Bodyweight Mid Row
Trains the Rhomboids and Middle Trapezius.
- Equipment
- A barbell in a rack, or a suspension trainer
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Pull
- Level
- Intermediate
How to do it
- Set a bar in a rack at about waist height, or use a low pair of rings.
- Lie underneath it and take an overhand grip wider than your shoulders.
- Set your body in one line from heels to head with your heels on the floor.
- Pull yourself up until your chest reaches the bar, driving the elbows out and back rather than down along your sides.
- Squeeze where the shoulder blades come together.
- Lower under control until the arms are straight and the shoulder blades have come apart.
Common mistakes
- Pulling with the elbows tucked. Tucked elbows make this a lat exercise; the wide grip and flared elbows are what aim it at the middle back, and that is the difference between this and an ordinary inverted row.
- Letting the hips drop. The body holds one line for the whole set, and the hips are the first thing to go.
- Raising the bar rather than lowering the feet to make it easier. Both change the angle; putting the feet on a box is what makes it harder, and lowering the bar is what makes it easier without shortening the range.
- Finishing when the hands reach the body. The repetition ends with the elbows behind the torso and the shoulder blades together, which is later than the hands arriving.