lie on your back and bring your hips and knees to 90 degrees. Flatten your lower back into the floor.

Step 2. Keeping your lower back flat and your core braced, reach your right hand back and overhead while you extend your left leg out straight. Only go as far as you can keeping your lower back position. Alternate sides. Perform 10 reps (a reach on each side equals one rep).

If that’s too difficult, eliminate the moving limbs and just hold your lower back against the floor with abs braced for 10 seconds. Repeat for 10 reps. Do 2–3 sets total for either variation, resting up to 90 seconds in between.

3. Standing Hip Abduction

(See 09:10 in the video)

Building stability in your hips with frontal plane movements will help fortify the SI joints.

Step 1. Hold onto a foam roller or other sturdy object for balance, and raise one leg out to your side as high as you can without twisting your hips. Do 20–30 reps on each side, and repeat for 2–3 sets, resting up to 90 seconds between each. As you get stronger, you can add resistance by looping an exercise band around your ankles or your legs just above the knee.

Best Sleeping Position For Sacroiliac Joint Pain

(See 10:18 in the video)

Sleeping on your stomach or side may cause your affected SI joint to move out of alignment for several hours, and that can exacerbate the pain. Palm recommends sleeping on your back, but with a pillow or two underneath your knees to elevate your legs a bit (a long body pillow is perfect). That will reduce the amount of extension in your lower back, and keep your SI joint in a more neutral position.

What Exercises Or Activities Should I Avoid If I Have SI Pain?

(See 10:48 in the video)

No matter what kind of injury you’re dealing with, “It’s important that you don’t let pain make you sedentary,” says Palm. “Motion is lotion for our joints.” In other words, continuing to move and exercise as much as you can without directly aggravating your injury is the best way to speed healing, as you’ll encourage blood flow to the area and keep it from getting any weaker.

“Specifically, with the SI joint,” says Palm, “we want to limit any movements that put the back into hyperextension—an excessive lower back curvature.” Cobra poses, back bridges, upward facing dog (yoga), and other exercises that make your back take on a big arch should be avoided. You also may have to avoid exercises where you hinge the hips, such as deadlift variations or kettlebell swings, because they will put stress on the SI joint while it’s healing.

With all that said, injuries tend to be very specific to the movements you do, and while one type of hinge may cause you pain, a slightly different variant may feel totally normal. “I always suggest that my patients go by feel in these situations,” says Palm.

Another strategy to work around pain is to decrease your range of motion on some exercises. You may find that deadlifts from a rack, box, or mats—which reduces your range of motion—can keep you out of painful ranges while still letting you perform the basic movement pattern you want to train. In this case, Palm suggests performing the exercise with maximum control, deadlifting the weight to lockout and then slowing lowering the load—take up to five seconds to go down.

“Reduce the load, reduce the range of motion, but still continue to train,” says Palm.

Are SI Joint Belts Worth It?

(See 12:12 in the video)

Some physical therapists recommend belts that can be worn around the hips to brace and support the SI joint (they’re available on Amazon.com). Palm says this isn’t a bad idea if you’re freshly injured, as these belts can reduce pain, but it isn’t a long-term solution, unlike the stretches and exercises he gave you above. “SI joint belts are fine in the short-term, but you don’t want to rely on them.” Doing your rehab and being patient is the best way to come back from SI joint injury.

Is your shoulder bothering you too? Check out our guide to rehabbing shoulder impingement.

The post 3 SI Joint Stretches & Exercises To Relieve Pain appeared first on Onnit Academy.

What Are the Trapezius Muscles (Traps)?

(See 00:28 in the video above.)

When weightlifters say “traps,” they’re talking about the trapezius muscles on the upper back. There are two of them, one on each side of the spine, and they consist of three parts—each with a different function.

The upper traps start at the top of the neck and attach to the upper and outer edge of the shoulder blade. This part of the muscle shrugs your shoulder, rotates your shoulder blade upward when you raise your arm above horizontal, and helps turn your head. The middle traps originate in the center of the spine and spread out to the shoulder blade and acromion joint. The mid traps pull your shoulder blades back and together.

The lower traps start out way down at the bottom of the rib cage and stretch up to the shoulder blade. They do the opposite of what the upper traps do, drawing your shoulder blades downward.

Most guys only train their traps with barbell and dumbbell shrugs, but as we just explained, that shrugging motion really only works the upper traps, so shrugging alone is incomplete training when you want an upper back like a bull. To get trapezius muscles that appear three-dimensional and make you look like you’re wearing an oxen’s yoke—hence the term “yoked”—you need to train the traps’ other two functions. And that’s not just a good idea for building a bad ass physique. Strengthening the middle and lower traps will also help to ward off shoulder injuries and keep your upper back in balance with your chest.

Ask any physical therapist who’s dealt with clients complaining of shoulder pain from too much pressing or poor posture—they often prescribe scapular retraction and lower-trap exercises to restore balance. Chronic slouchers often experience scapular winging—excessive outward movement of the shoulder blades—which can lead to poor shoulder mechanics in pressing and reaching overhead. Strengthening the lower and middle trap helps offset that, explains Chad Waterbury, DPT, a physical therapist and strength and conditioning coach in Los Angeles (@drchadwaterbury). “You’ll open space in the shoulder joint and avoid pain and impingement when you reach overhead.”  

Finally, from a performance perspective, strong traps play a role in weightlifting cleans and deadlifts. “In sports, they help you throw a punch and swing a racquet,” says Andrew Heffernan, CSCS, an award-winning fitness journalist and co-author of The Exercise Cure and Your New Prime. In short, big traps aren’t just a sign of a guy or gal who can rip sh!t up—they actually help you do it.

Four Effective Exercises for Working Out Your Traps

(See 01:39 in the video.)

Start integrating the following movements into your training. They can be done toward the end of any upper or full-body training days you do, as well as on back days, if you follow a body-part workout split. (See sample workouts below in the Best Trap Workouts For Getting Huge section for examples of how they can fit in.)

1. Dumbbell Shrug With Forward Lean (Upper and Middle Traps)

(See 01:44 in the video.)

Most people do shrugs by shrugging their shoulders straight up. That will certainly hit the upper traps, but you’ll involve more of the muscle—specifically, the middle traps, the meatiest part of the muscle—by angling your body forward a bit. It also allows you to use a greater range of motion.

This kind of shrug was a favorite technique of Dorian Yates, a Mr. Olympia-winning bodybuilder with one of the biggest backs in history.

Step 1. Hold dumbbells at your sides and bend your hips back about 20 degrees. Keep a long straight line from your head to your tailbone, and brace your core. You don’t want to round your lower back here. Retract your neck and tuck your chin. Maintain this body position throughout the exercise.

Step 2. Shrug your shoulders up and slightly back. You should feel your whole upper back pinch together. Hold this top position for a second or two to really make the traps work, and then lower the dumbbells back down under control, letting the weight stretch your traps at the bottom of the rep.

As you get stronger, your grip strength will limit the weight you can use, shortchanging your traps of the stimulus. It’s OK to use lifting straps to reinforce your grip so you can shrug heavier weights and challenge your traps even more.

2. Wide-Grip Chest-Supported Row (Middle Traps)

(See 02:44 in the video.)

Any rowing movement that has you squeezing your shoulder blades together will involve a lot of middle traps. But supporting your chest on a bench will provide more stability, which allows you to lift heavier weight, and will better isolate the upper back muscles in general. There’s a time and place for bent-over rowing variations, but if you want to zero-in on the traps, it’s better to take your lower back out of the equation and not waste energy stabilizing the entire body.

You can do these on a machine, with a barbell, or with dumbbells, as shown in the video above.

Step 1. Set a bench to about a 45-degree angle. It just needs to be high enough to accommodate the length of your arms and prevent the weights you’re using from hitting the floor at the bottom of each rep. Lie on the bench, chest down, and grasp dumbbells.

Step 2. Row the weights with your arms out about 60 degrees. This will target the traps better than if your arms are close to your sides, which is more of a lat exercise. Drive your elbows back as far as you can and squeeze your shoulder blades together at the top. You may want to hold the top for a second or two as you did with the shrugs to make the exercise stricter and emphasize the traps as much as possible.

Step 3. Lower the weights and allow your shoulders to spread at the bottom.

As with the shrugs, it may be helpful to use lifting straps on your rows once you’ve worked up to very heavy weights that your grip can’t hold onto.

3. Kelso Shrug (Middle Traps)

(See 03:59 in the video.)

Here’s a movement that really isolates the traps. The goal here is to prevent the other back muscles, along with the biceps, from assisting, and force your traps to retract your shoulder blades alone. You can do these with a barbell or a machine, but dumbbells work fine too, as long as you use a wide enough grip to allow your shoulders to retract all the way.

Step 1. Set up on a bench the way we described for the chest-supported row.

Step 2. Simply retract your shoulders and squeeze them. Hold the top for a second or two. Be careful not to shrug your shoulders up or hyperextend your back. Just pull the weight straight back. Your chest may come off the pad a little, but don’t arch your back hard trying to get the weight up. It’s a short range of motion and a subtle movement, but the point is to isolate the traps, so don’t turn it into another row.

4. Y Raise (Lower Traps)

(See 04:41 in the video.)

Remember we said that your lower traps pull the shoulder blades down in a reverse shrugging motion, so any pullup or pulldown variation will involve the lower traps to a large degree while it trains the lats. Still, it’s a good idea to really isolate the lower traps to strengthen them, especially if you do a lot of overhead or chest pressing, which can be hard on the shoulder joints. Strong lower traps help to stabilize shoulders, and the Y raise is a great movement for this purpose.

Step 1. Set a bench to a 45-degree angle and lie on it, chest down. Hold a light dumbbell in each hand, and brace your core.

Step 2. Raise your arms out in front of you on an angle so your body forms a Y shape. Hold the top for a second or two. You should feel the tension in the middle of your back, and if you don’t, make sure you’re not going too heavy or arching your back.

The Best Trap Workouts for Getting Huge

(See 05:30 in the video.)

“The traps work in concert with other muscles—such as the rhomboids and serratus anterior—to perform a myriad of scapular movements,” says Waterbury. Any time you perform rows, chins, pulldowns, overhead presses, or deadlifts, you’re also hitting your traps—especially the upper traps. Because the traps are involved in so many of your other back exercises, you don’t need to blast them with a death ray of volume to see gains.

Try adding one or two trap-focused exercises to your routines for two sessions a week, and do only two hard sets to start. (This means sets taken to failure, or within one rep of failure.) If you feel your traps are really lagging and you want to emphasize them, prioritize them by doing a trap exercise first in your workout. Here are two examples of back workouts that emphasize the trapezius.

Sample Back Workout 1

1. Chinup

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–8

2. Wide-Grip Chest-Supported Row

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–10

3. Close-Grip Cable Row

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–10

4. Dumbbell Shrug

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–10

Sample Back Workout 2

1. Kelso Shrug

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–10

2. One-Arm Dumbbell Row

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–10

3. Lat Pulldown

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–10

4. Y Raise

Sets: 2  Reps: 6–10

How to Stretch Your Traps

(See 06:23 in the video.)

The traps can get tight from a lot of heavy training in combination with sitting in front of a computer or looking down at your phone all day, so it’s helpful to stretch them out a little bit throughout the day and after training. This stretch from Waterbury may help to prevent headaches as well as injury in the gym.

Step 1. Reach your right hand behind your back and place the back of your hand against the back of your left hip. Hold your shoulders down and back.

Step 2. Grasp the back of your head and gently pull it down and across in the direction of your left shoulder. You’ll feel a strong stretch in the back of your neck and traps. Hold for 30 seconds, and then repeat on the opposite side. Repeat for 3 rounds.

Learn an additional trap-building exercise with our guide to the landmine row.

The post 4 Traps Exercises and 2 Workouts for Getting Huge appeared first on Onnit Academy.

