Barbell Rows Hurt Your Low Back? Do This:

Barbell rows are among the most classic of classic lifts that exist.

They’re also an exercise I program for myself and clients quite frequently.

However, it isn’t uncommon that people report that they don’t feel too great when they first begin training them.

If you find yourself in this situation, it’s unlikely that the exercise itself is “bad for you” or something of the like.

Rather, it’s more likely the case that your preparedness for the exercise or the dosing of the exercise is off.

There is no single exercise that is required for you to make progress in any aspect of fitness.

However, it’s also true that no exercise is inherently dangerous or harmful with the proper preparation or dosing.

The barbell row is a very useful movement and is about as specific to “real life” as your likely to get; for reasons I’ll discuss soon.

So, if you’re going to write off this movement, it should be because you’ve taken the proper steps to do it right and simply prefer to train other movements.

So, with all that said, that leaves us with the question: what are the proper steps?

The plan

• How to do the barbell row

• What muscles does the barbell row train?

• Three reasons why the barbell row is helpful

• Why the barbell row bothers your back

• Regression and progression pattern for training the barbell row

How to do the barbell row

There are slight variations you can make to the movement based on your goals with the movement, but the following general steps will be true for most people’s techniques:

• Begin by standing upright with the barbell in your hands

• Bend over at the hips by kicking your butt backward (as if you were closing a car door)

• Try to keep your knees directly above or slightly behind your ankles

  • The most comfortable position here will depend on the weight you are using as this changes where your center of balance is

• Make an effort to keep your spine relatively still (neutral)

  • It is not wrong to bend and extend at the spine throughout the movement, but keeping it still will allow you to focus on pulling with your arms more

• Pull the barbell to somewhere between your belly button and the top of your stomach (bottom of rib cage area)

See the video below:

What muscles do barbell rows train?

The barbell row trains a wide variety of muscle groups in different ways.

I’ll divide up the muscles into two lists categorized by the type of contraction they undergo.

The muscles responsible for moving the weight (concentric and eccentric contractions) are:

• Middle and upper trapezius (traps)

• Latissimus dorso (lats)

• Posterior (rear) deltoid of the shoulder

• Rhomboids

• Biceps brachii

• Brachialis

• Brachioradialis

The muscles responsible for stabilizing your body (eccentric contractions) include:

• Hamstrings

  • Hip stabilization

• Glutes

  • Hip stabilization

• Spinal erectors

  • Spine stabilization

Three reasons why the barbell row is helpful

First

If you’ve ever bent over to pick something off of the floor, it’s very likely you picked up the object through either a bent over row or a deadlift.

Somethings, these things we pick up are light.

Sometimes they’re heavy.

The stronger you are at a lift such as the bent over row, the safer you are likely to be when picking something up.

Second

Moreover, with the vertebral bodies of the spine are some of the most susceptible areas to osteopenia or osteoporosis (decreased bone mineral density).

Bone, like muscle, must be loaded for it to adapt and become stronger.

If you aren’t doing exercises to sufficiently load the spine, then your body will have no reason to increase the strength of the bones in the area.

If you apply the proper dose of loading to the area, then your body will have reason to allocate its limited resources to building stronger bones along your spine.

Third

Finally, let’s say you are someone who is aimed at improving your strength on the deadlift.

If you find yourself at a point where your legs are strong, but the muscles of your back are the weaker point, then there is arguably no more appropriate exercise to break this plateau than the bent over barbell row.

Why the barbell row bothers your low back

Now, understand, with this section I am going to make some gross generalizations that I believe will apply to most people reading this.

It is certainly possible that you have some other sort of circumstance going on that is not going to be accounted for here.

Without knowing you, there’s no way for me to account for such circumstances.

However, if you are unsure why barbell rows bother your low back, the following is the best first place to start.

As we discussed a moment ago, there is a wide variety of muscle groups stimulated in the bent over barbell row.

For many people, the “weak link” in the chain is the strength of the lower back.

In other words: a given weight might be appropriate for the muscles of your arms, upper back, and legs; but that same weight might be too much for the muscles of your lower back.

Imagine the opposite scenario: where the muscles along your spine were significantly stronger than the other muscles required for this movement.

In this case, it would be highly unlikely that you’d feel any discomfort in your low back because you wouldn’t be able to use enough weight to challenge it.

In the broader landscape of fitness, orthopedics, musculoskeletal healthcare in general, etc., there has been this pervasive narrative that the spine is a particularly fragile and vulnerable part of the body.

This has two problematic effects:

1. There is a direct effect on the beliefs people have of the capabilities of their spine; which we know itself can predispose a person to pain

2. People tend to “protect their back” and perform movements in the gym and day-to-day life in such a way that it does not need to work too hard

The result is that from a psychological and physical preparedness perspective, the low back lags behind other parts of the body.

Something to keep in mind…

Remember: part of the reason you do this exercise is to train and prepare your lower back.

When you train your biceps or quadriceps, you may experience a “pump” during the workout and feel some soreness the day after.

The same applies to the muscles of your low back.

If you feel a pump or soreness in these muscles, it does not mean you have been harmed. If anything, it more likely means you were effective in your training.

Regression and progression frameworks for training the barbell row

With all of that said, the “fix” to making barbell rows feel better is as follows:

• Regress the exercise to accomodate the “weak link” in the chain (which in this case we’ll assume is the low back)

• Progress the exercise as everything is caught up

Regression strategies

There are two ways you can regress the barbell row in order to make it a more appropriate stimulus for the low back.

The first is simple: lower the weight to what is tolerable by the low back, and then conclude the set when your low back muscles reach fatigue; not the rest of the musculature.

The second is modify the exercise more holistically.

The most common way I do this with clients is the following exercise:

With your arms straight, you won’t be able to use nearly as much weight as with a barbell row.

Due to the increased lever length, the weight will feel equally challenging to the muscles of the upper back but much less challenging to the lower back, hamstrings, and glutes.

In essence, if your low back strength is lagging behind your upper back strength, then this exercise evens the playing field so to speak.

Progression strategies

Once you’ve identified the appropriate starting point for your low back via the previous strategies, how you should go about progressing the exercise isn’t too different from how you’d progress any other exercise.

The only consideration would be that the you progress when your lower back is ready, not necessarily when your legs or upper back are ready.

If you decided to implement the dumbbell Ts as your form of regression, I would recommend spending a decent amount of time getting strong on that movement.

If I had to give you specifics, I’d say work on this movement for a period of ~4-6 weeks.

Then, when you move into barbell rows, program your sets to be done with lighter weight and higher reps.

Aim for a ~12-15 rep range and use a weight in which you are ~2-3 reps shy of hitting failure.

From here, as you adapt and become more comfortable, you can progress the weight up while simultaneously using lower repetitions (by way of heavier weight being used).

I don’t typically program this exercise to be done for less than 8 reps; as I find people get a higher quality stimulus with such a configuration.

However, everyone’s goals and circumstances are different.

In any case, from here you should be good to go to get the most out of this exercise.

Another option

If you find these don’t do the job or you just want something else to experiment with, my recommendation is the following:

Incorporate romanian or single leg deadlifts into your training with a lighter weight and ~3-5 second pause at the bottom of each repetition.

For some people, it is the total amount of time spent in this position that is uncomfortable. This strategy regresses that aspect specifically by going into and out of the position in an interval fashion.

Over time, if the specific goal is to make barbell rows feel better, you can progress the duration of the pause until you begin to reach what you would be experiencing during the barbell row itself.