maratoolDumbbell Upright Rows
How to do the dumbbell upright rows
- Grasp a dumbbell in each hand with an overhand grip (palms facing downwards) and hold them in front of your thighs.
- Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, your abs drawn in and your back straight.
- Starting with the dumbbells at your thighs, slowly raise them up towards your shoulders by bending your elbows.
- Pause at the top and rotate your shoulder blades together.
- Lower the dumbbells in a controlled motion to your thighs.
- Repeat
Muscles worked
The prime movers are the deltoids, which raise and rotate the upper arm at the shoulder joint.
Even with a single joint doing the moving, the muscle is not working alone — the biceps add force at the elbow; the mid-back retracts the shoulder blades so the shoulder has something solid to work from.
Every exercise for:ShouldersBicepsMiddle back
How this movement works
Everything happens at one joint. That gives you direct control over where the tension sits; the trade-off is that the muscle gets no help, so the load that feels hard here is a fraction of what a multi-joint version of the pattern would take. Slow, complete repetitions beat heavy ones.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
Dumbbells let each side work on its own, surfacing a strength difference between limbs that a barbell would quietly cover for, and leaving the wrist free to rotate through the movement.
Every exercise using:Dumbbell
These train the shoulders too, using equipment this one does not:
- External Rotation with Bandband
- External Rotation with Cablecable
- Handstand Push-Upsbody only
- Jerk Balancebarbell
- Kettlebell Arnold Presskettlebell
Illustration: Everkinetic — CC BY-SA 4.0 — license. Modified versions are shared under the same license. Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.