What Is The Landmine Row and What Are Its Benefits?

(See 00:15 in the video above.)

The landmine row is a barbell rowing movement where one end of the barbell rests on the floor, or is anchored using a landmine apparatus, allowing you to row the bar in an arcing motion rather than straight up and down. There are many ways to row with this setup, and we’ll go over all of them in this article, but the most basic and popular version is to straddle the bar and row it with both hands using a V-grip handle (the kind you see on cable machines). To bodybuilders, this is called a T-bar row, and it’s a great, old-school exercise for the back, and the lats specifically. (Some landmine machines provide barbells that have a handle fixed perpendicular to the bar, forming a T-shape, hence the name.)

While it’s very similar to the classic bent-over barbell row, the landmine row has some big advantages. “The arc that the bar travels allows you to keep a more upright torso, which is easier on your lower back,” says Jonny Catanzano, an IFBB pro bodybuilder and physique coach (@jonnyelgato_ifbbpro). It also means that the weight will be closer to your center of gravity at the top of each rep, and that allows you to control it better, and even hold the top position longer than you could with a bent-over row, if you choose to. That can give you a better muscle contraction in your back, and makes the landmine row a good choice for hypertrophy (muscle-gain) training.

With one end of the bar fixed on the floor, the landmine—aka T-bar row—is also a more stable movement than a conventional barbell or dumbbell row, and that allows you to lift heavier weights. Flip through old bodybuilding magazines or books and you’ll see many lifters hoisting hundreds of pounds on T-bar rows, but super heavy bent-over rows are less common. The landmine setup simply allows for heavier weights to be lifted in a safer, more user-friendly movement, so it’s arguably the better choice between the two barbell rowing movements for physique development.

How To Do The Landmine Row

(See 02:55 in the video.)

Ideally, you’ll perform the landmine row using a landmine unit. They usually look like home plate (baseball) with a metal sleeve attached that swivels, but some have feet (like furniture) or are simply a sleeve that can attach to the base of a power rack or even fit inside the donut hole of a weight plate (this is shown above). You can see a number of landmine options on amazon.com.

Using a landmine will keep the end of the bar secure and stable, but it isn’t absolutely necessary to perform landmine training. A second option is to cut a hole in a tennis ball and ram the end of the bar in so that you have a cushion, and then wedge the bar into the corner of a room. At the very least, you can wrap a towel around the bar and push it into a corner (the towel will help protect the walls).

Now let’s discuss how to perform the classic landmine row/T-bar row.

Step 1. Grasp a V-grip handle—the kind you often see people do cable rows with. If you don’t have a V-grip, you can improvise one by attaching gymnastics rings or any other adjustable handles you can access. The point is only to have a comfortable, firm grip that allows your palms to face each other when you row (a neutral grip). Place the handle on the floor next to the front of the bar.

Straddle the bar with feet about shoulder width, facing away from the landmine, and hinge your hips back. Allow your knees to bend, and keep a long line from your head to your tailbone, until your torso is 30–45 degrees to the floor and you can reach the handle. Hook the handle underneath the barbell, close to end of the bar where you’ll load the plates. Pick the bar up off the floor and play around with your stance, torso height, and the distance between your feet and the front end of the bar until you feel balanced and stable with your arms fully extended.

Step 2. Keeping your back straight and flat, and your core braced, row the bar until your back is fully contracted. Your elbows should come up close to your sides and your shoulder blades should squeeze together at the top. If the bar hits you in the groin, adjust your stance!

Step 3. Lower the bar until your arms are fully extended again, but don’t let the weight rest on the floor. Allow your shoulder blades to spread as you go down.

*Use 25-pound plates, or smaller. While it may be less efficient than loading the big 45s, smaller plates will allow you the greatest range of motion on the exercise. Bigger plates, on the other hand, will tend to bump into your chest and/or the floor, reducing the range you can train your muscles, and thereby making the exercise less effective.

“Think about driving with your elbows, rather than your hands,” says Catanzano. That will help you get the proper range of motion. “And be careful to keep a tight core.” As with a bent-over row, deadlift, or any other exercise that has you bending forward at the hips, you need to protect your lower back at all times. Bracing your abs and thinking “long spine” are essential. Catanzano also cautions against “ego lifting,” where you bounce the weight up and round your back on the way down for the sake of lifting heavier or getting more reps. Your hip and back position should remain the same the entire set; only your arms move.

Incidentally, if you’re in a gym that has a proper T-bar row (a handle that forms a T-shape), you can use that for your landmine rows too. The wider, palms-down grip will recruit more of your upper back and rear deltoids, while the landmine row with palms facing each other and elbows tight to your sides emphasizes the lat muscles.

What Muscles Does The Landmine Row Work?

(See 01:25 in the video.)

The landmine row works the back about as well as any exercise can. The muscles it activates include:

– Lats

– Traps

– Rhomboids (middle back)

– Rear delts

– Biceps

– Forearms

– Spinal erectors (lower back)

– Core (ab muscles)

It should be noted that holding the bent-over position tenses your hamstrings isometrically as well. Probably not to the degree that it will build hamstring size, but don’t be surprised if you feel stronger and more stable on deadlifts, RDLs, or other hip hinge exercises after a few weeks of landmine rowing.

Single-Arm Landmine Row Vs. T-Bar Landmine Row Vs. Barbell Landmine Row

Just to reiterate (or, if you’ve been skimming the page and missed it), the T-bar row and landmine row are essentially the same exercise. If you use a T-bar, which allows you to raise your arms out wider so your palms are turned down, you’ll work a little more upper/middle back and rear deltoids than if you use a V-grip handle and row with your elbows close in (the latter emphasizes the lats). There are several other variations of the landmine row, including single-arm versions, which we’ll explore in the next section. Single-arm landmine rows allow you to isolate one side of the back at a time and can increase the range of motion you get, making them a good option for physique training. They also allow you to use your free hand to help brace your hips, which can add stability. You’ll have to use less overall weight when doing a single-arm row of any kind, but this can be an advantage if your lower back is recovering from injury and you don’t want to load it with a heavy bent-over exercise.

Landmine Row Alternatives

The landmine row can be done in different ways to suit your changing goals.

Single-Arm Landmine Row

(See 08:20 in the video.)

By stepping off to one side of the barbell, you can easily turn the landmine row into a unilateral exercise for the lats, similar to a dumbbell row.

Step 1. Set up as you did for the regular landmine row, but stand to one side of the bar and narrow your stance to between hip and shoulder width. Hinge your hips and grasp the bar with the hand nearest to it (grip it close to the end of the bar). Stand up with the bar, and reset your hinge so your torso is angled forward and your back is straight and flat.

Step 2. Row the bar, retracting your shoulder blade, and then lower it back, allowing your shoulders to spread. Avoid twisting your torso to either side. Keep your core braced and your shoulders square to the floor.

“You can adjust your position to affect the muscles in different ways,” says Catanzano. If you stand with your feet a little further forward so that you get into an even deeper hip hinge, and then lift the bar with your elbow out a little wider, you will shift the emphasis from the lats to your upper back. “If you set up to where your legs are straighter and your chest is a little lower, you can hit a little more lower lat.”

Meadows Row (Elbow-Out Landmine Row)

(See 09:50 in the video.)

Standing perpendicular to the bar and rowing it with your elbow flared out really shifts the work from the lats to the upper back and rear delts. This version was popularized by the late bodybuilding coach John Meadows, and has therefore come to bear his name.

Step 1. Stand so that the end of the barbell points to your side and spread your feet shoulder-width apart, or stagger them—whichever feels more balanced and comfortable. Hinge at the hips and grasp the end of the bar with one hand. Since the sleeve where you load the plates is thick in diameter, it can be hard to hold onto—especially with sweaty hands—so consider using lifting straps to reinforce your grip. Brace the elbow of your free arm against your leg for some extra stability.

Step 2. Row the bar, driving your elbow as high as you can. Again, avoid twisting and keep your shoulders square. Your upper arm should end up about 60 degrees from your side—much farther away than the landmine rows we’ve shown up to this point.

Bench-Supported Landmine Row

(See 12:20 in the video.)

If the landmine row (any variation) has a weak link, it’s that it requires a lot of stability to perform. Bracing your core and torso in the bent-over position takes a lot of energy and spreads the muscle tension over your whole body. That’s cool if your goal is to build total-body strength with a movement that works a lot of muscle at once, but it’s a bit limiting if you want to make your back muscles work to the max and get the best stimulus for growth. In the latter case, Catanzano recommends pulling a bench over to rest your free hand and knee on while you perform the Meadows row. “The stability the bench provides will allow you to lift heavier loads,” says Catanzano, “and that will recruit more muscle fibers in your back.”

Band-Resisted Landmine Row

(See 13:00 in the video.)

Catanzano has one other minor gripe with the landmine row, arguing that, as you row the bar closer to your body, your mechanical advantage increases and the weight gets easier to lift. This reduces the tension on the muscles. “In a muscle-building scenario,” he says, “we ideally want the resistance to stay the same or get even heavier throughout the range.” The fix is as simple as adding a resistance band to the bar.

Step 1. Set up a bench as shown for the bench-supported landmine row, and place a heavy dumbbell on the floor next to it. Wrap a mini band around the dumbbell a few times so there’s only a foot or two of slack end. Loop the end of the band over the sleeve of the barbell.

Step 2. Row the bar in the Meadows row style explained above. Because the band will be pulling the bar back down, and the tension increases the higher you row it, you’ll have to row faster and more powerfully. This will ensure that your back is giving its all throughout the exercise.

See more back training ideas from Catanzano in our guide to getting a lat spread like a bodybuilder.

And check out these back and biceps workouts for the ultimate pull day routine.

The post The Expert’s Guide To The Landmine Row Exercise appeared first on Onnit Academy.

What Is The Gorilla Row?

(See 00:27 in the video above.)

The gorilla row is a variation on the bent-over row you’re probably already aware of and usually see done with a barbell. You hinge at the hips and row the weight from the floor until your elbows are at your sides. The key difference with the gorilla row vs. a barbell bent-over row is that the kettlebells allow you to work one side at a time.

You’ll actively push one kettlebell into the floor while you row the other one, all while staying in that bent-over position. The movement can’t help but make you look something like a gorilla foraging for food, but it will also give you the back muscle strength to be king of your own (iron) jungle.

Gorilla Row Exercise Benefits

Any type of bent-over row is a good idea for stimulating total-body strength gains. Your lats and upper back work when you row the weight, but your lower back, hips, and core must also engage just to keep you in position and support your torso. Lifting the weight from the floor on each rep, as opposed to letting the weight hang just slightly above, as you do in some rowing variations, offers the added benefit of keeping the movement more strict, as well as training explosiveness. You can’t let your muscles’ stretch reflex bounce the weight up for you—you’ll have to pull the bell up with muscle power alone.

The gorilla row takes all of this to the next level by having you work unilaterally—one side at a time—which means you’ll be able to train your back through a greater range of motion, and you’ll have to resist any twisting or bending on one side while you row on the other, further heightening the core stability component. Of course, maintaining a deep hip hinge through it all is an important posture to master for lower back health and overall power and explosiveness (nearly all explosive movements involve hip extension, so you might as well master the setup for it).

How To Do the Gorilla Row Exercise Properly

(See 01:04 in the video.)

Step 1. Place two kettlebells on the floor and straddle them with your feet between hip and shoulder width. Hinge your hips back, keeping a long spine from your head to your tailbone. Allow your knees to bend as needed, but keep your lower back flat, not rounded. Grasp the kettlebell handles.

Step 2. Press one bell into the floor and brace your abs. Now row the opposite bell till your elbow is at your ribs. Lower it to the floor again, and repeat the row on the other side while you press the opposite bell into the floor.

