Wide Grip Cable Rows

As with all rowing movements, seated cable rows focus mainly on working the lat muscles, as well as working the biceps, traps, and the deltoids (shoulders). When compared to bent-over barbell rows, it has some advantages and disadvantages.

Bent-over barbell rows:

• More muscles involved: This exercise involves more muscles for stabilization and is therefore a more compound movement, and it’s is more slightly more efficient for overall muscle mass. You must stand on your feet, maintain your balance, and the spinal erectors are involved in holding the body parallel.
• Good form is tough: Keeping good form for this exercise is a bit more difficult, especially for newer trainees.

Pulley Rows:

• Slightly fewer muscles involved: Not as many muscles involved as bent over rows, but this is still not an isolation movement. This is very much a YWWASWT exercise.
• Back alignment: Easier to do without swinging the upper body or pulling excessively at the hips. Keeping your back in the proper alignment throughout the movement is easier. This can be both an advantage and a disadvantage.
• Variation: Multiple attachments are available so that you can change your grip. Pointing your palms inward towards each other isn’t possible with a barbell.

The standard attachment for seated pulley rows that seems to be most popular in gyms will place your hands close together with the palms facing inward toward each other. A narrow grip isn’t necessarily bad, but the standard grip that you should use the most for rows will typically be about shoulder width. Dumbbell rows will be just about shoulder width, and barbell rows are often shoulder width or slightly wider.

A better attachment for pulley rows places the grip closer to shoulder width. This will do a couple of things:

• It places your lats into a more optimal pulling position.
• Allows for a greater range of motion.

To get a feel for this, go ahead place your fists about 2 inches apart and then touch them to your ribcage as if you were using the narrow attachment. Squeeze your lats in this position.

Notice that with the wider grip, the elbows can travel further back than with the narrow grip shown in the picture at the top of this post.

Now, with your fists in that position, rotate your elbows so that your forearms are pointing straight forward and your hands are at shoulder width. You’ll probably notice that if you didn’t move your elbows back, your hands are now further forward than they started. Pull your elbows back as far as you can in this new position.

• Your lats get a more complete range of motion and will probably feel tighter at the peak of this movement.
• You’re able to pull your shoulders blades together more, which involves the traps more.

Squeeze the lats and pull the shoulder blades together slightly.

Again, you may be able to bring your elbows back further and get a more complete range of motion with the wider grip. But since your forearms are pointing forward instead of being angled inward, your hands might not be able to come back as close to your chest as they can with the narrow grip.

Don’t get down on yourself if you switch to the wider grip and aren’t able to pull your hands in as close to your chest as you can with the narrow grip. Measure your range of motion based on your elbows and how far back they move, not on your hands.

This is tough because your hands are in front of you and tend to be the mental focus of this exercise. Try to change the focus mentally so that your mind connects to the position of your elbows, and you should pull with the lat muscles instead of with the arms only.

Remember, the elbows and the lats are the focus, and the hands will only act as hooks that connect your arms to the weight.

Think of the shoulder-width grip as the standard grip for pulley rows. The attachment that uses the narrower grip is still useful as a variation of the standard, but you should spend more time with the wider grip.

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Related posts:

1. Power Dumbbell Rows – A Great Row Variation
2. How To Overhead Press With Good Form
3. Getting the Right Stance for Squats

Tags: back, lats, pulley rows, tips