First time seeing a DB row done this way… Obviously you can’t go as heavy on these but anyone do them like this?
[quote]nyh wrote:
First time seeing a DB row done this way… Obviously you can’t go as heavy on these but anyone do them like this?[/quote]
Jedd knows a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff and there’s nothing “wrong” with the form he’s talking about, but I usually prefer to actively retract the shoulder blades for each rep rather than holding them static as he’s demonstrating in this vid.
While the scapular retractors do respond well to some static holds (I usually pause with cable face pulls to better engage them), it’s a more “natural” and, dare I say, a more functional movement to work the shoulders/upper back through their full ROM with each rep of a dumbbell row. It allows the rhomboids, traps, and other smaller muscles to stretch and contract in conjunction with the lats and biceps, rather than being disengaged from the movement.
Dean Somerset had a pretty solid article, Deconstructing the Dumbbell Row, that talked about other technique points:
http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=4781263
Mike Robertson has also written a bunch about effective rowing:
Today I saw someone doing these… couldn’t tell if he was trying to start an invisible lawnmower or work out.
bring the pain by stretching at the bottom, baby
[quote]caveman101 wrote:
bring the pain by stretching at the bottom, baby[/quote]
x2. I definitely feel DB rows in my lats more when I get a good stretch.
When doing most any kind of rows i prefer difficult weight moved with alot of body english, or some non-difficult weight moved in a spaztik fashion.
[quote]Field wrote:
When doing most any kind of rows i prefer difficult weight moved with alot of body english, or some non-difficult weight moved in a spaztik fashion.[/quote]
See there you go again being a weirdo and posting nonsense in random threads. WTF?
OP, don’t worry about row form being strict, just row.
I personally prefer the stretch at the bottom of each rep. What he says does make a bit of sense though, I guess. It would seem that stretched at the forward-most position would be the most natural though. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone “pack the shoulders” before picking up or grabbing anything. I can definitely see it being good for time under tension, however.