The gorilla row is typically done by alternating sides, but you may choose to do all your reps on one side and then the other if you want to better isolate your back one side at a time.

For the best muscle gains, you should keep your shoulders square to the floor throughout the set. However, “You can also rotate your thoracic spine to get a little more mobility out of this exercise,” says Eric Leija, an Onnit-certified coach (@primal.swoledier) and the model in our video. “But you’ll get less lat activation, because the lat won’t be able to fully shorten.” So, if you’re an athlete like a fighter or baseball player who throws or twists a lot in their sport, you may want to allow your torso to turn a few degrees as you row. “But if you’re looking to put on a nice, thick back,” says Leija, “try to minimize that rotation.”

What Muscles Do Gorilla Rows Work?

(See 03:18 in the video.)

The gorilla row gives the following muscles a good drubbing:

–   Lats (the big muscles on the sides of your back)

–   Rhomboids (middle back)

–   Trapezius (upper back)

–   Rear delts (back of the shoulders)

–   Deep core muscles

–   Obliques (the ab muscles on your sides)

–   Rectus abdominis (your six-pack muscle)

–   Biceps

–   Forearms

–   Glutes

–   Hamstrings 

Dumbbell Vs. Kettlebell Gorilla Rows

(See 03:25 in the video.)

Due to kettlebells having handles that reach a few inches above their center of mass, they’re easier to grab a hold of than dumbbells when rowing weight from the floor. Unless you have a contortionist’s hip mobility, trying to grip dumbbells on the floor for gorilla rows will cause you to round your lower back, which you never want to do on a bent-over rowing movement for the sake of avoiding injury.

But, if dumbbells are all you have, you can still do the basic gorilla row movement and get plenty out of it. Simply elevate the dumbbells on a box, bench, or mats in order to raise them to mid-shin level. Now you’ll be able to bend over safely to grasp the handles.

How To Stretch Before Exercising

Warm up your upper back, lats, and core muscles with the sky reach to arm thread. Do this move as part of your warmup/stretching routine before any session that includes the gorilla row.

Step 1. Get on all fours with your hands under your shoulders and your knees directly beneath your hips. Brace your core.

Step 2. Draw your right arm up and across your chest as you twist your right shoulder toward the ceiling and reach overhead. Be careful to keep your hips facing the floor.

Step 3. Reverse the motion, reaching your arm across your body and behind the support arm. Twist as far as you can, ideally until the back of your right shoulder touches the floor. Complete 6–10 reps on that side, and then switch sides and repeat. Do 2–3 sets total.

Gorilla Row Alternatives

If the gorilla row feels too advanced, or you can’t seem to perform it with a safe lower-back position, try these two alternatives that will train the back and core in a similar way.

One-Arm, Split-Stance Row

(See 04:54 in the Build Muscle With The Gorilla Row video.)

Step 1. Step forward with your right leg, as if getting into a lunge position, and extend your left leg straight behind you. Your front knee should be bent about 90 degrees and your back heel may be raised off the floor. Bend at the hips and brace your right forearm against your right knee. Press it into your leg—this will help create stability. Your body should form a long straight line from your head to your heel. Reach with your left hand to grasp a kettlebell on the floor.

Step 2. Row the kettlebell to your side while keeping your shoulders square to the floor. Complete your reps on that side, and then switch sides and repeat.

Renegade Row

(See 06:10 in the Build Muscle With The Gorilla Row video.)

Step 1. Get into a pushup position, resting your hands on a pair of kettlebells (or dumbbells). Turn the handles so they make an A-shape, which will help you balance on them better. Place your feet as wide apart as is comfortable. A narrower stance will make the exercise harder; a wider foot placement will make it easier. Take a deep breath into your belly and brace your core.

Step 2. Lean your weight to your right side, pushing that hand into the floor. Your left side will feel lighter. Now row the left-hand weight to your side, but avoid twisting your hips or shoulders. Lower the weight and repeat on the other side.

Discover other great lat and back exercises in our guide, How To Lat Spread Like A Bodybuilder.

The post Build Muscle With The Gorilla Row Exercise appeared first on Onnit Academy.

That’s a bummer, because the lats are essential for a physique that looks muscular and lean. When you flex them, they make your waist look smaller and your shoulders look wider, giving the impression of a powerful, even super-heroic upper body.

Whether you’re a regular guy or gal who wants to sculpt a more balanced physique, or a die-hard lifter who has aspirations of one day competing in a physique show (Bodybuilding, Figure, Classic Physique, etc.), we’ll help you get your back training on track, so that when you spread your lats, you look like you’ve sprouted wings!

What Is A Lat Spread and Why Do People Do It?

The lat spread is a traditional bodybuilding pose used in competition to highlight the width and thickness of the competitor’s latissimus dorsi muscles. The lats, if you weren’t sure, are the big slabs of muscle that run down the sides of your back. They originate on the lower three or four ribs, lower six thoracic vertebrae, and iliac crest (the top border of the pelvis), and insert on the humerus (upper-arm bone) just below the shoulder joint.

In a physique contest, the athlete is required to display their lats in two distinct lat poses—the front and rear lat spread. (The competitor must show the lats facing the judges/audience, as well as facing away, so the dimensions of the muscles can be appraised.) The term “spread” refers to how the lats appear when they’re flexed in a dramatic fashion. When well-developed, the lats appear to spread out from the person’s torso, and the effect is something like a bird spreading its wings—the back looks so wide and dense that you can see it from the front!

Of course, if you’re not planning on posing your physique on stage for sport, you don’t absolutely need to know the technique of flexing the lats aesthetically. But many people like to motivate themselves to get in their best shape by scheduling a photo shoot or other event where they’ll have pictures taken to commemorate their condition, and in that case, understanding how to show off your lats to their best advantage will help them get the credit they deserve, and prove that you put some serious time and dedication into building them. Scroll down for a full tutorial on how to pose your lats effectively when that time comes.

Exercises To Build Stronger Lats

The lats work to pull the arms from overhead to down to your sides, extending your shoulder joints. They’re the main upper-body muscles involved in climbing and swimming. For ages, the go-to lat-building exercises for bodybuilders and other weight-training populations alike have been the classic pullup, chinup, and lat-pulldown, along with various types of rows. These are all great options, but if you’ve lived on a steady diet of the standard lat exercises for years and still feel like your wings haven’t spread, we’ve got some variations to show you that may help you target your lats a little better.

These come by way of Jonny Catanzano, an IFBB Classic Physique pro bodybuilder and coach to physique competitors at all levels (@jonnyelgato_ifbbpro and @tailoredhealthcoaching on Instagram).

1. Reverse-Incline Lat Pulldown

(See 00:52 in the video above)

Pulling with your palms facing each other (a neutral grip) helps you to keep your arms closer to your sides during a pulldown or row. This in turn helps to focus the exercise on the lat muscles, as opposed to the muscles of the upper back. Furthermore, doing the movement with your torso supported on a bench makes the exercise more stable, so your muscles can focus purely on lifting the weight rather than trying to brace your body position at the same time.

“This type of pulldown primarily hits the lower lat fibers, which really contributes to the V-taper,” says Catanzano, referring to the impression the lats give as they descend from their widest point beneath your shoulders to their insertion at your pelvis. The lower fibers are usually underdeveloped relative to the rest of the lats, and adding size to that area will improve the cobra-hood effect of your lats when you spread them. In other words, it will make your waist look smaller while your back looks broad.

Step 1. Set an adjustable bench on a 45–60-degree angle and place it in front of a cable station with a high pulley. If the station offers dual pulleys, attach single-grip handles to them. But if it’s a single pulley, attach a lat-pulldown bar and then attach some single-grip handles to the bar at about shoulder width (we used Angles90 Grips in the video, another great option).

Step 2. Rest your chest on the bench and grasp the handles with palms facing each other (inward). Pull the handles down until your elbows reach your hips. Lower the weight with control.

Be careful not to pull the handles too far back—go until your arms are in line with your body. Pulling further than that can shift the emphasis to the upper back, and we want to keep it on your lats.

2. Close-Grip Cable Pulldown

(See 01:28 in the video)

You’re almost certainly familiar with the close-grip pulldown done with a V-grip handle attachment, but Catanzano recommends using two separate single-grip handles instead (preferably the type with soft, spongy material on the handle). These are the kind you’re probably used to using for chest flyes and lateral raises.

The single-grip handles will allow you to move your hands further apart as you pull the cable down, and that means more range of motion, so you can get your elbows closer to your hips for a full contraction of the lower lats.

Step 1. Attach the two handles to the pulley of a lat-pulldown station and grasp them with a neutral grip. Secure your knees under the pad so your lower body is braced. Lean back a bit so you feel a stretch on your lower lats, but try not to arch your back.

Step 2. Pull the handles down until your elbows line up with your hips. Lower the weight with control.

3. Reverse-Incline Dumbbell Row

(See 02:09 in the video)

This one hits the lats but puts more emphasis on the rhomboids in the middle back, which is literally the centerpiece of a rear lat-spread pose. “Developing this area will add to the overall width of your back,” says Catanzano. As with the reverse-incline pulldown, using a bench takes the lower back out of the movement and reduces your ability to cheat or use momentum, so the target muscles get worked in near isolation.

Step 1. Set a bench to a 45-degree angle and grasp dumbbells. Rest your chest against the bench and allow your shoulder blades to spread apart at the bottom of the movement.

Step 2. Row the weights to your sides with your elbows pointing at about 45 degrees from your torso. Squeeze your shoulder blades together at the top. You may want to use wrist straps to reinforce your grip, as your hands will likely tire before your back does.

4. Kelso Shrug

(See 02:52 in the video)

Done standing upright, shrugging motions work the upper traps, but when done with your chest supported, they hit more of the trap fibers, along with the rest of the upper back. Like the incline rows above, this movement will widen and thicken the middle part of the back, which contributes to a powerful lat spread viewed from behind.

Step 1. Set up as you would for the incline row and simply retract your shoulder blades, squeezing them together at the top of the movement. Keep your elbows straight. Lower the weights with control, and allow your shoulder blades to spread apart at the bottom.

Incidentally, Kelso shrugs can be done at the end of a set of incline rows to finish off the upper back. In other words, do a set of rows to failure, and when you can’t perform another full-range row anymore, simply retract your shoulders for a few reps of shrugs to failure.

5. Neutral-Grip Pullup

(See 03:39 in the video)

“Pullups with a neutral grip almost force you to keep your elbows a little in front of your body,” says Catanzano, “which is where your lats are more active than they would be pulling with your elbows flared out to the sides.”

Step 1. Hang from a bar using a neutral grip. If your chinup bar doesn’t allow that, attach single-grip handles as explained in the close-grip pulldown above. Your hands should be about shoulder-width apart.

Step 2. Pull yourself up until your chin is over the bar and your elbows are in line with your hips. Lower your body down with control.

If that’s too hard, attach an exercise band to the bar and stand on the free loop. The band’s tension will unload some of your bodyweight so that you can get more reps.

Sample Workout For a Better Lat Spread

Catanzano offers the following routine to bring up your lats and improve your lat spread. Perform it once every five to seven days. Rest 2–3 minutes between sets. Note that the neutral-grip pullups and Kelso shrugs are paired, so perform them in alternating fashion, doing a set of the pullup and then a set of the shrug without rest in between. Then rest 3 minutes before repeating until all sets are complete for the pair.

1. Reverse-Incline Lat Pulldown

Sets: 4  Reps: 10–12

2. Close-Grip Cable Pulldown

Sets: 4  Reps: 10–12

3A. Neutral-Grip Pullup

Sets: 4  Reps: 10

3B. Kelso Shrug

Sets: 4  Reps: 12

4. Reverse-Incline Dumbbell Row

Sets: 4  Reps: 12

A Lat Flexing and Spreading Tutorial

Once you’ve built a substantial set of lats, you can work on posing them effectively. Catanzano, who coaches posing as well as training for physique competitors, offers this three-step guide to mastering the lat spread.

