[quote]Akuma01 wrote:
I say no on chest supported Tbars. A. Cant fucking breath with the bench there. B. The way the chest supported are built, you bring the weight up higher than youd want to. When you bring it up that high, your taking some of the stress from the lats and distributing through the traps and rhomboids. Barbell rows all the way. Just be sure to bring the weight to your waist. Thats where the back is in a safer position, and your lats in an anatomically strong position. Head up, eyes up, ass out, back arch, and barbell to your waist.[/quote]
Can’t believe I forgot to mention that. Annoys the shit outta me how it becomes some sort of hybrid upright row type deal.
And for anybody curious, in the BOI I have vids of how I do BB rows and BB pin rows…I love both of them personally, imho they beat the shit out of rack pulls for upper back thickness.
I used to hate BB rows because I felt off-balance and my low back would fatigue too much.
Last two sssions i’ve used a sumo stance with a close grip (hands about .5 inch outside the smooth part) like H4M does. I have short arms and long legs and so this is definiely the way I need to do these in order to keep my balance and maintain a strong base.
Also, the new hand placement gives a different ROM that hits my lats reallly nice. I had a new kind of DOMS in them for several days after that.
I used to do chest supported rows when I first started lifting and they worked well, since I was new and everything works…
As I got stronger and started using more weight I noticed that both my chest and lower back would hurt after adding more than 2 plates on the bar.
Started doing BB rows and now it’s one of my favorite exercises as far as feeling the muscle work and safety.
As it was mentioned before, the key is to keep your bodyweight on your heels, and bend your legs like you’re about to sit in a chair. I do anywhere from 4-15 reps, and I normally stop when the bar no longer touches my torso on the way up.
I also use DB bent over rows like in the video but just as a warmup.
[quote]Akuma01 wrote:
I say no on chest supported Tbars. A. Cant fucking breath with the bench there. B. The way the chest supported are built, you bring the weight up higher than youd want to. When you bring it up that high, your taking some of the stress from the lats and distributing through the traps and rhomboids. Barbell rows all the way. Just be sure to bring the weight to your waist. Thats where the back is in a safer position, and your lats in an anatomically strong position. Head up, eyes up, ass out, back arch, and barbell to your waist.[/quote]
I thought most people rowed for upper back, lol. Although I know you can do rows to hit lats but personally, I prefer pull up’s/pulldowns for lats. Oh and lol @ that vid of “head supported rows”[/quote]
Eh, when i listened to Dorian explain the barbell row, it kinda just seemed to me that it would be working in sync with your body to use the barbell row as a lat movement. I get a lot of upper back pinch from the Iso lateral row machine i use. The upper back muscle that sits above the lats and laterally of the traps is the infraspinatus, which if i remember correctly, helps in transverse extension along with the rear deltoids. So id say a better Upper back movement would be Cable rows with 2 handles, pulling them high and apart. but then again i could just be talking nonsense, lol who knows!
[quote]MeinHerzBrennt wrote:
I used to hate BB rows because I felt off-balance and my low back would fatigue too much.
Last two sssions i’ve used a sumo stance with a close grip (hands about .5 inch outside the smooth part) like H4M does. I have short arms and long legs and so this is definiely the way I need to do these in order to keep my balance and maintain a strong base.
Also, the new hand placement gives a different ROM that hits my lats reallly nice. I had a new kind of DOMS in them for several days after that.
I’m sticking with these for a while.[/quote]
Sounds familar, just not quite as narrow for me. Good description, much better than I would have bothered with!
