maratoolUpright Barbell Rows
How to do the upright barbell rows
- Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, your abs drawn in and back straight.
- Place the bar on rack in the position where your arms are fully extended in front of you with your elbows slightly bent.
- Place your hands shoulder width apart and raise the bar up towards your chin with a controlled motion.
- Pause at the top for a moment and rotate your shoulder blades together.
- Lower the bar to the starting position.
- 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
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 shoulders too, using equipment this one does not:
- Upright Cable Rowcable
- Alternating Deltoid Raisedumbbell
- Alternating Kettlebell Presskettlebell
- Back Flyes - With Bandsband
- Backward Medicine Ball Throwmedicine ball
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.