maratoolUpright Band Rows
How to do the upright band rows
- Stand on the band so that the handles are level with your upper thigh.
- With your back straight and abs drawn in raise your hands upward to your collarbone.
- Your elbows and arms should be parallel with the floor.
- Slowly lower your arms and return to starting position.
Muscles worked
The prime mover is the latissimus dorsi, which pulls the upper arm down and back toward the ribcage.
Even with a single joint doing the moving, the muscle is not working alone — the triceps straighten the elbow to finish the movement; the deltoids stabilise the shoulder and add force at the top of the range.
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
No equipment at all. The resistance is your own bodyweight, so you progress by changing leverage, range or tempo rather than by adding plates — and you can do it anywhere.
A band gets harder the further it stretches, so resistance peaks at the end of the range rather than the middle. It is also the easiest way to scale a movement in small steps.
Every exercise using:Body onlyBand
These train the lats too, using equipment this one does not:
- V Bar Pull Downcable
- Bent Arm Pulloverbarbell + bench
- Catch and Overhead Throwmedicine ball
- Latissimus Dorsi-SMRfoam roll
- Leverage Iso Rowmachine
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.