Everyone knows if you want to get bigger, stronger and/or stay healthy, you need a strong upper back.

But are you getting the most out of your upper back exercises?

Are you rowing with proper technique?

If you’re not sure, this video should help – check it out!

When coaching my clients and athletes, these are the biggest issues that I see:

• Initiating with the biceps or upper arm, versus leading with the elbow.
• Not squeezing the shoulder blade BACK. Remember, a row is essentially a forward and backward motion.
• Hyper-extending the humerus/upper arm, versus stopping the motion when the shoulder blade stops. This is typically seen in people who think they aren’t getting enough range of motion.
• Not getting a stretch through the rhomboids and upper back at the bottom of the motion.
• Over-rotating through the t-spine. If you know you’re doing it (and doing it with a purpose), that’s fine – but many simply over-rotate because they don’t have enough strength to actually retract properly.
• Using too much weight, which exacerbates all of the issues above!

Remember, on every rowing exercise, you should think about getting a stretch through the upper back at the start/finish, and squeezing the shoulder blade back at the midpoint.

And just in case you missed it before, here’s a video on how to properly execute your vertical pulls as well. Needless to say, it’s a lot different than how we probably learned in our middle-school PE class!

So there you have it – how to properly execute both horizontal and vertical pulls. Any questions, comments or concerns?

Stay strong

MR