Workouts

Upright barbell rows are a basic exercise for building the volume and shape of the pectoral girdle and is acknowledged by many athletes. At the same time, this exercise leads to the highest risk of injuring the ligaments and tendons of the rotator cuff. In these terms, a barbell press behind the head or flies with an inappropriate weight are more dangerous. From this article you’ll find out whether you need frontal stretching, what are the dangers and what exercises can be used instead.

Upright barbell, dumbbell or cable rows are a classic exercise that allows for gaining mass, increasing the strength and making the delts and trapezius muscles bigger and stronger. It can be done both as the main or “killing”/auxiliary exercise during the work-outs for the shoulders and back.

Front stretching is an excellent auxiliary tool for technique improvement in such popular weight-lifting sports as the clean and jerk and the barbell snatch.

Advantages of barbell rows

Actively stimulates the mass and strength of the pectoral girdle.
It allows making controllable shifts of the load vector between the medium and front deltoid bundles.
Simple techniques are available even for sportsmen with little experience.

Disadvantages of barbell rows

Increased risk of injury the shoulders, elbows, wrist joints and ligaments.
It is difficult to “hit” and isolate the target muscles.

These disadvantages can be avoided if you regularly prioritize practicing the movement path and select the correct apparatus weight.

Don’t hasten or seek progress in exercising volume. Is it better to use a lighter weight and focus on the technique as much as possible, as this will be the key to your success.

Athletes with any preparation level can perform rows. For beginners it is more reasonable to do front stretching as the main exercise or use it as a lower profile by adding it to basic movements such as bench presses or military presses. Recommended repetition range is 8-12 reps per working set.

Experienced sportsmen often do load stretching as an auxiliary exercise, doing it at the end of the super-set or as the last exercise within a shoulder work-out. Here it serves as a pump that creates a complex load for the pectoral girdle and fills the deltoids with blood. Repeat this for 15-25 times in one set.

To help athletes perform well within their workouts, often Clenbuterol is used in order to promote better cardiac outputs and to warm their body up ready for the intensive loads.

Which muscles are working?

Lateral upright barbell rows are a multi-joint exercise, the full cycle of which include the work of several joints and muscle groups.

They are divided into the following groups by load level:

Target – middle (side) delts, upper trapezius area;
Synergists – front and rear delts, supra-spinal/infraspinatus muscles, upper chest, serratus muscles, biceps and triceps;
Stabilizers – bottom and middle of the trapezius, front serratus muscles and abs.

The main muscles worked within the exercise are the middle deltoid bundle and upper trapezius area, the supporting muscles are forearms and biceps. Back and abs serve as stabilizers that support the bulk of the load when lifting.

Please note: The exercise has an intense load on the forearms. They are naturally weaker than the deltoid and trapezius muscles so they are “killed” first of all limiting the full-fledge building of the target group muscles. The problem can be solved with a Z-bar, hand straps, belts and varied grip width.

Due to the stabilizing and auxiliary muscles becoming tired before the target muscles, many athletes use bulking agents to help and develop these muscles much faster within the workouts. These substances include Testosterone Cypionate, Equipoise and Dianabol, or Sustanon, and Anadrol. With the use of these combined substances, a user can rapidly grow their muscle mass and gain up to 15kg of muscle mass within the space of a few months.

The correct technique

Upright barbell rows are a relatively simple exercise to perform. There are no such nuances as, for example, in squats or the bench press. Nevertheless, don’t neglect the technique. To say the least, this will make the stretching useless, at the worst will lead to injury.

Procedure:

Mount the barbell and put it on the floor, stand or rack. Bend down, grab the bar from above, with the arms a bit narrower than shoulder width apart. Slightly bend your knees and keep your back straight;
Straighten yourself up smoothly, take the initial position, hold the barbell in lowered hands at the hip level, slightly bend your elbows, shoulders spread and slightly lowered with the loins bent;
Inhale, with the body vertical, lift the apparatus to the chest level/chin. Move the bar as close to your body and try raising your elbows over your forearms. Stay in the upper point for a few seconds;
Exhale and slowly lower the barbell to your hips to the initial starting position. Make another pause for 1s and repeat the exercise for the selected number of times.

How to select the working weight?

The weight for the bar depends on the bodybuilding goals.

Do the set number of repetitions in one working set providing that the last movement will be the killing one or similar to this.

