How to Do the Upright Row Without Trashing Your Shoulders

• Updated on: 2024-07-17
• Read original article here

When it comes to a strength training curriculum, old school methods aren’t necessarily your best educational sources. Take one of the great meathead myths handed down to us from past decades: No pain no gain.

There's no greater exercise example of this antiquated approach than the barbell upright row. Sure, Arnold Schwarzenegger incorporated uprights into his legendary mass building routine—and for that goal, this strength training staple does help add size to the lateral head of your shoulders, as well as hitting your traps hard. But in today’s fitness age of making gains safely, straight bar upright rows have become notorious for creating potentially damaging stress on your shoulder joints, which over time can lead to chronic pain if not serious injury.

Men's Health fitness director puts it best when he lays out the training truth of barbell upright rows: In the short term, you may get away with performing upright rows pain free, but over time, your shoulders will suffer.

“You can do the upright row that way for two, three years out of your life,” he says. “Keep doing it for 10 to 15 years, and I will see you at a physical therapist office somewhere. It is not where you want to be.”

But there is a safer alternative to the traditional barbell uprights . All it takes is a simple swap of a straight bar for a set of dumbbells. As Samuel and Men’s Health fitness editor Brett Williams, N.A.S.M., demonstrate in the video above, incorporating dumbbells will effectively allow you to destroy your delts (safely) and continue to make sick shoulder gains.

Even without any load to the movement, according to Samuel, simply lifting your elbows higher than your shoulders while rotating your wrists downward is a recipe for pain. But adding additional load to this pulling movement (in this case, throwing some weight onto a barbell) then raising your elbows as high as possible will force your shoulders into internal rotation. At the same time, the force of the weight begins pulling you downward, which becomes a formula for potential long-term shoulder damage.

With dumbbells, Samuel says you’re already starting out in a more natural position. Your wrists can be aligned in accordance with your body mechanics as opposed to the restrictive fixed-position of the straight bar. This means a more comfortable and safer pull.

“When we're working with dumbbells, a lot of us we are not symmetrical beings through our upper body,” Samuel says. “This is going to allow both of his shoulders to move with a lot of freedom. So instantly, we've corrected one issue with the upright row.”

Samuel says another fix to your upright row would be to reduce the pull as opposed to the traditional method. Using dumbbells, Samuel suggests bringing your elbows to parallel or slightly below. Even with this reduction in movement, you’re still getting the delt- and trap-blasting effects of the upright without adding any unnecessary internal rotation to your shoulders.

“That's still going to hit the lateral head of your shoulder because you're still rising into this position,” Samuel says. “And it's still going to hit a little bit of your traps.”

A final upright row tweak Samuel recommends is eliminating the straight up pull normally done with traditional uprights (“That’s not even a row,” he says). Instead, think of the movement as more of a horizontal pull, with your elbows slightly lower than your shoulders, while pulling back and squeezing your shoulder blades. This move makes the lift safer, and at the same time you’re also adding some work to your rear delts, making the move an even more multi-dimensional version of the classic upright row.

“It's going to create a little bit of challenge, and take some getting used to,” Samuel says. “But once you get this, this is the safest and most effective way to do the upright row, it's still going to give you the shoulder benefits you want… and it's not going to give you an injury in 10 years.”

Want to master even more moves? Check out our entire Form Check series.

Want to wear the same training gear as MH editors? Brett is wearing a Fabletics tank, Rhone shorts, and Nike shoes. Eb's shirt is from Ten Thousand, pants are from Rhone, and sneakers from Nike.