HOW TO: DO A BENT OVER ROW

HOW TO: DO A BENT OVER ROW

The bent-over row is a great upper body pulling movement, in a horizontal pattern, or pulling

"towards us."

The same principles apply as every other exercise we have gone through in this series, and that is; Create tension and stability through the hips the shoulders by building from the ground up, then to get the muscles firing that will retract and depress my shoulder blades...all of those muscles firing through the back. I need to create that stability first, by putting my spine in a good position.

Once I create thoracic extension, it allows me to then put my scapular in a good position that gets the correct muscles firing to create that pulling movement.

Because the scapulo-thoracic "joint" is where the scapula glides across the ribcage (which attaches to the thoracic spine) I can't create healthy shoulder movement and function without first putting the spine in a good position to allow this to occur.

So what I'm going to do here is step in nice and close to the bar. I'm going to get my hips engaged by screwing my feet into the ground. Then I'm going to drive my hips back with the knees slightly turned out, and place my hands in an under-grasp position, at about shoulder width on the barbell.

This is going to automatically put my shoulders into an externally rotated position and allow me to pull my shoulder blades down and back. It's a much more stable position, much easier to get that activation through the back. So again, grip, screw, I hinge, loaded through the hips, spine is aligned.

I can stand up first if I want then hinge the hips back, Romanian deadlift style..

I'm going to hinge the hips back, I want to get my torso almost parallel to the ground, or as close as possible. It's very important here to maintain spinal alignment, as well as remain active in the shoulders so the weight of the barbell doesn't round out your upper back and roll your shoulders forward.

Once I'm in the position demonstrated above, I remain static and tight in the hamstrings, hips, lower back and upper back, then I think about rowing the barbell towards my belly button, driving the elbows back, and dragging the wrists towards the hips, or lower ribs.

The goal is to squeeze my shoulder blades together, thinking about breaking an egg between them, whilst the right scapular moves down and back towards the left hip...and vice versa.

Common issue I see here is people driving the knees forward rather than the hips back, and turning the bent over row into a vertical, upper trap-dominant row, rather than a horizontal, rhomboid and lower/mid-trap dominant row.