Beaufort Fitness: Row



The next exercise that we are talking about is the opposite of a push up, the reason why I say the opposite because there is antagonist and agonist muscles, and they’re the opposing muscle groups. So we did a pushup, now we are going to do the opposite which is a row. Now, doing this back to back is not always the best if you are just starting out because you are going to fatigue the muscles faster because when we talk about each movement, we’re talking about the working phase so when we do a pushup, we are using the chest but on the downward motion we are actually decelerating using our back and then when we come and do a row we are using our back muscles as well. So all these exercises that I’m showing you are the largest muscle groups that we are using in the body, and this is the best way to start of any exercise program unless you’ve been injured, and you need to start even more basic than this. But for the most part everybody can start of with these movements.

So, the third movement here is a row. We’re starting off: body straight as a boar;, this is a TRX row, again, it doesn’t have to be a TRX. Any tool can be used to do these movements. It just comes down to how much force, muscle force that you want to use to create the intended result. Alright, so the intended result here for me explaining to you is to get you to move correctly, then based on where you want to be you can decide how much weight you need to move, how many reps, how much volume you are doing, how intense you do it…

So when we do a row there’s a few grips that we can use. We have pronated, we have supinated, we have neutral grips (please see the video). So here I’m just showing you neutral grip position, we are going to pull our elbows in 45 degrees, notice my neck and my spine are in alignment and I’m doing a slow controlled movement like I’m bringing a bar to my chest. Say these TRX were stuck together, the handles were stuck together and I was bringing a bar to my chest and going back.

This exercise is very basic, very simple. You can incorporate 2 of the exercises that we’ve just talked about, so let’s go over that. The first exercise that we talked about is the squat, so now watch this exercise as I incorporate the squat to a row:

1. Fall back
2. Squat down
3. Come up and then row.

Now why would I want to do that? Well, I want to do that for a few reasons.

One, It allows me to go deeper to a squat yet more hip mobility and on top of that if you can see I start to breathe heavier so now this is what we called compound exercises. I started to use my legs, the largest muscle group in the body and my back the second largest muscle group in the body.

So as I do these exercises, my heart has to pump blood to my legs because it’s working and blood to my back so now my cardiovascular starts to activate and I get twice the amount of energy exertion which burns twice the amount of calories and this is where you can start to get an efficient workout. For example, at my facility here (EarthFIT) we do about a 30 minute workout and get better results than most people are doing anywhere, going at like an hour a day because it’s designed specifically for the most efficient, but we have a methodical process for building the person up to this point. So someone would never come in to our facility and start of with a squat to a row because we want to make sure that they’ve done numerous reps of the row and they’re proficient at it.

They might do a wide grip row one day, they might do a close grip row the other day, they might do supinated and they might do pronated. Until they’re proficient at that and they can go even further right now we spoke about the pushup when I’m on the floor Im doing about 70% of my weight. Well, as I move forward I’m now lifting more and more of my own body weight to get this row so, if I go parallel I’m almost lifting my full body weight right now. So I weigh about 180, so I’m rowing up at 180. When I come back here, I’m probably using about 60 or 70 lbs now. If I stand up even more really nothing is happening so this is just very basic, this could be a good starting point for someone who’s very weak just to get the thoracic spine and the scapular moving, those shoulder blades moving, and then continue to move forward and start to increase your strength that way.

TRX is a great tool because you can take it anywhere but you can use the cable row machine which are typically at every gym, but those are mainly the two main tools you’re going to see, which is a TRX and a cable row. Sometimes you’ll see they have the hammer strength rows where you actually put the weights on it or you can use dumbbells where you’re getting to the deadlift position and a row which is going to leave me into my next video.

Ian Hart is a Body-Mind Transformation expert, the creator of EarthFIT Training Systems, co-creator of BACK PAIN RELIEF4LIFE, author of HEALING HACKS, and founder of BEAUFORTPERSONALTRAINING.COM and MYBACKPAINCOACH.COM. Ian and his team help people get into optimal shape in the safest, fastest and most effective way possible, using cutting edge science.