In lat pulldown or upright rows, the working weight depends on the number of repetitions in the set. As a rule, mass- and definition-gaining exercises are done for 6-15 reps. The rule is simple; the heavier the apparatus is, the less number of repetitions you should do in the set and vice versa.

For example:

Suppose you decided that you can do stretching with a barbell with a 30kg weight with 8 repetitions in one set.
Mount an apparatus for 15kg (50% from the planned weight) and make a warm-up set or two with 8-12 repetitions.
Add 15kg more and make the maximum possible number of repetitions with perfect technique.
Suppose you’ve done 15 repetitions. This means that you can add 10%-15% to the weight on the barbell (two 2.5kg weight plates) and try again.
If you’ve failed and can’t do more than 6 repetitions, don’t worry. Remove 10-15%, have a rest and perform another set.
If you’ve managed to do 8-10 repetitions, congratulations! You’ve found your working weight.

Please note: barbell stretching is one of the exercises that are the most dangerous for the shoulders. The reason is overestimation of one’s abilities with too heavy apparatus, an absence of science, cheating, uncontrolled barbell movement (throw) during lowering, wrong grip and too wide amplitude.

Due to these harder movements, many athletes use sports supplementation is order to perform better within their workouts and develop their strength. For this and any other lean muscle gaining purpose, the most popular combinations are; Testosterone Propionate, Trenbolone Acetate and Superdrol. With the use of any of these combinations, a user can grow rapidly in strength, endurance and muscle definition within the space of 6-8 weeks.

Ways of performing the exercise

There are several ways of replacing the basic upright barbell row. The athlete should decide what to choose in any certain case individually depending on the preparation level and goals.

Dumbbell rows

The safest way for the shoulders. The arms are not rigidly fixed when one exercises with dumbbells so the load on the rotator cuff is lower. Its injuries are the bane of all sportsmen.

On the other hand, the structure broken due to absence of a bar requires a more active involvement of additional stabilizing muscles, such as the trapezius, triceps, lats and serratus muscles and for holding the dumbbells, although it partially removes the load from the delts, the target group muscles.

Smith machine row

Vice versa; as unlike dumbbell rows, the Smith machine allows disabling stabilizer and focus the load on the deltoids directly. Besides that, the machine allows working with heavy working weights without the risk of losing the technique control.

Another Smith machine advantage is that it allows doing the row with one hand. This method is often used by professional sportsmen-bodybuilders for focusing on local muscle groups that require isolated work.

Cable-pull machine rows

The advantage of a cable-pull machine is the constant load on the shoulders from the first phase which is the pull to the chest and to the end of the second one, lowering the weight to the hips.

As a rule, experienced athletes don’t exercise for enlargement in cable-pull machines (with small repetitions and heavy weight), but eagerly use it for shoulder building (“pumping”) with a shortened amplitude with 15-25 repetitions per working set.

Recommendations and possible errors

Upright barbell rows sound simple, but many bodybuilders make typical mistakes during this exercise. Some of these are stated below:

Too heavy weight. Standard error made by beginners. Too high load does not allow working technically so the sportsman has to cheat with inertia and stabilizers. So the weight blasts off due to the throw with the whole body; firstly, the trunk is inclined forwards too much and at the end of the movement is pulled back. So on the main phase the barbell moves due to loins movement, not due to deltoid or trapezius muscles.
Small amplitude Too heavy weight of the barbell or dumbbells does not allow working in the proper amplitude thus limiting the deltoid involvement on the final path section. So the shoulder load has no effect and turns into a useless dash for repetitions.
Lowered elbows. Elbows on the hand level or below is a common error. In this position the main load falls on the forearm and biceps. According to an efficient technique, the elbows should be above the barbell axis during the lift. The barbell should be pulled not with your hand (they just hold the bar or handle), but with the shoulders. Do your best, but not beyond the joint comfort and keep your elbows raised.

Beginners often ask what muscles are working in the cases of a narrow and a wide grip. If you hold the bar with the hands narrower than shoulder width apart and stretch your elbows forward, most of the load will fall on the deltoid bundles. Try moving the weight in the maximally full amplitude, i.e. to your chin.

