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Overview
While this exercise may appear somewhat awkward to those new to the gym, upright rows make a great addition to the shoulder and back routine for building excellent deltoid and trapezius muscles. Secondary stress is placed on the bicep and forearm muscles as well.
Setup
Begin your upright rows by taking a strait bar with the proper amount of weight. Many gyms will provide bars with the weight permanently attached, but any straight bar with the correct amount of weight will work fine, including the Olympic bars used for the bench press.
Take an overgrip on the bar with your knuckles facing away from you and your hands about 3-6 inches apart. If you’re not sure where to put your hands, you can simply extend your thumbs along the bar and place your hands close enough so that the tips of the thumbs are touching.
Movement
Move both of your arms upward and pull the weight just in front of your upper body until it stops at the point just below your chin. As you pull the weight upward, be sure that your elbows stay higher than your hands throughout the movement.
Tips From the Trainer
You can vary your grip from very narrow to shoulder width. When your grip is set to shoulder width, less stress is put on the trapezius muscles and proportionately more is moved to the deltoids. You will also find that you will not be able to lift the bar as high with the wider grip, and probably no higher than the middle of your chest.
This exercise can also be performed using a cable, the smith machine, or even using dumbbells. When using the cable, set the pulley at the lowest setting so that it is down by your feet, and use a straight bar attachment to pull the weight upward using the same motion as described above. While the barbell method is certainly the most common, use these alternative methods to add some variation to your workout.
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