(See 04:09 in the video for Catanzano’s demonstration)

1. Squeeze your shoulder blades together and place your fists on your hips. “Imagine holding a pencil between your shoulder blades,” says Catanzano. That’s how far back you want to pull your shoulders.

2. Drive your shoulders down. The movement is the opposite of a shrug, so get your shoulders as far south of your ears as you can. You should feel your lats get tense.

3. While keeping your shoulders down and your lats tense, roll your shoulders forward and slightly upward. Your chest and ribcage should lift in front of you, “nice and high and proud,” says Catanzano. Think about spreading your lats apart as wide as you can.

Catanzano warns that you need to have good shoulder mobility in order to spread your lats impressively. You should be able to raise your shoulders up and down and retract and protract them through a large range of motion—and pain-free. If you can’t, then you won’t be able to achieve the positions that showcase the lats to their fullest potential. If you need work on shoulder mobility, start with this article, Shoulder Mobility for Strength and Injury Prevention.

The post How To Lat Spread Like A Bodybuilder appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Key Takeaways

1. Back exercises recruit the biceps for assistance, so it makes sense to train them together, giving each muscle more time to recover before training it again (as opposed to training biceps a day or two after back).

2. Each workout should have no more than four back exercises and two biceps movements.

3. Do 2–3 sets per exercise, performing 8–25 reps for back exercises and 10–50 reps for biceps.

5 Killer Back and Bicep Workouts For Building Muscle

There’s no hard and fast rule stating that back and biceps need to be trained together, but, anecdotal bro science aside, there is some logic to combining these two muscle groups that allow you to pull real hard.

Our guide to training the back and biceps together will teach you how to create maximally efficient upper-body workouts that build a thick back and bulging arms.

First, take a look at the workouts we’ve designed for you. Then we’ll explain the methods behind the madness afterward.

Select whichever workout(s) accommodates your individual fitness level and/or equipment setup. The workouts are meant to provide a basic template; you can insert whichever exercises you want into the template as long as you follow the guidelines (see our exercise lists under The Best Back and Biceps Exercises below).

Do only one back-and-biceps workout per week. However, advanced trainees should be able to handle additional back training during the week.

Beginner Back and Biceps Workout (Option A)

[See the video above at 00:58]

1. Straight-Arm Pulldown (Prime)

Sets: 3  Reps: 15–20

[See the video at 1:00]

See our complete guide to the straight-arm pulldown.

2. One-Arm Dumbbell Row (Perform)

Sets: 3  Reps: 8–10 (each side)

[See the video at 1:38]

Grasp a dumbbell in one hand and rest your opposite hand and knee on a bench for support. Keep a long spine from your head to your pelvis and square your shoulders to the floor.

Row the dumbbell to your hip, drawing your shoulder back and downward as you pull. Your elbow should not rise higher than your back. Lower your arm under control. Complete your reps on one side and then repeat on the other immediately.

3. Lat Pulldown (Pump)

Sets: 2  Reps: 20

[See the video at 2:08]

Sit at a pulldown station, and secure your knees under the pads. Grasp the bar with your hands outside shoulder width and your palms facing away. Drive your shoulder blades down and together as you pull the bar to your collarbone, and control its path back up.

(Find more ways to work and widen your lats in our guide to getting a lat spread like a bodybuilder.)

4. Dumbbell Hammer Curl (Prime/Pump)

Sets: 3  Reps: 12–15 (each side)

[See the video at 2:27]

Stand holding a dumbbell in each hand by your side, palms facing in. Without moving your upper arms, curl the weights up until your biceps are fully contracted.

5. Preacher Curl (Pump)

Sets: 1  Reps: 25–30

[See the video at 2:45]

Sit at a preacher bench or use a preacher machine. You can do the exercise with both arms, or one arm at a time, as shown. Rest your triceps on the pad so that your elbows are near the bottom of the pad and curl the weight strictly. As you extend your elbows, stop short of straightening your arms completely.

Beginner Back and Biceps Workout (Option B)

[See the video at 03:07]

1. Lat Pulldown (Prime)

Sets: 3  Reps: 15–20 (submaximal weight)

[See the video at 3:10]

See the directions above. Use a weight that allows you to perform all the reps and a few more, but do only the prescribed number.

2. Suspension-Trainer Bodyweight Row (Perform)

Sets: 3  Reps: 8

[See the video at 3:30]

Grasp the handles of a suspension trainer with palms down and hang suspended with your legs extended in front of you. Brace your core and pull your body up until your back is fully contracted. Rotate your wrists so that your palms face up in the top position. To make the exercise easier, increase the height of the handles so your body is more vertical. To make it harder, lower the handles so you’re closer to parallel to the floor.

3. Machine Low Row (Pump)

Sets: 3  Reps: 25

[See the video at 4:01]

Attach a V-grip handle, or two individual grip handles, to the pulley of a seated cable row station. Keeping your lower back flat, reach forward and grasp the handle, allowing your shoulder blades to be stretched. Row the handle to your sternum, squeezing your shoulder blades together and downward. Lower the weight with control.

4. Cable Hammer Curl (Prime/Pump)

Sets: 3  Reps: 20

[See the video at 4:18]

Attach a rope handle to the low pulley of a cable station and grasp an end in each hand. Step back so there is tension on the cable and bend your knees slightly. Keeping your upper arms in line with your sides, curl the rope until your biceps are fully contracted, pausing for a moment at the top.

5. Dumbbell Curl (Pump)

Sets: 2  Reps: 30

[See the video at 4:40]

Stand with feet hip-width apart, holding dumbbells at your sides with palms facing forward. Keeping your upper arms at your sides, curl the weights up and hold at the top for a moment.

Advanced Back and Biceps Workout (Option A)

[See the video at 04:57]

1. Band Row (Prime)

Sets: 3  Reps: 20

[See the video at 4:58]

Attach a band to a sturdy object and grasp the other end with both hands, palms facing each other. Step back to put tension on the band, and get into an athletic stance with hips and knees bent. Row the band to your sternum and hold for a moment.

2. Bentover Row (Perform)

Sets: 3  Reps: 8–10

[See the video at 5:24]

Place a barbell on a rack set to hip level. Grasp the bar with hands shoulder width, and pull the bar out of the rack. (If you’re more experienced, and have a strong lower back, you can also deadlift the bar off the floor to start.) Step back, and set your feet hip-width apart, holding the bar at arm’s length against your thighs.

Take a deep breath, and bend your hips back—keeping your head, spine, and pelvis aligned. Bend until your torso is nearly parallel to the floor. Draw your shoulder blades back and down as you pull the bar up to your belly button.

3. Chinup (Perform)

Sets: 3  Reps: 8

[See the video at 5:54]

Hang from a chinup bar with hands shoulder-width apart and palms facing you. Draw your shoulder blades down and together as you pull yourself up until your chin is over the bar. If that’s too easy, add weight with a belt as shown.

4. Lat Pulldown (Pump)

Sets: 3  Reps: 25

[See the video at 6:11]

See the directions above.

5. Dumbbell Hammer Curl (Prime/Pump)

Sets: 3  Reps: 15–20

[See the video at 6:30]

See the directions above.

6. Barbell Curl (Pump) OR Dumbbell Curl

Sets: 3  Reps: 25–30

Stand with feet hip-width apart holding a barbell or dumbbells at arm’s length with palms facing up. Keeping your upper arms at your sides, curl the bar until your biceps are fully contracted.

[See the video at 6:46 for a demonstration of the dumbbell curl.]

Advanced Back and Biceps Workout (Option B)

[See the video at 07:05]

1.  Band Straight-Arm Pulldown (Prime)

Sets: 3  Reps: 15–20

[See the video at 7:07]

See our complete guide to this movement HERE.

2. Pullup (Perform)

Sets: 3  Reps: 8

[See the video at 7:53]

Perform as you did the chinup, described above, but with hands outside shoulder width and palms facing away from you.

3. Meadows Row (Perform)

Sets: 3  Reps: 10

[See the video at 8:09]

Set up a barbell in a landmine unit, or wedge one end into a corner. Stand perpendicular to the bar and stagger your stance, bending down to reach the bar with your lower back flat—head, spine, and pelvis should be aligned. Grasp the bar overhand and row it to your side. You should feel a stretch in your lat in the down position.

4. Lat Pulldown (Pump)

Sets: 3  Reps: 25

[See the video at 8:37]

See the directions above.

5. Cable Hammer Curl (Prime/Pump)

Sets: 3  Reps: 20

[See the video at 8:57]

See the directions above.

6. Preacher Curl (Pump)

Sets: 3  Reps: 40–50

[See the video at 9:20]

See the directions above.

At-Home Back and Biceps Workout

[See the video at 09:41]

1. Band Straight-Arm Pulldown (Prime)

Sets: 3  Reps: 20

[See the video at 9:42]

See our complete guide to this movement HERE.

2. Suspension-Trainer Bodyweight Row (Perform)

Sets: 3  Reps: 8–10

[See the video at 10:36]

See the directions above.

3. Band Row (Pump)

Sets: 3  Reps: 25

[See the video at 11:06]

See the directions above.

4. Band Hammer Curl (Prime/Pump)

Sets: 2  Reps: 30

[See the video at 11:23]

Perform hammer curls as described above, but holding an elastic exercise band.

5. Suspension Trainer Curl (Pump)

Sets: 2  Reps: 20–30

[See the video at 11:43]

Set up as you would to do the suspended bodyweight row described above, but curl the handles to your shoulders. Keep your shoulder blades drawn back together and downward throughout the exercise. Brace your core as well.

How To Stretch Before Doing Back and Bis

Warm up for a back and biceps workout by following these mobility drills from Onnit-certified Durability Coach Cristian Plascencia (@cristian_thedurableathlete on Instagram).

Why Work Your Back and Biceps Together?

“When you think about back training, the secondary or tertiary mover in any sort of row, pulldown, or pullup is going to be the biceps,” says John Rusin, P.T., D.P.T., C.S.C.S., owner of DrJohnRusin.com. So, for the sake of efficiency, “it makes sense to hit the biceps a little more directly in conjunction with their corresponding compound lifts,” (i.e. back movements that involve more than one joint; as opposed to biceps exercises where only the elbow flexes).

Generally, back and biceps workouts begin with rowing or pulldown exercises to hit the bigger back muscles when you’re fresh. Starting the workout with biceps curls would fatigue your arms to the point where they may not be able to assist you like they should on your back movements, so the logical approach is to save bicep exercises until after you’ve trained your back.

One of the most popular and time-honored workout splits in all of muscledom is the push-pull split, where you train muscles that push one day and those that pull the next. For instance, you could do chest, shoulders, triceps, quads, and calves on Monday, and then work back, biceps, glutes, hamstrings, and rear deltoids on Tuesday. This kind of schedule makes it easy to keep all your training in balance, and ensures that you don’t neglect any muscle groups.

Of course, you don’t have to train your whole body each day. You could do upper-body pushing one day and upper-body pulling—aka back and biceps—the next, and then a leg day later in the week. A back and biceps session fits easily into all variations of the push-pull split.

Back and Biceps Anatomy

The major muscles involved when training back and biceps include:

Back*

–Latissimus dorsi (aka, the “lats”). These are the big sheets of muscle that extend down the sides of your back and let you pull your arms downward and backward.

–Teres major. A small muscle below the shoulder that assists with drawing your arms down and back.

–Rhomboids. Upper back muscles that elevate, retract, and rotate the shoulder blades downward.

–Middle and lower trapezius (“traps”). These guys retract and depress the shoulder blades.

Biceps

– Biceps brachii: Your main biceps muscle, it twists (supinates) the wrist outward and flexes the elbow.

– Brachialis: This one lies between your biceps and triceps on the outer side of your arm. It flexes the elbow.