Vice versa, as if you use a wide grip, hands wider than shoulder width apart and spread your elbows sideways, the load vector will be moved to the middle bundles. In this case you’ll need to work in a shorter amplitude. Lift the barbell to your chest or even lower excluding the trapezius to the utmost. You must select a proper weight and do 1-2 warm-up sets before starting the working loads.

exercises to develop a powerful muscular chest

Building athletic pectoral muscles is not always an easy task. These muscles do not develop from indirect exercises to other groups, such as hands or trapezoids, and react only to heavy intensive training muscular chest. Meanwhile, they play the main role in the physique of the athlete, whether it is the front or side view of the torso. Powerful nursing always emphasizes not only the experience of the bodybuilder, but also the effectiveness of his training. Here is a complex of training of the muscles of the chest, consisting of 4 exercises performed in an intensive style.

The program is performed once a week at the beginning of the workout:

Press the bar on a horizontal bench muscular chest: 5 sets (3 warm-up – 15-10 repetitions, 2 workers – 8-6 repetitions). Rest 90 seconds.
Dumbbell press on the inclined bench head up: 3 sets (1 warm-up – 12 repetitions, 2 workers – 10-8 repetitions). Rest 2 minutes.
Supertet of 2 exercises: push-ups on the uneven bars + reduction of hands in the Peck-Dec simulator, 3 approaches (bars – 10-12 repetitions + pec-dec – 10 slow repetitions).

Exercise peck-de note: Weight in the Peck-Dec simulator should be chosen so that to perform repetitions slowly and without jerking. This is an isolating exercise, here in the first place is the technique of movements and mental concentration on the functioning of the pectoral muscles. Rest between the approaches in other exercises – 90 seconds.

This complex is designed to combine power basic exercises, powerfully working muscle fibers, with an insulating blood-filling exercise, which has a slightly different, pumping effect. This combination shocks the muscles and they react to this with qualitative growth. Push-ups on the uneven bars for the pair with the information of the hands are not chosen by chance. After the first two basic movements, push-ups on the uneven bars modify the thoracic, and the information creates an intensified pumping effect of blood filling, which, in combination with heavy exercises, acts on the muscles just fine muscular chest.

In an effort to improve their endurance, many athletes begin to intensively perform cardio training, for example, running, an exercise bike, an elliptical trainer, etc., believing that only such loads will lead to the desired result. But this is only a small part of the improvement of the body. For maximum efficiency, you need to increase your strengths, while increasing muscle. For example, as a result of strengthening the muscles of the legs, you can overcome a much greater period of stress in running or cycling, without feeling tired. The increase in the leg muscles, in turn, helps them absorb a significant strain or shock loads that could go into the joints.

The following methods are aimed at an effective increase in endurance:

Perform cardio training after weight training.

Many perform strength training and aerobic exercise on different days. But in order to increase athletic endurance, it is possible to combine different types of exercise, where cardio training follows the basic power exercises. Such a technique is useful because after multi-joint movements involving most muscle groups, the muscles will be much more actively involved in aerobic work and cardio training will become more effective. For example, you can do squats with a bar on the shoulders (three sets of different exercises are performed one by one without interruption), in which the first number is squat (with a bar or with its own weight), then pulling, and then an elliptical trainer or a quick run. In this case, the weight in the squats with the bar should be moderate to make 8-10 pure repetitions. The number of such trisets is fulfilled by samochustviju.

Reduce the rest time between approaches.

Rest periods between power approaches last mostly 60, 90 or 120 seconds. In order to emphasize the development of endurance, you can shorten the rest time between sets up to 30 seconds. Of course, in this case it will be necessary to reduce the working weight in order to adequately implement the approach, but this training will stimulate the development of endurance.

Exercise is done with moderate weight and a lot of repetition. Human skeletal muscles consist of two types of muscle fibers: white (fast) and red (slow). White muscle fibers are power, they are responsible for explosive gak squats, but do not have the characteristic endurance. Effective training for them is exercises with large weights and a small number of repetitions. And on the contrary, red muscle fibers are responsible for endurance to long loads, but do not have sufficient explosive power. Aiming training of such muscle fibers is to perform sets with moderate weights and a large number of repetitions. For the athlete’s endurance, the red muscle fibers respond, so training should be done with an emphasis for their development.

Multi-joint exercises are the basis.

Basic (multi-joint) exercises work out and tire most of the muscle groups, which means that they already provide for the development of endurance. Especially, if in the program there are several such exercises in a row.

Constant diversity.

According to some experts, the human body gets used to training in two weeks, after which the reaction is significantly reduced. This once again confirms that there is a need for a systematic diversity in the complex, so that the Circle training muscles work, as the first time and reacted as well. This approach is applicable not only in strength training, but also in cardio exercises.

