What Is Bent Over Row and Why Should You Do It?
The bent over row is an upper body pull exercise that targets multiple muscles of the back including the lats, rhomboids, traps, deltoids and the biceps.
When performed correctly and with progressive overload, you will build the muscles of your back, enhance your overall strength and improve your posture.
Perfecting Your Bent Over Row Form
The best way to perform the bent over row is by engaging your core, hinging at the hips and standing with soft knees.
Holding weight in your hands, allow your arms to extend to a fully stretched position. Pull the weights towards the sides of your body and squeeze your shoulder blades together. Lower with control and repeat.
Common Mistakes to Avoid in Bent Over Row
Some common mistakes with a bent over row are not utilizing full range of motion. Not engaging your core or maintaining a neutral spine.
Not squeezing your shoulder blades and coming to a full contraction at the top by extending your thoracic spine.
You can watch this video of Australian Strength Coach, Sebastian Oreb demonstrating how to correctly perform the one arm row with Base Body Babe, Diana. This can also be used when weight is in both hands for a double dumbbell bent over row.
Muscles Targeted by Bent Over Row
Primary muscles used in the bent-over row are the lats, middle and lower traps, rhomboids and the rear deltoids.
The Role of Supporting Muscles in Bent Over Row
Secondary muscles used are the biceps, forearm flexors and the rotator cuff. These are used to stabilize your body during the movement.
Variations of Bent Over Row to Enhance Your Workout
There are many ways to perform this movement. It can be done with dumbbells, barbells, cable machines and kettlebells. A few of our favourites are:
- Dumbbell One Arm Row
- Barbell Bent Over Row, with a supinated or pronated grip
- Chest Supported Dumbbell Row
Integrating Bent Over Row into Your Workout Routine
With all of our upper body workouts, we like to have an equal push:pull ratio.
Meaning if we perform a bench press for example we would perform a row of some sort in the program for structural balance.
This can be done in a variety of ways such as a one arm row, a seated cable row or a barbell bent over row. Utilizing a variety of grip types is also important, such as neutral, pronated and supinated. You do not have to do all of these in one program but can spread them across your workouts for the week or even from phase to phase.
Bent Over Row: Reps and Sets for Different Goals
We like to perform the bent over row with a rep scheme of 8-20 and utilize this as a muscle building exercise rather than a strength specific exercise where we would perform lower reps.
This can be done for 3-5 sets and is great in a superset with a pushing exercise.
Join Our Community for More Fitness Insights
Head over to Base Body Babes to get further information on our training programs amd a free 7 day trial with Base Body – The App.