*When discussing “back training” in strength and conditioning circles, experts are usually referring to the upper back. The lower back—meaning the erector spinae muscles—are considered part of the core musculature, and are also involved heavily in leg exercises, such as deadlift and squat variations. You can certainly include lower-back exercises in your back and biceps workouts if you choose to, but be sure to factor in the stress that your other workouts may be putting on the area, and be careful not to overwork it.

The Best Back And Bicep Exercises

Back and biceps exercises can be broken up into different categories. There are three types of back exercises, and five types of biceps exercises.

Back

1. Horizontal pulls (rows). To understand how the back exercise categories work, picture your body in a standing position. If you pull something toward your midsection, you’re moving it along a horizontal plane. Any exercise done along that plane is a type of row—be it a seated cable row, face pull, one-arm dumbbell row, etc. Even when you change the position of your torso, such as by bending your hips back to angle it so your torso is parallel to the floor (as in a bent-over barbell row), you’re still pulling toward your body as if it were erect, and the exercise is still classified as a horizontal pull.

“Rows should make up the majority of your training volume for back,” says Rusin. “When rowing with dumbbells or handles, you can rotate the hands to achieve a more externally rotated position at the top of the pull [thumbs pointing away from you]. You can’t do that with pulldowns and pullups; with those, the shoulder has to internally rotate, and we’re already doing enough of that in everyday life through driving, texting, and typing. Our training should be trying to get us out of that, which is why I prescribe a ton more volume on horizontal pulls versus vertical.”

Target muscles: Rows effectively train all the major back muscles—lats, teres major, rhomboids, and trapezius. Developing the latter two in particular makes for a thicker, meatier back.

Exercise variations: Barbell bent-over row, one-arm dumbbell row, bodyweight row (with a suspension trainer or a barbell set up in a power rack or Smith machine), seated cable low row, T-bar row, landmine row, Meadows row, trap-bar row, chest-supported row, machine row (plate-loaded, selectorized, Smith machine), Pendlay row.

2. Vertical pulls (pullups/chinups, lat pulldowns)

Vertical pulling is a little simpler to picture than horizontal pulling. Movements that have you pull yourself upward in a straight line, or pull a bar down to meet you, are known as vertical pull exercises, and include the many pullup and lat pulldown variations.

Target muscles: Lat pulldowns and pullups emphasize the upper lats and teres major, adding width to the upper back.

Exercise variations: Wide-grip lat pulldown, neutral-grip lat pulldown, reverse-grip lat pulldown, wide-grip pullup, neutral-grip pullup, chinup, assisted pullup or chinup (using a machine or bands).

3. Isolation exercises (straight-arm pulldowns and pullovers).

While horizontal and vertical pulls are always compound lifts and involve the biceps as a secondary mover, exercises like the straight-arm pulldown and pullover, on the other hand, virtually remove biceps muscle involvement by keeping the elbows in a fixed position throughout. This allows you to zero in on the lats and various upper back muscles more directly, forcing them to do the work unassisted. “You’ll need to use lighter weight with these exercises,” says Rusin, “but the mind-muscle connection tends to be higher with these isolation movements.” That is, your ability to focus your mind on the muscles you want to train will be easier, and that improves their potential to grow.

Target muscles: Straight-arm pulldowns and pullovers emphasize the lats and teres major, with very little involvement from the biceps.

Exercise variations: Straight-arm pulldown (rope or bar attachment), one-arm straight-arm pulldown, dumbbell pullover, barbell pullover, cable pullover, dumbbell pullback.

Biceps

Because the elbow is a simple hinge joint, there’s really only one movement you can do for direct biceps training: the curl. However, curls can be manipulated through both hand and shoulder position to target the biceps (and their surrounding assisting muscles) very differently. Hence, there are five types of curls.

1. Supinated-grip curls (standard curls). In a typical barbell, dumbbell, or machine curl, the forearms are in a supinated position, with the palms facing forward at the bottom.

Target muscles: Supinated curls place the brunt of the load on the biceps brachii (the main arm muscles when you flex your elbow).

Exercise variations: Barbell curl, dumbbell curl (standing or seated), cable curl (bar attachment).

2. Neutral-grip curls (hammer curls). When you turn your wrists so that your palms face in toward your body, you’re doing a hammer curl (or some variation).

Target muscles: The brachialis muscle, which lies beneath the biceps brachii, becomes more involved in the movement, as does the brachioradialis, the meaty muscle that runs along the thumb-side of your upper forearm. However, the biceps are still the prime mover.

Exercise variations: Dumbbell hammer curl, cable hammer curl (rope attachment), neutral-bar hammer curl, cross-body hammer curl.

3. Pronated-grip curls (reverse curls). The opposite of a supinated grip, pronated curls flip your grip so that the palms face toward you in the down position and downward to the floor at the top of the lift.

Target muscles: Pronated/reverse curls hit the brachialis and brachioradialis to a greater extent than both supinated and neutral-grip curls.

Exercise variations: barbell reverse curl, dumbbell reverse curl, cable reverse curl, preacher reverse curl (dumbbell, barbell, or cable version).

4. Shoulder flexion (preacher curls). When doing curls using a preacher bench, the upper arms are locked into a position of slight shoulder flexion. Your elbows are held in front of your body.

Target muscles: The flexed shoulder position helps you better isolate the biceps, and helps establish a stronger mind-muscle connection (probably because you can watch your biceps as you train them!).

Exercise variations: Barbell/EZ-bar preacher curl, dumbbell preacher curl, machine preacher curl, cable preacher curl.

5. Shoulder extension (incline curls). In contrast to the preacher curl, you can get a greater stretch on the biceps by keeping the upper arms behind the torso (shoulder extension) throughout the curling movement. The most common way to do this is by lying back on an incline bench so that the upper arms are perpendicular to the floor throughout the movement.

Target muscles: Performing a curl while the biceps are in a stretched position puts slightly more emphasis on the long head of the biceps, the outermost portion of the muscle that provides most of the muscle’s peak when you flex it.

Exercise variations: Incline dumbbell curl, incline cable curl, standing one-arm behind-the-back cable curl.

How Many Back Exercises And Biceps Exercises Should I Do?

Although the back and biceps work together on virtually all compound upper-body pulling movements, the amount of work the two muscle groups can tolerate is vastly different. Rusin recommends anywhere from four to six exercises total for back and biceps in a given workout, using roughly a two-to-one ratio of back to biceps exercises. At the high end, this would mean four back exercises and two isolated biceps movements in a session.

“The back can be trained multiple days a week,” says Rusin. Since its muscles support your posture all day long, they’re very durable, and can recover from quite a workload. “But the biceps can’t take the same amount of training volume and frequency as the back. People often think about doing back and biceps workouts with a one-to-one ratio of exercises—doing one biceps exercise for every back exercise—but that doesn’t line up for long-term success in terms of health and results.”

Yes, the biceps are relatively small muscles, and smaller ones generally recover faster than big muscles. But the biceps act on the elbows and shoulders—two joint complexes you really don’t want to risk overworking, especially when you’re already training chest, triceps, and shoulders elsewhere in your week.

According to Rusin, “Most people simply can’t tolerate more than one day a week of dedicated biceps training in terms of shoulder and elbow health and recoverability—even the bodybuilders I work with.”

How Many Sets and Reps Should I Do for Back and Biceps?

A good rule of thumb, especially if you’re on the high end of the exercise count, is 2 to 3 working sets per exercise. A working set means not a warmup—you’re using a challenging load and going to failure, or close to it (within one or two reps of failure).

In many cases, you won’t hit the aforementioned two-to-one ratio of back to biceps exercises perfectly; for example, you may do 3 back exercises and 2 for biceps. In these instances, aim for a two-to-one ratio of total sets (in this example, 6 total sets for back and 3 for biceps).

Rusin prescribes 8 to 25 reps for back exercises (with 45–75 seconds rest between sets). For biceps, you can do 10 reps all the way up to 50 (20–45 seconds rest between them).

Rusin says you can tweak your back training to emphasize strength or maximum muscle growth (low reps for strength; moderate to extremely high reps for growth), but with biceps, there’s no need to train for strength. The elbows aren’t designed to curl ever-increasing loads, so you’ll get more out of them (and keep them healthy) by training them for hypertrophy (max muscle gain) via going for a big pump. “That’s what the biceps respond best to,” says Rusin.

How Should I Set Up A Back and Biceps Workout?

Just as important as the exercises you choose for your workout is the order you do them in. Rusin follows a simple protocol that delivers results in size and strength and minimizes the risk for injury. He calls the system the three P’s: Prime, Perform, and Pump.

1) Prime. You want to start your workout with an exercise that primes the central nervous system, essentially waking up the muscles you’re trying to train so that you can best recruit them throughout the workout. This should be a lift that you can really feel the target muscles working on. It may be an isolation lift or a compound one, but it should be done with fairly light weight so you can focus on form and making a mind-muscle connection. Done right, the priming exercise will help flush blood into the muscles and reduce your risk for injury.

For the back, straight-arm pulldowns, are a good choice. You could also go with a machine or chest-supported row (something where the body is supported and the movement is somewhat isolated). For the biceps, Rusin recommends hammer curls. Reps for both primer exercises should be in the range of 12–25.

“I always do neutral-grip curls to hit the underlying brachialis before fully lengthening out the biceps with supinated curls,” says Rusin. “So, for example, I wouldn’t do preacher curls before hammers.” Training the muscles in a stretched position when they aren’t fully activated can lead to biceps muscle pulls or elbow pain.

2) Perform. Following the prime, you’ll do one or two strength-focused lifts using heavier weights and lower reps (around 8, give or take). This is the real meat-and-potatoes of your workout, but don’t think that means you can skip the prime exercise and jump right into it.

For back, barbell and dumbbell rows are money. Pullups can also be done here, simply because Rusin says most people can’t do more than 8–15 reps of them, so they can’t go in the (next) pump phase of the workout. For biceps, barbell and dumbbell curls, or cable curls will suffice.

3) Pump. Here’s where you chase total hypertrophy and finish the muscle off using light- to moderate-weight and moderate- to high-reps.

“What we don’t want is the spine, core position, or posture to be the limiting factor in any back exercise when we’re chasing those higher rep ranges,” says Rusin. This is why an exercise like the lat pulldown is perfect here; being seated and locked into place minimizes core and postural muscle involvement. Seated cable rows, machine rows, and rows with a band are also good options.

For biceps, preacher curls, incline dumbbell curl, and band curls work well. “Any curls where you’re putting a stretch on the biceps should definitely be at the back of the workout,” says Rusin.

How To Stretch Before Doing Back and Bis

Warm up for a back and biceps workout by following these mobility drills from Onnit-certified Durability Coach Cristian Plascencia (@cristian_thedurableathlete on Instagram).

The post 5 Killer Back and Bicep Workouts For Building Muscle appeared first on Onnit Academy.

We consulted a pro bodybuilder/strength coach to bring you the definitive guide to chest and back workouts—including three sample routines you can try. Whether you have aspirations of competing in a physique contest, you train at home with minimal equipment, or you’re just trying to make the most of a limited amount of workout time, you’re about to find the plan for building up your chest and back that’s right for you.

Can You Train Your Back and Chest Together?

“Chest and back make a great pairing because they’re antagonistic,” says Jonny Catanzano, an IFBB pro bodybuilder and owner of Tailored Health Coaching (@tailoredhealthcoaching on Instagram), “which means that while one is working, the other is resting.” This gives you the opportunity to speed your workout along by alternating sets for each muscle group with little or no time in between them, since there’s almost no fatigue that carries over from one to the other.

Imagine training only chest or only back by itself. You pick an exercise, do a set, rest, do another set, rest, and so on until your sets are complete, and then you go on to another exercise. There’s nothing wrong with this approach, but if you rest for two minutes or longer between sets (as the latest research suggests you should, if you want to maximize muscle gains), your workout time can easily extend to an hour or more—and you’ll have only worked one muscle area.

