This edition of Exercises You Should Be Doing puts a little spin on a similar iteration I stole from Joel Seedman a few years back.
Or maybe it was John Rusin?
Either way, my brain doesn’t work the same way their’s does and I gladly borrowed the idea.
It involved adding resistance bands to KB/DB Rows while in the hinge position. The pull of the bands really (and I mean REALLY) added another element to the exercise I wasn’t expecting.
Because I had to resist the anterior pull of the bands, the exercise hammered my lats, and I loved it.
Well, here’s the same exercise, albeit with a little bit of a twist.
Band Resisted Hinge Row
Who Did I Steal it From? – Doug Balzarini of Iron Village Strength and Conditioning in Beverly, MA.
What Does It Do? – A lot.
As Doug noted in a recent post of his:
“This one checks off a lot of positive boxes. The accommodating resistance of the super-band, the constant tension from the active hinged position, the big range of motion from the scapula, the muscle squeeze at the top…goodness.
And the wall support allows you to “sit back” a bit and really focus on the squeeze of the mid/upper back.”
Key Coaching Cues – It may take a little trial and error to get the setup juuust right, but when you do:
- Make sure to push your hips back INTO the wall. It’s still important to feel a fair amount of hamstring tension, though.1
- With pretty much any row variation I like to tell people to think about allowing their shoulders blades to move AROUND the ribcage; you should feel a reach/slight stretch when your arms are extended out in front.
- In playing around with this exercise myself, I think it bodes best to do it for high(er) reps, in the range of 12-15 reps.
