After spending a glorious weekend with Patricia & Ko, I started a new program that was written/mentioned a while ago by a powerlifting lady M. Power (I think that’s her name).
For back, she says to do barbell row. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do it right since I've never done it. Any help on this issue? Or what can I do to substitute? I'm already doing one arm rows & pull downs with the routine.
P.S. Patricia -- I slightly bastardized this routine and added DB clean & press. You know what I said about needing to do certain things to idiots; so I'm working toward that. Hehehe.
Well there are two types of barbell rows. One is for your back and the other hits mostly your traps and upper back. I guess from what I’m reading you are talking about bent rows. For this exercise I would place a barbell on a bench with weights on it. Straddle the bench and bend at the waist. Keeping your back straight grab the barbell about should lenght apart and with one motion bring the barbell up to your stomach. Keep your head faced forward. Contract your lats when you get the bar up. Slowly release and start over. Start out with a light weight until you get this move down perfect. This is an injury exercise if one does it inproperly. Good luck
Just some fine points to add to Rick’s description:
Don’t lock your knees.
You can do either pronated (overhand) or supinated (underhand) grip.
With pronated, the tendency will be for the elbows to flair out, and the emphasis will be on the rhomboids and posterior delts. Raise the bar toward the mid-sternum, and go slowly back down.
With the supinated grip, keep the elbows close, and raise the bar to the bottom of the sternum and slowly lower. The emphasis will be on the lats.
With both these grips, make sure you set the shoulder blades down and fully contracted (think of cracking a walnut between your shoulder blades).
Hey, Stella: Ahh, my favorite DB exercise (with much thanks to Joel Marion for introducing me to this exercise), DB clean and press. I’m glad you’re going to keep doing them.
As for the bent over barbell row - have you done a search on T-Mag? I KNOW there are descriptions of this exercise available, maybe even a photo. Damn, I wish I could have showed you this one this last weekend.