On the other hand, if you alternate sets of chest and back exercises, you can train both muscle groups at a much brisker pace. Your chest will recover while you work your back, and vice versa, so it’s possible to use shorter rest periods between each set and get your workout done in much less than an hour’s time—without rushing either muscle group’s recovery.

A study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research had subjects perform three traditional sets of rows followed by three sets of the bench press, and, in another session, do the same routine again but with the back and chest exercises paired off and alternated. Researchers found that, when the lifters went back and forth between the two exercises in the second workout, they didn’t have to reduce the weights they were using as much from set to set. They were able to lift more total weight compared to when they did straight sets in the first workout—probably because each muscle got more rest before it was worked again.

Chest and back pairings are also great if your goal is fat loss. “You’ll burn more calories in a session training two big muscle groups together,” says Catanzano. “You’ll get your heart rate up higher than training one area at a time, and higher still if you decide to superset exercises.” That is, perform a set for chest and then one for back without any rest in between.

Furthermore, merging your chest and back training into one ensures that you’ll balance the work you do for each area. Many people (guys, mostly) will train chest voraciously, and then treat their back workouts as an add-on, doing only a handful of sets of lat pulldowns or rows. But if you plan to train both regions in a single session, you can easily keep track of the sets you do for one and match them with sets of the other.

If you’re interested in building strength, chest and back workouts will help you understand and focus on the relationship between a big back and a big bench press. “A stronger back lets you press more,” says Catanzano. “The lats help stabilize your torso when the bar is at your chest,” which is why many powerlifters do chinups or rows between sets of bench presses.

What Muscles Are Used?

Generally, when you’re talking about training chest and back together, you’re referring to the pectoralis major and minor (pecs), latissimus dorsi (lats), and upper back—comprising the rhomboids, trapezius, and teres major. The lower back—specifically, the spinal erectors—can certainly be trained as well, but many lifters prefer to work it on a lower-body day, as the lower back contributes automatically to squat and deadlift variations.

The deltoid muscles of the shoulders can’t help but get involved as well when you do any pushing and pulling, and the triceps assist on pressing exercises while the biceps and forearm/grip muscles work on your back movements.

Here’s a quick and very general anatomy course on where each of the chest and back muscles are located and what they do. (This isn’t a complete list, but these are the primary muscles you’ll target in a chest and back workout.)

Pectoralis major

This muscle has three heads and thus three different actions. The clavicular head, which runs from the collar bone to the humerus, raises the arm up and across to the other side of the body. The sternal head starts on the breastbone and reaches across to the humerus, so its fibers work to bring the arm around the front of the body. The costal head goes from the cartilage of the ribs and the external oblique muscle to the humerus, allowing the arm to pull downward from overhead.

Pectoralis minor

Lying underneath the pec major, the pec minor begins on the third to fifth ribs and attaches to the scapula (shoulder blade). It draws the tip of the shoulder downward, protracts the shoulder blade, and raises the ribs during inhalation.

Latissimus dorsi

The lat originates on the thoracic spine, lumbar spine, lower ribs, and iliac crest of the pelvis and connects to the humerus, just below the shoulder joint. It extends the shoulders, draws the arms to the sides, and helps with inhalation.

Rhomboid

A rhombus-shaped muscle (hence the name), the rhomboid runs from the cervical and thoracic spine to the scapula. It elevates and retracts the shoulder blade.

Trapezius

Like the pecs, the traps can work in three different directions. They start at the bottom of the back of the skull and the spine and reach over to the shoulder blade and collarbone in order to raise the scapula, retract it, and depress it.

Teres major

This is a small back muscle that assists the bigger ones. Originating on the back of the scapula, it inserts on the front of the humerus, and works to rotate the arm toward the body and draw it behind the body.

How Do You Set Up A Chest and Back Workout?

The way you combine chest and back exercises in a session is highly dependent on what you want to achieve. During his bodybuilding prime, Arnold Schwarzenegger liked to superset chest and back moves with little or no rest between them. For instance, do a set of incline presses followed immediately by a set of seated cable rows, rest a minute or two, and repeat. As we explained above, this a solid plan for speeding up your workouts and burning more fat, but it sets a pace that may be too intense for many people.

Research suggests that longer rest periods help you train with more challenging weights, thereby stimulating more muscle growth, so you could alternate chest and back moves with plenty of time between them—say, 90 seconds to two minutes downtime between your press and row—if muscle gain is your main priority.

There’s also no rule stating that you have to toggle between chest and back exercises. You could do all your chest moves first and then go on to back, or the other way around. “This may be better for less experienced trainees,” says Catanzano. “You won’t gas too early in the workout like you might if you were supersetting.” It’s also a good option if you want to zero in on one area at a time, giving your full attention to each one in turn, but without having to break them into two different workouts.

Finishing off one body part before you do the other may be wise if you see it as a weak point. Most people’s backs are underdeveloped, so doing all your back training when you’re fresh will let you work it with the greatest possible effort and focus. “If you have shoulder problems,” says Catanzano, “you might want to put back first, because it will warm up your shoulders and make your pressing feel smoother when you get to chest.” Yes, doing chest second may mean sacrificing some weight on your chest exercises due to fatigue, but if you’re dealing with cranky shoulders or other pressing-related injuries, learning to stimulate the muscles with lighter weight may be just what the doctor ordered.

How Many Chest Exercises and Back Exercises Should I Do?

The short answer to this question is roughly three to five moves for each muscle group per workout. For example, a typical old-school chest and back session might look like this:

1A Bench press

1B Bent-over row

2A Incline dumbbell press

2B Seated cable row

3A Dip

3B Chinup

(The exercise pairings can be alternated with rest in between sets, or superset without rest.)

But the right number of exercises for you depends on several factors. If you only have 30 minutes or less to train, you may have to cap your workout at two exercises per body part. On the other hand, if you plan on doing shoulder and arm work on a second upper-body day in the week, and therefore won’t be working chest and back again for another week, you may want to do more chest and back exercises to get enough volume in.

Volume is a major consideration when planning out any training program. A bodybuilder looking to fully stimulate every muscle will need to hit the chest and back from all angles, and that means more exercises and more sets. Whereas a busy professional who only wants to maintain strength and some athleticism can get by with much less work.

If you want the best muscle gains possible, research suggests you need a volume of 10–20 hard sets per muscle group, per week, to do the job. “I’d recommend a minimum of 10 sets,” says Catanzano, “and closer to 20 sets for weaker body parts.” All of these sets should be taken to within one to three reps of failure, he says—the point at which your reps slow down and you’re about to break form due to fatigue. As long as you keep these volume parameters in mind, the way you set up your workouts is really up to you.

Let the number of exercises you choose suit the volume of work you’re shooting for. For instance, if you’re aiming to do 10 sets for chest and back in a week, that could break down to five sets for each in two different workouts. This is a moderate and very doable amount of work for most people, and won’t put you at risk for overtraining. See below.

Chest & Back, Day I

1A Incline press, 3 sets

1B Chest-supported row, 3 sets

2A Cable fly, 2 sets

2B Straight-arm pulldown, 2 sets

Chest & Back, Day II

1A Dumbbell bench press, 3 sets

1B Inverted row, 3 sets

2A Dip, 2 sets

2B One-arm dumbbell row, 2 sets

You could finish each session with some shoulder and/or arm work for a complete upper-body workout, or leave the gym after chest and back alone if that’s all you have time for, or you plan to work those other muscles on a different day.

If back is a weak point, you should emphasize it with more volume. In this case, you could do 10 sets for it on Monday, and then another six sets on Friday for 16 total sets that week.

Chest & Back, Monday

1. Machine row, 3 sets

2. One-arm lat-pulldown, 3 sets

3. Seated cable row, 2 sets

4. Chinup, 2 sets

5. Dumbbell bench press, 3 sets

6. Feet-elevated pushup, 2 sets

Chest & Back, Friday

1. One-arm dumbbell row, 2 sets

2. Wide-grip lat pulldown, 2 sets

3. Dumbbell shrug, 2 sets

4. Machine press, 2 sets

5. Cable fly, 3 sets

Chest & Back Workout Tips

Catanzano offers some of the following pointers to help you get the most out of your training.

• If muscle size is your main goal, the amount of weight you’re lifting isn’t as important as taking your sets near to failure and using exercises that best recruit the target muscles. Catanzano says the barbell bench press is overrated for pec gains. Let the majority of your chest training come from dumbbell, machine, and cable work, which is easier on the joints and can allow you to work the muscles through greater ranges of motion and with better isolation. The same goes for back training.

• If you’re over 40, or trying to work around injuries, the way you sequence your exercises is extra important. Rather than starting with your heaviest lifts, begin sessions with dumbbell or machine work and put moves like the bench press and bent-over row later in the workout when you’re fully warmed up and mobile. “You could do a dumbbell row and dumbbell bench press first,” Catanzano says, “and then go into bent-over rows and barbell bench. Or, you could do flys before bench presses, and chest-supported rows before bent-over rows or rack pulls.” Your joints will thank you.

• If strength is a big priority for you, however, and you’re sure your body can handle it, you can sequence your workouts the opposite way. Do your heavy work like bench presses first, when you can give them your best effort, and then move on to lighter dumbbell and bodyweight work afterward.

• Cycling your rep ranges can help you avoid plateaus and hit big PR’s on your exercises. Catanzano likes to use three-week cycles, performing sets of 12–15 reps the first week, 8–12 the second, and 6–8 the third. Then he repeats the process. “You need to hit all rep ranges to maximize gains,” he says.

How To Stretch Before Doing Chest & Back

Prepare your chest and back muscles for a workout by first reducing the tension in them with some light rolling on a ball or foam roller—sometimes called a “smash.” This will help you access greater ranges of motion in your exercises; it also drives blood into the muscles to warm them up.

Chest Smash

Place the ball or roller against your pec muscles, right under your collarbone between your shoulder and breastbone. Allow your body to rest on the ball just enough to apply moderate pressure to the muscle—it shouldn’t hurt. Roll an inch or so in each direction, lingering over any positions where you feel the most tenderness, until they release. You can also extend your arm, reaching it overhead with palm facing up, and then taking it down to your hip while rotating your wrist as shown, to increase the stretch on the muscles in different ranges. Perform the smash for about a minute on each side.

Lat Smash

Place the ball or roller under your shoulder and into the meaty muscle on the side of your back (your lat). Lie on your side and apply gentle pressure to the muscle as your reach your arm overhead and out in front of you, rotating your wrist as shown. Perform the smash for about a minute on each side.

After you’ve rolled, perform the following mobility drills to further activate the muscles you’ll train. Do 2–3 sets of 5–10 reps for each exercise. Rolling and mobility drills are courtesy of of Cristian Plascencia and Natalie Higby, owners of The Durable Athlete (@durable.athlete on Instagram).

Cat-Cow

Step 1. Get on all fours with your hands under your shoulders and knees under your hips. Brace your core.

Step 2. Press into the floor, spreading your shoulder blades apart as you round your mid back toward the ceiling. Make sure only your mid back moves—the lower back should be neutral and braced.

Step 3. Pinch your shoulder blades together again as you extend your spine back to neutral.

Sky Reach To Arm Thread

Step 1. Get on all fours with your hands under your shoulders and your knees directly beneath your hips. Brace your core.

Step 2. Draw your right arm up and across your chest as you twist your right shoulder toward the ceiling and reach overhead. Be careful to keep your hips facing the floor.

Step 3. Reverse the motion, reaching your arm across your body and behind the support arm. Twist as far as you can, ideally until the back of your right shoulder touches the floor. Complete your reps on that side, and then switch sides and repeat.

