I’m following Alan Thrall’s video on this exercise and it’s irritating as hell. I can’t reach my chest/upper body consistently. And when I do, it’s usually one arm reaching it first the the other - in other words, it seems like my arms are imbalanced in strength and they can’t bring the bar up at the same time.
Also, I’ll occasionally feel a sharp pain in my shoulders when doing this and I have no idea why. In conclusion, I hate this shit.
Any tips or alternatives that train the same groups? I’d do chin ups, but I’m trying to do rows to build up muscles for chin ups :agony-deep:
I would probably go for this one. You get to pretend you're fussing with a very stubborn lawn mower.
I’ll occasionally feel a sharp pain in my shoulders when doing this
I've injured both of my shoulders so I can confidently tell you to STOP DOING BARBELL ROWS! If you're experiencing sharp pain during this exercise then you need to stop. You might injure yourself further and you'll spend months recovering.
What I suggest is doing bodyweight rows instead. They work the same muscles and they're easier to learn. You can get plenty strong doing the different progressions without adding weight.
Do a chin up progression lol
Watch the Scooby fitness chin up progression vid and you guaranteed or money back will do one chin
Eventually you git gud and can do them weighted
I kno, but they're booth a kilogggrammmeChin ups are almost like a skill you have to develop, if you wanna do em you just have to practice them
I personally have never liked barbell rows, they are too easy to cheat and are kinda awkward
I started doing them just hanging like in the vid and now I can do them ez
Drop as slooow as possible with negatives. You can also try just literally hanging for as long as you can.
Do inverted rows instead. I been personally training my flatmates this year - they've gone from doing lightly angled inverted rows using a bedsheet on a doorframe to being able to do chin ups.
i hate barbell rows and i just replace them with alternating low rows and chest supported rows. idk if its the same exactly but honestly fuck barbell rows they never feel right for me and always feel sketchy.
Pull-ups are a vertical pull, while barbell rows are a horizontal pull. Like I said in my other post here to the OP, you can start doing bodyweight rows instead of barbell rows. Personally I think they're more comfortable while still giving you a good workout, especially since you can move through different progressions to adjust the difficulty.
As a rule of thumb, don't do anything that causes a sharp pain. Your unique shoulder anatomy could certainly be the cause.
I would recommend going down in weight to focus on form (if you still experience pain though then stop!). You could also try a reverse grip, holding the barbell with your palms facing forward like you are about to curl the bar. Then just pull the bar up to your sternum like a row. This ends up with a smaller range of motion for your shoulder joint vs the standard row. Doing this for some reason seems to "open" my shoulder joint up and prevent impingement when I'm doing exercises, I wonder if it would have the same effect for you?
Absolutely. I do almost exclusively bodyweight workouts and I can do hella pull-ups. They're brilliant for lat activation and they won't fuck up your joints. Defo give them a go, and if they're too easy then invest in a pair of rings and modify it.
I do 5 sets of 8-12, but I used to do 3 and that was fine too.
I do dumbbell rows and have never had a problem with them. Am I missing out on something?
