Low Pulley Row To Neck

🎯 Shoulders🏋️ CableBeginnerCompoundBiceps (2°)Middle back (2°)Traps (2°)

How to do the low pulley row to neck

  1. Sit on a low pulley row machine with a rope attachment.
  2. Grab the ends of the rope using a palms-down grip and sit with your back straight and your knees slightly bent. Tip: Keep your back almost completely vertical and your arms fully extended in front of you. This will be your starting position.
  3. While keeping your torso stationary, lift your elbows and start bending them as you pull the rope towards your neck while exhaling. Throughout the movement your upper arms should remain parallel to the floor. Tip: Continue this motion until your hands are almost next to your ears (the forearms will not be parallel to the floor at the end of the movement as they will be angled a bit upwards) and your elbows are out away from your sides.
  4. After holding for a second or so at the contracted position, come back slowly to the starting position as you inhale. Tip: Again, during no part of the movement should the torso move.
  5. Repeat for the recommended amount of repetitions.

Muscles worked

The prime movers are the deltoids, which raise and rotate the upper arm at the shoulder joint.

Because more than one joint is moving, the work does not stay in one place: the biceps add force at the elbow; the mid-back retracts the shoulder blades so the shoulder has something solid to work from; the traps anchor the shoulder blade against the load.

Every exercise for:ShouldersBicepsMiddle backTraps

How this movement works

The load travels toward you and several joints bend to bring it there. The arms finish work the back starts, so grip and elbow flexors sit in the path of every repetition: when people stall on a compound pull, it is more often the hands giving out than the primary muscle running out of force.

It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.

What you need

A cable holds tension for the whole range, including the point where a free weight would go slack. Moving the pulley changes the angle the resistance arrives from without changing the movement.

Every exercise using:Cable

These train the shoulders too, using equipment this one does not:

Difficulty

Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.

Of the 141 shoulders exercises in this database, 74 are listed at beginner level.

Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →

ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.