Banded Shoulder Circles

Step 1. Stand holding an elastic exercise band (or dowel) with both hands outside shoulder width. Draw your ribs down, tuck your pelvis so it’s parallel to the floor, and brace your core.

Step 2. Keeping your arms straight, raise the band over and behind your head as far as you can. Reverse the motion to bring the band back in front of you.

The Best Chest & Back Workouts

Catanzano wrote up the following workouts, each with a different user in mind. One is ideal for the lifter who has access to a well-stocked gym, complete with free weights and machines. The second one is for the guy or gal training in a bare-bones home gym—a barbell, dumbbells, bands, and your bodyweight are all that’s needed. Lastly, there’s a workout for targeting common physique weak points—the upper chest and lower lats.

Choose the one that suits you best for now, and bookmark this article to refer back to the others. You may need them in the future!

Directions

For each of the workouts, follow the rep prescriptions below for every exercise. They will change weekly. Repeat the workouts for 6–8 weeks.

Week 1: perform 12–15 reps for each exercise.

Week 2: 8–12 reps.

Week 3: 6–8 reps.

Week 4: Repeat cycle.

Begin with 2–3 working sets for each lift (sets that aren’t warmups), and add volume over time. You can build up to 4–5 sets for some of the exercises, and consider having an additional chest and back day in the week to further increase the volume. If you consider either chest or back a weak point, aim to eventually perform 15–20 sets for it per week.

Remember that when chest and back exercises appear back to back, you can pair them off and alternate sets of each, with or without rest between them.

Videos are courtesy of Jonny Catanzano, @jonnyelgato_ifbbpro on Instagram.

Full-Gym Chest & Back Workout

1. Bench Press

Step 1. Set up with the bar just over your eyes. Make sure that your feet are flat on the floor and your shoulders, back, and butt maintain contact with the bench. Arch your back, drawing your shoulder blades back and down. Grasp the bar with hands just outside shoulder-width apart (you may have to slide them an inch or two in either direction), so that when you lower the bar to your chest, your elbows make a 90-degree angle.

Step 2. Unrack the bar and hold it over your chest. Lower the weight to your chest, tucking your elbows about 45 degrees to your sides. After touching your chest, press the bar back to the starting position.   

2. Incline Dumbbell Press

Step 1. Set an adjustable bench to a 30–45-degree angle, grasp a pair of dumbbells, and lie back on the bench, making sure your entire back is in contact with it—do not arch your back so that it causes your lower back to rise off the pad. Start with the dumbbells just outside your shoulders, elbows bent, and your forearms/wrists angled slightly (a V-shape).

Step 2. Keeping your elbows pointing at about 45 degrees, press the dumbbells straight up. Lower the dumbbells back down under control, until they’re just above and outside your shoulders.

3. Clavicular-Head Fly

Step 1. Attach single-grip handles (D handles) to two facing pulleys at a cable station set at shoulder height. Grasp the handles with hands angled 45 degrees and palms facing each other. Step forward so that your arms are extended at your sides, and there is tension on the cables.

Step 2. Keeping a slight bend in your elbows, bring your arms together in a wide arcing motion. Lower the weight under control until you feel a stretch in your chest.

4. Machine Low Row

Many gyms have a Hammer Strength low row machine, as shown here, but if yours doesn’t, try to mimic the exercise on a similar row machine, or set up an incline bench at a cable station.

Step 1. Adjust the seat of the machine so that, when you sit on it, the middle of your chest rests against the pad. Sit at the machine, brace your core, and bend at the hips—while keeping a long spine—until your chest is against the pad. Don’t let it come off the pad at any point during the exercise. Grasp the handles with a neutral grip (palms facing each other). Place your feet on the floor, and make sure your knees are out of the path of your arms when you row.

Step 2. Draw your shoulder blades down and together as you row the handles past your ribs. Be careful not to shrug your shoulders, and keep your chin tucked (don’t let your neck stretch forward).

5. Mid-Back Cable Row

Step 1. Set an adjustable bench to a 45-degree angle, and place the bench in front of a cable station with two side-by-side pulleys. Set the pulleys on the lowest level, and attach a single-grip handle (D-handle) to them. Rest your chest against the bench and grasp the handles with arms extended. Make sure you’re far enough away from the machine to feel a stretch on your back. Arch your back and brace your core.

Step 2. Drawn your shoulder blades back and down as you row the handles to the outsides of your chest, flaring your elbows about 60 degrees. Lower the weight with control.

6. Block Pull

Step 1. Rest the bar on blocks or mats so that it sits just below knee level. Stand with your feet hip-width apart. Bend your hips back to reach down and grasp the bar, hands just outside your knees. Take a deep breath into your belly and brace your core. Pull your shoulders back and down—think about trying to bend the bar around your legs like a pretzel; this will help you activate the right muscles. You can use straps, as shown, to support your grip.

Step 2. Keeping your head, spine, and hips aligned, drive your heels into the floor and pull the bar up along your shins until you’re standing with hips fully extended and the bar is in front of your thighs. Lower back to the floor under control.

At-Home Chest & Back Workout

1. Landmine Suitcase Row

Step 1. Load a barbell into a landmine unit, or wedge one end into a corner. Load the other end of the bar with weight, and stand behind the plates, both feet on one side of the bar. Keeping a long spine with your core braced, bend your hips back to reach down and grasp the bar. Your torso should be about 45 degrees.

Step 2. Draw your shoulder blade back and down as you row the bar the bar, stopping when your elbow reaches the middle of your torso. Lower back down under control. Complete your reps, and then repeat on the opposite side.

2. Incline Dumbbell Press w/ Neutral Grip

Step 1. Set an adjustable bench to a 30- to 45-degree angle and lie back against it with a dumbbell in each hand at shoulder level. Turn your palms so that they face each other, and your elbows are tucked at about 45 degrees to your sides.

Step 2. Press the weights overhead to lockout, and lower them with control.

3. Chest-Supported Dumbbell Row

Step 1. Set an adjustable bench to about a 60-degree angle and lie down with your chest against it. Your spine should be long and your core braced. Grasp dumbbells with your arms extended, and allow your shoulder blades to spread apart while the weights hang at arm’s length.

Step 2. Row the dumbells to your sides, drawing your shoulder blades back and down. Lower under control.

4. One-Arm Band Press

Step 1. Attach a band to a sturdy anchor point at shoulder level behind you, and grasp the free end in one hand. Hold the band at chest level with your arm angled about 45 degrees from your torso. Step away from the anchor point to put tension on the band.

Step 2. Press the band in front of you to face level. Lower under control. Complete your reps, and then repeat on the opposite side. 

5. Low-Lat Row w/ Band

Step 1. Attach a band to a sturdy anchor point overhead, and set up an adjustable bench behind it at a roughly 60-degree angle. Grasp the band in one hand and brace yourself on the bench with the opposite hand and knee. The working arm should be angled 120–150 degrees from your torso (i.e., if your arm hanging at your side is at zero degrees, and your arm extended in front of your chest is 90 degrees, the exercise should be done with your arm 30–60 degrees above that).

Step 2. Row the band down to your hip, stopping when your elbow is in line with your torso. Control the motion as you extend your arm again. Complete your reps, and then repeat on the opposite side.

6. Incline Dumbbell Fly

Step 1. Set an adjustable bench to a 30- to 45-degree angle and lie back against it with a dumbbell in each hand at shoulder level. Turn your palms so that they face each other, and your elbows are tucked at about 45 degrees to your sides. Press the weights overhead.

Step 2. Keeping a slight bend in your elbows, lower your arms slowly in a wide arcing motion until you feel a stretch in your pecs. Bring your arms back up in an arc until they’re overhead again.

7. One-Arm Dumbbell Row

Step 1. Place one knee on a flat bench and brace yourself with the hand on the same side. Your spine should be long and your core braced. Grasp a dumbbell at arm’s length.

Step 2. Draw your shoulder blade back and downward as you row the weight to your side with your elbow flared out about 45 degrees. Lower the weight under control. Complete your reps, and then repeat on the opposite side.

8. Deficit Pushup

Step 1. Place blocks or mats on the floor, or pile some weight plates as shown, so you create an elevated surface for your hands to rest on. Get into pushup position. Your body should form a straight line, with your pelvis slightly tucked so that it’s perpendicular to the floor. Brace your core.

Step 2. Lower your body between the blocks or plates until you feel a deep stretch in your chest, but don’t lose your pelvic position. Press back up.

9. T-Bar Row

Step 1. Load a barbell into a landmine unit, or wedge one end into a corner. Load the other end of the bar with weight, and stand behind the plates, feet straddling the bar. Grasp a V-grip handle (as used with cable stations) and, keeping a long spine with your core braced, bend your hips back to reach and hook the handle onto the bar. Allow your knees to bend. Grasp the handle with both hands, palms facing each other. Maintain your long spine and tight core as you pick the bar off the floor.

Step 2. Draw your shoulder blades back and down as you row the bar the bar, stopping when your elbows reach the middle of your torso. Lower back down under control.

Upper-Chest & Lower-Lat Workout

If you’ve been training a while, you’ve surely noticed that some of your muscle groups aren’t developing as well as others. When it comes to the chest and back, the upper portion of the pecs and lower section of the lats are commonly the weakest areas. Filling out the upper pecs will make your chest look bigger overall, and developing the lower lats will make your back appear wider (which makes your waist look smaller by default).

While you can’t isolate these areas completely, you can bias them with certain exercises and technique tweaks. Catanzano says that any row done with a neutral (palms facing in) grip and bringing the elbows tight to the side of the body—and stopping when the elbows are in line with the torso—will emphasize the lats over the upper back. To zero in on the lower-lat fibers (sometimes called the iliac lats, because they originate on the iliac crest of the pelvis), you need to perform pulling motions with your arm over and a little in front of your head (120–150 degrees of shoulder flexion), and driving your elbow toward your hip.

To attack the upper chest, you need to isolate the clavicular pec fibers as much as possible. The arm path to do this is similar to the one that trains the lower lats, but, of course, the resistance comes from the opposite direction. Incline presses and flys are the typical exercise choices, but make sure you perform them with a neutral grip and elbows tucked, so that your arms travel the same direction that the clavicular fibers run.

1. Incline Dumbbell Press

Step 1. Set an adjustable bench to a 30–45-degree angle, grasp a pair of dumbbells, and lie back on the bench, making sure your entire back is in contact with it—do not arch your back so that it causes your lower back to rise off the pad. Start with the dumbbells just outside your shoulders, elbows bent, and your forearms/wrists angled slightly (a V-shape).

Step 2. Keeping your elbows pointing at about 45 degrees, press the dumbbells straight up. Lower the dumbbells back down under control, until they’re just above and outside your shoulders.

2. Chest-Supported Low-Lat Row

Step 1. Rest your chest on an elevated bench, high enough so that your arms can hang straight down while your body is parallel to the floor. Keep a long spine and your core braced. Grasp a dumbbell in each hand.

Step 2. Draw your shoulder blades down and back as you row the weights to your sides.

3. Clavicular-Head Pec Fly

Step 1. Attach single-grip handles (D handles) to two facing pulleys at a cable station set at shoulder height. Grasp the handles with hands angled 45 degrees and palm facing each other. Step forward so that your arms are extended at your sides, and there is tension on the cables.

Step 2. Keeping a slight bend in your elbows, bring your arms together in a wide arcing motion. Lower the weight under control until you feel a stretch in your chest.

4. Incline Low-Lat Pulldown

Step 1. Set an adjustable bench at about a 60-degree angle in front of a cable station. Attach a bar to the pulley at the highest setting, and then attach single-grip handles to the bar so that you can grasp them with palms facing in. Lie with your chest against the bench and your arms extended overhead. Keep a long spine, and your core braced. There should be tension on the cable to start.

Step 2. Draw your shoulder blades back and together as you row the handles, stopping when your elbows are at your sides. Lower the weight under control.