Circuit training.

Highly intensive advanced method for enhanced endurance development. 1 circle consists of 6-10 exercises, which are sequentially executed one after another, one approach. Between exercises of one circle a pause lasts about 30 seconds. At the end of the circle, the pause is 3-4 (or more) minutes. The circle is better to start with the base (multi-joint) exercises, and end with isolating (single-joint) exercises. It is also possible to perform only cardiovascular exercises mixed with single-articular. Number of laps 2-5 or feel. Since this kind of training is extremely intense, the time of training should not exceed 30-60 minutes. Restoration of the organism plays an important role here. Circuit training can not be done often. Only when the muscles have fully recovered and are no longer sick, they are again ready for a serious training.

Triceps play a crucial role in athleticism, it is due to their full development and strength, basic bench exercises work all 100%. Any “base”, whether it be exercises on the chest or deltas, requires the power of the triceps in the first place to overcome the serious weight and effectively work out the target muscles, so their strength is decisive, especially if the training is conducted with the maximum impact on high results.

Phenomenal triceps almost always say that the athlete is able to squeeze incredible weight. For example, the legendary professional bodybuilder Kevin Levron, in his competitive times, demonstrated simply the transcendental development of the triceps, standing out amongst others in this indicator, and of course squeezing fantastic weights in horizontal and inclined pressures. Powerful triceps – strength in the exercises, the connection is direct, and therefore they need to pay close attention to move to the main exercises to a new level.

The triceps are called the triceps muscle of the shoulder, since it consists of three heads (bundles): long, lateral and medial. In any triceps exercise, they work all, but with the press down on the block with a little or less effort for each, so a variety of exercises (usually enough 3 exercises) is the main condition for the progress of these muscles.

Whatever tasks are set, whether it is mass work, with a lot of weight and fewer repetitions, or relief, with a repetition rate of about fifteen and not a big working weight, it is important to always remember the health of elbows. Exercises on the triceps, anyway, load the elbows, so they must be pre-heated. If the triceps are performed after intensive training of the chest or deltas, then you can be sure that the elbows are already warmed up and in each triceps exercise there will be enough 1-2 warm-up approaches, but if the three-headed arm muscle is trained by the first number on a single day, then the warm-up should be given special attention. At least 3 warm-up approaches with the number of repetitions of 20-15 should be done in the first exercise, before moving to a more serious weight. The first one is better than the French press of the EZ-bar lying down to fill the press down on the block. The block, with its continuous target load, perfectly kneads the elbows, while the lateral and long heads are effectively worked through. Periodically, it is necessary to change the grip to the opposite, in this case the stress is shifted to the medial head from the lateral head. The second exercise is followed by the French bench press (with EZ-neck or straight). This exercise works fine for all three triceps, and, since the elbows are already warmed up, after two warm-up sets you can perform 2-3 power approaches for 8-10 repetitions. The third in the complex is the most difficult and key triceps exercise – press the dumbbells with both hands because of the head sitting. The dumbbell press is performed on a bench with a vertically raised back. It would be logical to assume that if this is the most difficult movement, then it must be done at the beginning. The uniqueness of the exercise is that, along with the shock load, Gint dumbbells with both hands due to the head of the sidyryps, developing its strength and volume, the dumbbell press perfectly stretches the three-headed at the lower point of the amplitude, and this advantage will work effectively only if the triceps will be preliminarily tired of the two previous exercises. Just at this moment, and comes the turn of a heavy press of a dumbbell, a tired triceps will undergo intensive work-up and stretching, as a result of which all three bundles will receive a powerful stimulus to growth. Pressing a dumbbell is a dangerous exercise, a muscle “failure” can come instantly, and it is extremely difficult to return a dumbbell at the end of the set, therefore, insurance and the assistance of a team-mate will be very useful here.

Complex for triceps (if triceps are trained after a breast or delt, warm-up and working approaches are less: warm-up – 1-2, workers – 2-3).

Press down on the block: 3 warm-up sets – 20-15 repetitions, 3 working sets – 12-10 repetitions;
French bar press bench: 2 warm-up sets – 12 reps, 2-3 working sets – 8-10 reps;
The press was dumbbells with both hands from behind the head while sitting: 2 warm-up sets – 12 repetitions, 1-2 working sets – 8-10 repetitions.