T-Bar Row with Handle

🎯 Middle back🏋️ BarbellBeginnerCompoundBiceps (2°)Lats (2°)

How to do the t-bar row with handle

  1. Position a bar into a landmine or in a corner to keep it from moving. Load an appropriate weight onto your end.
  2. Stand over the bar, and position a Double D row handle around the bar next to the collar. Using your hips and legs, rise to a standing position.
  3. Assume a wide stance with your hips back and your chest up. Your arms should be extended. This will be your starting position.
  4. Pull the weight to your upper abdomen by retracting the shoulder blades and flexing the elbows. Do not jerk the weight or cheat during the movement.
  5. After a brief pause, return to the starting position.

Muscles worked

The prime movers are the rhomboids and mid-trapezius, which draw the shoulder blades together and back down the ribcage.

Because more than one joint is moving, the work does not stay in one place: the biceps add force at the elbow; the lats keep the upper arm drawn in toward the torso.

Every exercise for:Middle backBicepsLats

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 barbell locks both hands to one bar, so neither side can drift and the load climbs in plate-sized steps. That makes it the simplest way to add weight and the least forgiving thing to bail out of.

Every exercise using:Barbell

These train the middle back 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 37 middle back exercises in this database, 21 are listed at beginner level.

Related exercises

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

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