II. The Exercises
** A. The Main Exercises
*****1. The Squat
*****2. The Bench Press
*****3. The Deadlift
*****4. The Power Clean
*****5. The Press
*****6. The Row, Part 1
**B. Accessory Exercises
**C. Other Questions
5. The Row, Part 1
Question - How do I properly perform the barbell row?
YOU WILL MAINTAIN THE NATURAL LUMBAR ARCH THROUGHOUT THIS EXERCISE. At NO TIME will your lower back round for ANY reason.
Here it is, step-by-step.
1) You maintain your lumbar arch, bend your knees, and lean over at the hips, not the lower back, so that you can grasp the bar. When you lean over, you MAINTAIN YOUR NATURAL LUMBAR (lower back) ARCH/CURVATURE. Yes, this means your bootie sticks up in the air. Deal with it, and don't do these if you go to prison.
2) You reach to the bar and grasp it with a "medium-wide grip". Don't belabor this point. Your hands should be outside of shoulder width. Exactly how far is up to you, I personally extend my thumbs to the smooth, and use that for grip width. Reaching for the bar without allowing your lower back to round will require your shoulder blades to rotate forward, which will round the shoulders forward (protraction). This is natural and normal. At this point, ENSURE YOUR LOWER BACK/LUMBAR ARCH IS STILL BEING MAINTAINED.
3) Suck in a deep breath of air, check to ensure your abs and lower back are tight, which maintains the natural lumbar arch, and EXPLOSIVELY arch your SHOULDER BLADES backward and upward while yanking your elbows up behind your body. Of course, your lumbar arch is maintained throughout, and there is NO motion at the hips. that is, hip extension (the motion you would use to stand upward from this position) does NOT occur during the rep.
4) The bar should hit in the upper abdomen and you should try to pull it through your body, while squeezing your shoulder blades together hard and arching your lats. The "arched lats" affect can be seen in runway models or swimsuit models who arch the lats. This brings the shoulders back (retraction) and it shoves their boobies up in the air (elevates the chest). This is the same action that should occur when you are readying yourself to perform the bench press, but of course, you'll be supine on a bench rather than bent over.
5) Control the weight as it returns to the ground while maintaining your lumbar arch. At this time, learn to control the weight using your lats and upper/midback muscles as much as possible, and your elbow flexors (biceps, brachialis, brachioradialis) as little as possible.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Note - You must "deload" between *every* repetition. That is, you actually put the bar down and release (or simply relax) your grip so that you remove any type of static tension in the muscles at that time. DO THIS! It is almost counter-intuitive, and I resisted doing this for quite some time. After all, I have lifted 20 years and never deloaded between reps, why should I start now? It will be annoying at first, because you can't use as much weight.
Of course, you can't use as much weight when you do a full squat, nor can you use as much weight when you DON'T bounce the bar off your chest in a bench press. More weight isn't better if the technique isn't proper.
If you are able to row more than 135 with this exercise and you have longer arms, you may need to use 35s so that you can get a better range of motion while pulling from more of a stretch position. Stand on a low, wide box if need be. Do not, however, allow the lower back to round, and do not squat down to reach the bar.
Use less weight on this exercise than on normal 45 degree rows. Reduction in weight, increase in lat stimulation.
Question - Are there any videos of these, I don't quite get the idea
Okay, here are a few videos with some discussion of the "do's" and "don't's". I don't use these videos to mock or poke fun, so please don't take it as such.
What Stump is doing
here is a conventional barbell row with a deweighting in between reps. This is NOT a bad thing, mind you, it simply isn't how you do a pendlay row. The video does provide a good list of common mistakes. Many people think that the Pendlay row is a conventional row done with a deweighting between reps.
Note a few things while watching this video:
1) Improper starting position - hips too low, shoulders too high. Your upper body should be nearly parallel.
2) Hip extension to get bar off floor, followed by hip extension to accelerate bar - note that he "stands up" while his arms are still straight, and doesn't begin rowing until his torso is at a 45 degree angle.
3) Knee flexion and extension - your quads shouldn't get a workout
4) Dipping and forward motion of the hips just as bar is about to contact body
5) Touching bar too low on the body - don't touch the navel area (this is easy), touch the upper abdomen
This video is a much better example. He uses proper starting position and no leg or hip drive to get the bar from the floor. However, this lifter's traps begin to overpower his lats at the top point, and he uses the "forward hip dip" as the bar is about to touch his midsection. By rolling your hips forward, you take stress off the lats and place it squarely onto the traps, which are always a lot stronger.
This is probably the best example yet. A very small issue with keeping his head down, which will not allow for maximum lat arch at the top. However, note the almost perfectly parallel upper body positioning throughout the motion. Do everything like Vike did it, except find a point a few feet in front of you to focus your eyes on, which forces you to keep your head looking slightly upward, relative to your positioning (i.e. look at the 2nd rung in the power rack or whatever). By doing this, you will keep your head up throughout, and you will be able to finish with a strong lat arch.
(Thanks to Vike, Lencho and Stump for their videos)
Quesiton - Do I have to deweight between repetitions of the row? What about continuous tension?
Continuous tension is a term widely used in bodybuilding circles. It is associated with hypertrophy and muscle mass accumulation. It is, however, only one part of the equation.
The purpose of deweighting (i.e. allowing the barbell to rest the entirety of its weight on the ground for a brief moment between repetitions, a la the deadlift) is to develop the ability to produce force rapidly and explosively in the upper back muscles. Remember, this is an exercise which isn't just a "lighter pull from the floor", like the power clean is, it is an exercise to develop explosiveness.
Continuous tension is a fine concept, and a barbell row is going to be an incredibly effective strength and mass producer with or without the deweight. The deweight is a better teaching tool for explosiveness, and also makes the somewhat vague technique of the basic barbell row a bit more concrete. It also significantly reduces the amount of stress and strain on the somewhat vulnerable lower back. With training frequency being what it is, and since the rows follow squats in this program, giving the lower back a rest can be rather desirable.