[quote]Akuma01 wrote:
I say no on chest supported Tbars. A. Cant fucking breath with the bench there. B. The way the chest supported are built, you bring the weight up higher than youd want to. When you bring it up that high, your taking some of the stress from the lats and distributing through the traps and rhomboids. Barbell rows all the way. Just be sure to bring the weight to your waist. Thats where the back is in a safer position, and your lats in an anatomically strong position. Head up, eyes up, ass out, back arch, and barbell to your waist.[/quote]
I thought most people rowed for upper back, lol. Although I know you can do rows to hit lats but personally, I prefer pull up’s/pulldowns for lats. Oh and lol @ that vid of “head supported rows”[/quote]
Eh, when i listened to Dorian explain the barbell row, it kinda just seemed to me that it would be working in sync with your body to use the barbell row as a lat movement. I get a lot of upper back pinch from the Iso lateral row machine i use. The upper back muscle that sits above the lats and laterally of the traps is the infraspinatus, which if i remember correctly, helps in transverse extension along with the rear deltoids. So id say a better Upper back movement would be Cable rows with 2 handles, pulling them high and apart. but then again i could just be talking nonsense, lol who knows! [/quote]
Well as long as your back is getting thicker and wider that’s all that really matters.
Akuma you have a point about the double-handle cable rows, but I’ve only seen those attachments once in a gym…
But yeah. I do rows for upper back thickness, scap retraction strength etc with modified technique. I can hit my lats with a ton of other movements, every vertical pulling exercise for example, plus v-handle cable rows etc.
Face Pulls (leaning back) in the lat-pulldown with a wide neutral grip work well too and allow for some good weight, but other than that, most exercises specifically used for the task (band pullaparts etc) just don’t allow you to go heavy enough to balance out a 500+ raw bench imo…
With so many people having shoulder issues even when not pressing much at all, I prefer not to rely on some bent laterals as my only real exercise for that kind of thing
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Akuma you have a point about the double-handle cable rows, but I’ve only seen those attachments once in a gym…
But yeah. I do rows for upper back thickness, scap retraction strength etc with modified technique. I can hit my lats with a ton of other movements, every vertical pulling exercise for example, plus v-handle cable rows etc.
Face Pulls (leaning back) in the lat-pulldown with a wide neutral grip work well too and allow for some good weight, but other than that, most exercises specifically used for the task (band pullaparts etc) just don’t allow you to go heavy enough to balance out a 500+ raw bench imo…
With so many people having shoulder issues even when not pressing much at all, I prefer not to rely on some bent laterals as my only real exercise for that kind of thing
[/quote]
really? IM talking about using two 1 handed handles.
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Akuma you have a point about the double-handle cable rows, but I’ve only seen those attachments once in a gym…
But yeah. I do rows for upper back thickness, scap retraction strength etc with modified technique. I can hit my lats with a ton of other movements, every vertical pulling exercise for example, plus v-handle cable rows etc.
Face Pulls (leaning back) in the lat-pulldown with a wide neutral grip work well too and allow for some good weight, but other than that, most exercises specifically used for the task (band pullaparts etc) just don’t allow you to go heavy enough to balance out a 500+ raw bench imo…
With so many people having shoulder issues even when not pressing much at all, I prefer not to rely on some bent laterals as my only real exercise for that kind of thing
[/quote]
really? IM talking about using two 1 handed handles. [/quote]
We have those of course in just about every gym, but you can only attach one to the cable/band stack… Would need 2 cables in order to use two handles, no?
There was one gym where I did see 2 1-handed handles attached to a long rope handle or something like that on a cable row station where you were sitting fairly far from the tower, but didn’t get to try it out… That’s the one I meant.
As said above, I’ve never had a cable/band rowing station available which let you attach 2 single handles.
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Akuma you have a point about the double-handle cable rows, but I’ve only seen those attachments once in a gym…
But yeah. I do rows for upper back thickness, scap retraction strength etc with modified technique. I can hit my lats with a ton of other movements, every vertical pulling exercise for example, plus v-handle cable rows etc.
Face Pulls (leaning back) in the lat-pulldown with a wide neutral grip work well too and allow for some good weight, but other than that, most exercises specifically used for the task (band pullaparts etc) just don’t allow you to go heavy enough to balance out a 500+ raw bench imo…
With so many people having shoulder issues even when not pressing much at all, I prefer not to rely on some bent laterals as my only real exercise for that kind of thing
[/quote]
really? IM talking about using two 1 handed handles. [/quote]
We have those of course in just about every gym, but you can only attach one to the cable/band stack… Would need 2 cables in order to use two handles, no?
