hey guys, the barbell row is one of my favorite exercises on back day, but sometimes i wonder if i am not bent over enough, i kind of stand like a linebacker and pull to my waist. another idea i had was leaning forward a little when my arms are stretched all the way down and then when i pull lean back more untill i am in the linebacker stance again. right now i do working sets up to about 5 or 6 reps at 185
Took like 10 seconds. Search for stuff like this first, especially considering the thread I gave a link to is about 2 weeks old.
You’ll see people doing them two different ways, and there isn’t really a right or wrong per se.
A) Lean over to where you are practically horizontal and pull somewhere between the lower sternum and belly button.
B) More upright and pull toward the belly button/waist area.
I feel A is the more “correct” way, but I guess it depends on your puposes for doing these. Most people this is an ego lift and they’ll do it the B method.
I’ve always been under the impression that being closer to parallel to the ground will allow more Lat activation, while a more upright, pulling into the waist motion (a la Yates) will hit more upper back (thickness) <-which is what I always liked to do, and figure that all the lumps and bumps in my mid back are a result of doing them this way.
S
[quote]dankid wrote:
I feel A is the more “correct” way, but I guess it depends on your puposes for doing these. Most people this is an ego lift and they’ll do it the B method.[/quote]
OR people could just be hitting different parts of their back. I, for example, do BB rows like that(B). But I do DB rows with my torso horizontal so I’m still getting the benefits of method A.
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
, and figure that all the lumps and bumps in my mid back are a result of doing them this way.
[/quote]
LOL. All those ‘icky’ lumps and bumps??!!!?! NOOOO WAAAAY am I doing THOSE!!!
I don’t know if it’s related, but I’m kind of relegated to doing relatively high angle DB rows vs low angle or BB rows at all because of my lower back stress. I feel the movement better that way anyway, so I guess I’m on board with it.
I don’t know for sure what it’s really working (thick vs. width), but I feel them (ie. high angle) in my upper back and outside-ish in the lats, FWIW.
How do you guys feel about rounding your upper back while doing bent rows, versus arching it?
Dorian once wrote that unless your back has even a slight arch to it, the muscles couldn’t fully contract. Now I don’t know how accurate that statement may be, but I most certainly feel the contraction much better with an arch. In fact, if I let my back round a bit, my biceps tend to take over the movement.
S
The key to succeeding in weight training is to avoid SHITTY FORM. Lifting with SHITTY FORM will do nothing for you unless you’re on roids.
There is a perfect way to do the movement, that is ideal for every single person and it is well defined in Arnold’s encyclopedia by internationally appointed weight-training authorities like Tony Horton and Chuck Norris. Its all about squeezing the muscle with a full elegant range of motion, and you can’t do that with SHITTY FORM. Remember, the weight on the bar means nothing, never EVER sacrifice form for weight on the bar, even if it means rowing the unloaded bar for controlled reps of 10 after 25 years of training. So use a form that is not SHITTY FORM.
EDITED for confusion:
For the lats, I agree 100%… I’ve never been able to recruit the lats without an arched (upper and lower) back.
For training upper back thickness, I dunno, but I’ve ALWAYS arched my lower back a bit while doing any kind of heavy rowing simply because thats my initial instinct to build up some lower back ‘trunk support’ to move the weight off and ‘hold it still’ before beginning the rowing motion.
I do round the upper back at full stretch though when training the scapular retractors and arch at full contraction.
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
Dorian once wrote that unless your back has even a slight arch to it, the muscles couldn’t fully contract. Now I don’t know how accurate that statement may be, but I most certainly feel the contraction much better with an arch. In fact, if I let my back round a bit, my biceps tend to take over the movement.
S[/quote]
For reference, here are a few videos to illustrate what I’m talking about…
Rounded upper back barbell row (chest facing the floor) @ 0:28:
@ 0:32, a more upright version:
Arched upper back, chest pushed out:
Completely straight back, strict form, sort of the in between @ 1:57:
Obviously you want to have a straight/arched lower back regardless of your preference (although don’t tell Arnold that), and I’m not asking which one is “correct” or “the best”, just wondering if you guys had any thoughts or experience with the different styles.
Stu: It is funny you should say that, because it was through watching Yates and a few other bodybuilders training that I started to question the general recommendation to push your chest out as much as you can for basically every exercise. Learning to round my upper back while lifting has been a positive thing for me as far as back and shoulder training goes.