Exercise:

Pendlay Row

Target Muscle:

Back (Mid/Lats)

Barbell

Stand in front of a loaded barbell. Bend at the knees and forward at the waist until your torso is parallel to the floor or just slightly higher.

Place the bar directly beneath your shoulders, and with your arms perpendicular to the floor, grab onto it using an overhand grip spaced 2-3 inches outside of shoulder width.

With your back flat, core tight and neck in a neutral position, row the bar up until it touches your waist, and then lower it back down until the plates touch the floor.

- If you aren't yet strong enough on this exercise to use 45 pound plates, place a platform of some kind beneath the plates you're using to elevate the bar off the ground so that you aren't forced to bend forward excessively on each rep. When your arms are extended in front of you and the weights are resting at the bottom, your torso should be no lower than parallel to the floor.

- In order to maximize the tension on your back muscles rather than your biceps and shoulders, focus on rowing the bar up using your elbows rather than your hands. Imagine that your hands and forearms don’t even exist, and just place 100% of your focus on driving the weight up using your elbows.

- As you row the bar toward yourself, focus on squeezing your shoulder blades together as well.

- To increase the activation of your back muscles even further, you can use a set of lifting straps or lifting hooks to fully eliminate your grip from the equation.

- If you experience lower back pain on this exercise then simply replace it with a supported rowing variation such as a one-arm dumbbell row or machine row.