5. Close-Grip Incline Press

Step 1. Set an adjustable bench to a 30–45-degree angle and lie back on it. The bar should be just over your eyes. Make sure that your feet are flat on the floor and your shoulders, back, and butt maintain contact with the bench. Arch your back, drawing your shoulder blades back and down. Grasp the bar with hands about shoulder-width apart.

Step 2. Unrack the bar and hold it over your chest. Lower the weight to your chest, tucking your elbows about 45 degrees to your sides. The bar should touch the upper portion of your chest, just under the collarbone. Press the bar back to the starting position.   

6. Rack Pull

Step 1. Set the bar on blocks or the spotter bars of a power rack, as shown, so that it sits just above knee level. Set up as you did for the block pull above—long spine, shoulders packed down and positioned directly over the bar, and core braced. Actively pull the bar tightly into your body, and maintain this tension throughout the rep. You can use straps, as shown, to support your grip.

Step 2. Extend your hips to lockout, standing up tall, and then lower the bar back under control.

Need more upper-chest training? See our guide to upper-chest workouts.

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– The bent-over barbell row is primarily a back exercise, but works many other muscles as well, and can be considered a full-body movement.

– The row can be used as an assistance exercise to strengthen weak points in specific lifts you want to improve.

– Rowing with a barbell can be hard on the lower back, so it may be wise to consider alternatives.

Bent-Over Barbell Row: How To Do It & Get Ripped

When most people hear “back exercise,” they picture a pullup, pulldown, or other such vertical pulling motion. There’s nothing wrong with that, but rowing should be the priority in your back training. Rows train the scapular muscles (the ones that control your shoulder blades) to retract, and that helps fight the bad posture people develop from sitting and looking down at their iPhones. They balance out the effects of pushups and chest presses on the shoulders, and they build thickness throughout the back.

Perhaps the greatest and most time-honored row of all is the bent-over barbell row. About as old as lifting itself, the bent-over row has you fighting to maintain a rigid torso in a hinged position while you pull the barbell to your belly. While it’s mainly used to build up the lats, rhomboids, and traps, the barbell row is really a full-body exercise, calling on the lower back, core, biceps, hamstrings and more. Let us take you through the proper execution of the exercise, its many benefits, and a few alternatives you can use to get similar results, if you determine the bent-over barbell row isn’t for you.

How To Do The Bent-Over Barbell Row

Step 1. Place a barbell on a rack set to hip level. (You can also deadlift it up from the floor—but only if you can maintain a flat back/neutral spine position, for safety). Grasp the bar with your hands just outside shoulder-width, and palms facing down. Pull the bar out of the rack. Step back, and set your feet at hip width; hold the bar at arm‘s length against your thighs.

Step 2. Draw your shoulder blades back and downward—think: “proud chest.” Take a deep breath into your belly, trying to expand it 360 degrees. Brace your core. Now bend your hips back while keeping your head, spine, and pelvis aligned. Allow your knees to bend naturally as you drive the hips back until your torso is just above parallel to the floor—or as low as you can go without losing the neutral positioning of your lower back. Your arms should hang straight down, but not loose; maintain your proud chest position and actively pull the bar close to you so it’s touching your shins just below the knees. Your neck should be neutral—not extended or rounded forward. Focus your eyes on the floor a few feet in front of you.

Step 3. Actively contract/squeeze your back muscles as you row the bar up to your abdomen. Breathe out as you do so. The bar should touch your torso somewhere between your belly button and sternum. Hold it there for a second or two, and then lower the bar back down under control, taking another breath in.

Because it lends itself to training heavy, the bent-over barbell row is usually performed for sets of 6 to 12 reps, but it can be done for higher rep ranges to train the endurance of the lower back and core. Those new to the exercise should start with 3–5 sets of 5 reps to keep fatigue at bay while they master the technique.

Safety Tips

Be careful not to let your torso bounce up and down as you’re rowing the bar, as this can cause a lower-back injury. Focus on keeping your trunk motionless, and your bar path smooth. Furthermore, don’t drive your elbows up as high as you can. This can irritate the shoulder joints over time. Your upper arms should point out at about a 45-degree angle at the top of the row, and they should be level with your torso.

Training Tips

The bent-over barbell row can also be performed with different grip widths and hand positions to emphasize one muscle group over another. For instance, the classic row described above is great for overall back development, but gripping the bar even wider and flaring the elbows more shifts the muscle activation so that the traps and rear delts do more of the work. Meanwhile, a narrower, shoulder-width grip will have you pulling the bar lower on your abdomen with your elbows tucked closer to your sides. This will train your lat muscles to a greater degree. Another option: use an underhand (palms facing up) grip, which puts more tension on the lats and biceps, but less on the traps and upper back muscles. Choose the variation that best suits your goals.

For example, a lifter who wants to strengthen his/her back to improve performance on the deadlift should use the basic barbell row described above as a mainstay. The mechanics are most similar to those used on the deadlift, so this type of row will have the greatest carryover. However, someone who is trying to build thicker, wider lats for physique development may do better to focus on the underhand-grip row with the elbows in close to the sides.

Pendlay Row

The bent-over row can also be done with a slightly different technique. A Pendlay row, named for Olympic weightlifting coach Glenn Pendlay, is a bent-over barbell row with a lower torso position that allows you to touch the plates on the bar (assuming you’re using standard-sized Olympic plates, or 45-pounders) to the floor between reps. This variation helps to build more explosive strength, as you can’t rely on momentum or the muscles’ stretch reflex to help you row the bar.

It also makes cheating a bit more difficult. Many people will inadvertently stand more upright mid-set when doing heavy rows, taking pressure off the lower back and using momentum to get the weight up. The Pendlay row makes you stay in that bent-over position, but it gives your lower back a break between reps, letting you re-set, and that may allow you to lift heavier. However, the Pendlay row requires a strong lower back and good hip mobility in order for you to bend over that far and keep the position without rounding your lower back, so we wouldn’t recommend it for inexperienced lifters, or those with lower-back problems.

Benefits of the Bent-Over Barbell Row

The bent-over barbell row is one of the most efficient exercises you can learn, as it trains a number of muscles and functions. Here’s a quick rundown of what we consider to be its key selling points.

#1. It trains the hip hinge. The ability to bend your hips back—activating your posterior muscles while keeping good alignment from your head to your pelvis—is a must for anyone who wants to be functionally strong or perform well at sports. A three-point stance in football, the beginning of any jump, and performing the simple action of picking a grocery bag up off the floor all require sound hinge mechanics. The bent-over barbell row teaches you not only to hinge but to hold that hinged position while you work the upper body. So, funny enough, while it’s thought of as a back exercise, it’s really a full-body, athletic movement.

#2. It works a ton of muscle. As you’ll see in the next section, the row trains pretty much the entire back side of the body, with some added stimulation for the biceps, forearms, grip, and core as well. If your workouts need to be brief, or you get overwhelmed by the idea of having to use a dozen different exercises to train all these muscles, the bent-over row can simplify things greatly. Additionally, the bent-over barbell row puts you in a strong biomechanical position and has you using both arms at once. That allows you to handle more weight than you could on most other back exercises. If lifting big weights—on any exercise—is a goal of yours, the bent-over row can help you get there.

A 2018 study looked at eight different exercises for efficiently targeting all the muscles of the back. The exercises were the bent-over barbell row, chinup, inverted row, IYT raise, lat pulldown, pullup, seated row, and suspension trainer row. The lead researcher concluded that if a person had to choose only one back exercise to do, the bent-over barbell row would be the best option, as it activates three of five main back muscles to the greatest degree (middle traps, infraspinatus, spinal erectors), and was the second best exercise for the other two muscles (lower traps and lats).

#3. It strengthens weak points. Some people struggle to keep the barbell close to their body when performing deadlifts or Olympic weightlifting exercises. The bent-over barbell row helps to strengthen the back so that you can maintain control of the bar, as well as rigidity in the torso and hips while in a hinged position. You’d be hard-pressed to find a weightlifter, powerlifter, or strongman who hasn’t used bent-over barbell rows to prepare for competition at some point.

#4. It promotes good posture. Most people slouch. Their shoulders are rotated forward and their upper backs are weak as a result. If you do a lot of chest pressing on top of that, you make the problem worse, and increase the risk of shoulder pain. Rows strengthen the upper back—specifically, the rhomboids and middle traps, which retract the shoulder blades. When these areas are strong, you stand up straighter with your shoulders back and your chest out—like a Marine standing at attention. In other words, rows make you look better, and avoid the disabled list.

Muscles Used in the Bent-Over Barbell Row

You can expect the following muscles to be trained when you do the bent-over barbell row, starting at the top of the body and scanning down.

• trapezius (middle and lower portions)
• rhomboids
• latissimus dorsi (lats)
• teres major
• rear delts
• infraspinatus (rotator cuff)
• teres minor
• pec major (the sternal portion)
• brachialis (upper arm)
• biceps
• brachioradialis (forearm)
• spinal erectors
• quadratus lumborum (core)
• rectus abdominis (the six-pack muscle)
• obliques
• glutes
• hamstrings
• adductors
• quads

How To Stretch Before Doing the Bent-Over Barbell Row

Try the following warmup mobility drills from Cristian Plascencia and Natalie Higby, founders of thedurableathlete.com, before you perform the bent-over barbell row. Do 3 sets of 5–10 reps for each move.

Shoulder Protraction/Retraction

Kneeling Arm Thread

Cat-Cow

Half Mountain Climber to Full Mountain Climber

Alternatives to the Bent-Over Barbell Row

For all its good points, the bent-over barbell row does have a downside: it can be hell on the lower back, especially if you’re over 40, or have a history of back problems. Furthermore, just getting stronger on the barbell row over time makes it a bit more precarious for the lower back because you’re subjecting the lumbar spine to increasingly heavier loads. That’s why we love the bent-over row for beginners and younger athletes looking to build a base of strength, but rarely prescribe the standard barbell version to older people or those with banged-up backs. When you’re rowing 185 pounds, you’re not at much risk. But build up to where you can row 225 for reps, and you may find that your lower back wants to round, giving out before your lats and upper back do. For these reasons, it’s good to cycle alternative exercises into your program that work the same muscles as the barbell row, but in a less risky way.

Inverted Row

The inverted row is a rowing motion done while hanging from a barbell or suspension trainer. Like the bent-over row, it’s a full-body movement that requires your core to stabilize your body, but you don’t load your back in a hinged position, so there’s no stress on the lumbar. Done on a barbell, the inverted row is a bit more stable. When using a suspension trainer, you have to stabilize the handles and you get a little extra range of motion.

Step 1. Grasp the handles with your palms facing down, and hang from the suspension trainer at whatever angle is appropriate for your strength level. A steeper angle will make the exercise easier, and a flatter one will be harder. Just make sure there’s tension on the straps. Brace your abs and draw your shoulders back and down—think “proud chest.” Retract your neck, as if making a double chin, so your body forms a straight line from your head to your feet.

Step 2. Row your body up to the handles, tucking your elbows close to your sides, and rotating the handles so that your palms face each other.

One-Arm Dumbbell Row

Rowing with dumbbells is often preferable to a barbell. The dumbbell allows a greater range of motion, a freer range of motion—so that your body can determine the best path of movement based on your own mechanics—and it forces you to stabilize your torso to prevent rotation. It’s also great for building up grip strength, and it can be trained both heavy and for high reps. It’s a staple exercise in many strength athletes’ workouts, as well as those of bodybuilding and fitness competitors.

Step 1. Hold a dumbbell in one hand and get into a staggered stance, balancing on the ball of your rear foot with your opposite forearm braced against your front thigh for support. The hand holding the weight should be opposite of the foot that’s in front.

Step 2. Row the dumbbell to your hip, and then hold it in the top position for a second or two. Lower the weight under control.

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