ExRx.net

The upright row gets a bad rap, but it seems to effect those that can't achieve proper scapular retraction. I've been doing them for 15 years, and I haven't had a problem. I also don't have internally rotated shoulders. What are your thoughts on this exercises? Anybody ever tried DB raises as a replacement? http://exrx.net/WeightExercises/Deltoid ... aises.html

I haven't heard a bad word in here. It's a solid part of my routine. Great exercise for upper traps, shoulders and biceps.

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Prove the impossible!

You haven't been around very long!

Yeah, if you're OK with them, then you're OK. No reason to abandon them if you've done them trouble-free.

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Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.--Francis Chan

I did those dumbbell raises for awhile. Now i do something very similar with a resistance band by standing on the middle of it and grabbing both ends. It's one of several resistance band exercises i do to warm up for shoulder presses. Lateral raises and upright rows exacerbate my shoulder issues, but doing the raises gives me no trouble. As an added bonus, i often laugh while doing them when i think about how goofy i must look pantomiming the act of repeatedly pulling up a pair of waders.

My experience with upright rows are that as long as I don't get narrow, I have absolutely no shoulder problems with them. I have found that as long as I keep the grip width shoulder width and father out towards snatch grip, I'm good to go. Also, why not just do DB upright rows. They work fine.

We have discussed this in the past. It's not the exercise that's bad, it's the way that a lot of people do them. Done with a barbell, with a narrow grip and too much weight will cause problems. A little common sense helps a lot.

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Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~Hippocrates
Strength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley
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Thanks TimD

I'm with Tim and Stu on this one. It doesn't bother my shoulders so much as my wrists. Barbell upright rows just kill my wrists, so I haven't done them in years. I always use dumbbells. If you don't have your arms bent in, but keep them straight up and down, it's easy on the shoulders too. More often than not I combine barbell shrug with dumbbell lateral raise, but sometimes I do dumbbell upright row instead.

I will do a barbell high pull with shoulder width grip from time to time. Be careful not to hit yourself in the face with that one. The first time I did them I came real close to doing that, because of the momentum. I learned to keep my head back after that.

I'd do high pulls instead of upright rows.
Less stress on the wrists, elbows and shoulders.

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_art ... ng_forever

Well, here is one pretty negative opinion about the lift. Makes me think if I should dump the upright row. But since it doesn't cause pain, am I okay with it? This is the part I hate in lifting weights: There is always someone saying a certain move is very harmful for you, but you can't see it or feel it yourself.

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Prove the impossible!

Cressey is a name that gets thrown around here from time to time, and he's written some stuff on T-Nation arguing against the inclusion of the Upright Row:

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_art ... hs_part_ii
http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_art ... rs_part_ii

(As a side note, he suggests doing high pull exercises Wouter as mentioned above, and he takes a much more moderate position with pressing behind the neck compared to the article you linked.)

Cressey works with baseball players a lot. The movement is something they need to avoid due to overuse.

Note that he doesn't say that upright rows are to be avoided. He says there are better exercises to do the same thing and that it depends on how you do them that matters. Personally, I think overhead pressing is the way to go but I'm not a bodybuilder.

I like Cressy's imagery:

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Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~Hippocrates
Strength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley
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Thanks TimD

Upright Rows are kind of an odd duck. While technically a multi-joint exercise, I wouldn't really considder them a true compound lift. I think they're best used with relatively light weights and higher rep ranges.

Personally, I prefer exercises like military presses, high pulls and dumbbell snatches.

I had a thread on here earlier comparing upright laterals with bent laterals and the same questions about torso inclination and how they would affect which part of the shoulder we are using also applies to rowing movements.

Like if we simply leaned forward during an upright row, perhaps we could still be working the middle delt while not being so internally rotated that we feel impinged?

It makes me wonder though, ignoring the torso, the arms are oriented the same way they would be in a rear delt row when we do upright rows right? So I guess this could put into perspective how even though rotation matters, torso angle may be more important to figuring out which delt head gets the work?

fyp


not to mention, that while arm may be in a similar position a some pint in the lift, the direction of movement is not
Come'on usually your questinos are too intangled for me to understand. this one was a bit of a softball. Are you trying to seduce me?

If you lean forward more than a little, it's no longer an "upright" row, but a "bent-over" row.

I don't think you CAN ignore the torso. It's the orientation of the arms in relation to the torso that determines what muscles are most active. You could just as well say that "ignoring the torso" the arms are oriented the same on the military as the decline bench press. Or did I miss what you were saying?

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Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.--Francis Chan