Upper back pulling strength is important in a variety of day-to-day activities and sports for improving functionality. For example, lifting heavy objects, moving heavy furniture around the house, in upper body propulsion in a swimming front crawl or during a ruck in a game of rugby. Upper body pulling strength will also have a positive carry over to other exercises in the gym like deadlifts, cleans or gymnastics movements like muscle ups.

How to Develop Upper Body Strength

Like anything in the strength training world, there is no one way to skin a cat, many modes of exercise can improve your upper back strength. But resistance training rowing exercises are amongst the best.

Three of the most popular rowing variations are the Barbell bent over row, the T-bar Landmine row and the Seated Row.

Barbell Bent Over Row

The barbell row is a compound movement that not only works the upper back through an isotonic contraction, but also the lower back, glutes, and hamstrings isometrically. Thus, making it a great bang for buck exercise if you are short on time or enjoy exercises that stress the whole body at once.

• Stand tall, feet under your hips, holding a barbell with your hands just outside the width of your legs, in a pronated grip.

• Perform a hinge, pushing your bum back to the wall behind you, until your torso is facing the floor, letting the bar hang naturally under the shoulders.

• Perform the rowing action by pulling the bar up to your belly button, until your elbows pass your torso.

• Slowly lower the weight back down, bracing your core throughout so that your spine doesn’t move excessively during the rowing motion, to complete the rep.

T Bar Landmine Row

The unique arced motion of the barbell during a landmine row allows you to perform a row with a larger range of motion while being much more upright than in a bent over barbell row. This can be a perfect variation if you want to reduce the load on the lower back if you have trouble with your lower back during a barbell bent over row. This could be because of an injury or just because you are new to the gym.

• Stand tall, feet under your hips, either side of a barbell that’s attached to a landmine.

• Hold the barbell with your hands together between your feet  

• Perform a small hinge, pushing your bum back to the wall behind you, until your torso is at roughly a 60-degree angle to the floor, letting the bar hang naturally between your legs.

• Perform the rowing action by pulling the bar up to your belly button, until your elbows pass your torso.

• Slowly lower the weight back down, bracing your core throughout so that your spine doesn’t move excessively during the rowing motion, to complete the rep.

Seated Row

The seated row allows you to isolate the traps and the lats and the traps, with little to no load on the rest of the body. This makes it a great variation for driving hypertrophy because you can easily go close to failure, without a significant depreciation in technique. Also, unlike many other machines, the Mirafit Seated Row is fully adjustable to your proportions meaning that won’t feel awkward to use because it will fit you perfectly.

• Sit on the Seated Row Machine, pull your chest into the chest pad and assume an upright torso, thinking about trying to touch the sky with the crown of your head.

• Reach to the handles with your hands, with a choice of either the horizontal handles (more focus on your traps) or the vertical handles (more focus on your lats).

• Pull your elbows past your torso, thinking about trying to pull your chest through the chest pad, to perform the rowing action.

• Slowly reverse the movement, feeling a nice stretch in the upper back, back to the start position, to complete the rep.

Whatever your goal, adding rowing exercises into your exercise split is a good idea. Which you choose is up to you and if you have a good reason for the choice you make, then that is all that matters. But a nice guide is to use the bent over barbell row for a compound rowing exercise, using the landmine row for a compound exercise that puts less strain on the lower back and using the seated row to go close to failure with the upper back to build a wide upper body.

For a more in-depth explanation of barbell rowing technique, check out our barbell row guide.

Written by guest author Ewan Hammond.

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Tags: Equipment > Bars and Weight Plates ; Exercise Type > Strength