[/quote]
I actually just put them both on the same cable. It would definitely be fantastic if i had two cables, but i work with what i got =p
I can’t fit 2 attachments onto one cable, so I’m screwed there.
In that one IBB video the guy demonstrating the exercises under CT’s supervision is using 2 handles for the cable row station for example, that one looked pretty neat.
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
I can’t fit 2 attachments onto one cable, so I’m screwed there.
In that one IBB video the guy demonstrating the exercises under CT’s supervision is using 2 handles for the cable row station for example, that one looked pretty neat.
[/quote]
You need to get those clips on the creatinez STAT!
Ouch, weaksauce. Yea the attachments at my gym are unnecessarily large for the handles, so lol i could probably fit 5 or 6 different handles onto 1 cable (just incase i felt like monopolizing the handle world). Im curious about that IBB video now and going to go try to find it…
[quote]on edge wrote:
Breathing is over-rated. Seriously, you only need one or two, maybe three breaths in a set. [/quote]
Really?! I’m breathing in on the concentric everytime.
[/quote]
Yeah I dunno about that on edge…me, I’m big into breathing with each rep, be it squats, rows, bench, pullovers, deadlift, etc etc. I think I might pass out if I tried breathing ever 3-4 reps…[/quote]
I’ll be doing them on Friday. I’ll make it a point to pay attention to my breathing and experiment with it. I agree on movements like Squats & Deadlift, I don’t know about STB Rows though, seems like you shouldn’t need too.
[/quote]
So, I paid close attention to my breathing in today’s training on CSTB Row. The way I breath is a very quick, short, quarter or even one fifth breath at the very top of the movement when there is a brief instance of deload. I took the breath on every rep and it was fine for me.
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
I can’t fit 2 attachments onto one cable, so I’m screwed there.
In that one IBB video the guy demonstrating the exercises under CT’s supervision is using 2 handles for the cable row station for example, that one looked pretty neat.
[/quote]
Wouldn’t this be pretty easy to solve with a proper sized piece of chain and some carbine hooks though? Or maybe I’m misunderstanding what it’s supposed to be like, but I use chain and hooks to attach two handles when I do upright rows.
Regular bent over rows have never felt right to me… I love chest supported rows. They have a Chest supported T-Bar thing at my gym and I hit that thing every week.
As has already been said: two different exercises. And use exercises that fit your individual biomechanics and your goals.
Besides, there are just too many variations of BORs to compare it with the chest-supported setup.
I regard BORs as general back exercises. Sure, depending on the variation (hip tilt, grip type/width) you can shift the focus to special muscle groups, but still: the back’s a hodgepodge of muscles and BORs target all of those to a certain degree.
Recently, I’ve taken to using EZ bars for BORs: much friendlier to my wrists, especially when using a narrow grip. Gives a good lat stretch, too. And given the fact that your run 'o the mill EZ bar can take about 370 lbs of plates, it’s sufficient for most people, especially if you bend over to nearly 90°. I’m doing this, though, since I’m currently not allowed to do vertical pulling movements and need to address my lats some more (I’m also doing narrow-width neutral grip seated cable rows to get them lats).
I’m still doing pronated BORs with a wider grip, more load and less hip tilt, though, to really load my upper back).
But I also include chest-supported rows, albeit as a ‘rehab’ upper back exercise (wide grip, pronated). That does the trick for me. But, then again, only because it conformed to my goals: I needed to get back from a subscapularis injury and this exercise was the ideal fit, since it allowed me to wholly focus on applying more stretch (by progressing in grip-width) and load to my subscapularis. That being said, I don’t go too heavy on it lest I get breathing problems.
Another application for chest-supported rows: a lower back injury. But, then again, you could also use HS rows for that.
Breathing sucks on Chest Supported Rows, and my problematic lower back can’t handle Bent Over Rows of any significant weight.
So now I just do Kroc’s or Cable Rows,… or a Hanging Horizontal Row (I’m face-up hanging from a barbell in a power rack, hands wide apart, feet on high bench, body straight. Looks like an upside-down decline benchpress. I yank up so my chest hits the bar, and lower slowly. Add plates to a backpack if more resistance needed. Is there a proper name for these?)
