Pendlay Row

What the Pendlay row actually trains

A Pendlay row is a barbell row performed with the torso parallel to the floor, where every repetition starts and finishes with the bar resting dead on the ground.

The latissimus dorsi and teres major drive the elbow back and down. The rhomboids and middle trapezius retract the shoulder blades, the posterior deltoid assists near the top, and the biceps and forearm flexors work at the elbow. Behind all of that, the erector spinae holds the torso horizontal isometrically for the whole set, which is the part most people underestimate.

Two features separate it from an ordinary bent over row.

The first is the dead stop. A touch and go row lets you use the rebound and the stretch at the bottom to start the next rep, so the bar is never actually still. Resetting on the floor removes that entirely. Each rep begins from zero velocity, which makes the concentric honest and trains you to produce force from a standstill.

The second is the torso angle. Parallel to the floor is more horizontal than most people row, which lengthens the lever on the lower back and makes the position much harder to hold.

Here is the part that gets skipped. The Pendlay row is a pulling power lift, not the best back builder available to you. If size is the goal, a chest supported row does the same work on the same muscles without asking your erectors to hold a horizontal plank under load, and it does it more consistently set after set. The Pendlay earns its place when you want explosive strength off the floor and a strict standard that cannot be cheated.

Fenwick and colleagues compared rowing variations for trunk muscle activation and lumbar spine loading, and found bent over rowing places substantially higher demands on the lumbar spine than supported versions. That is the trade you are making, and it is worth making deliberately rather than by habit.

Setting up and executing

Set the bar on the floor over the middle of your feet and take a grip just outside shoulder width.

Hinge at the hips until the torso is parallel to the floor. Set the lower back neutral, pull the ribs down and brace the abs hard.

Take the slack out of the bar without lifting it, so the first movement is a pull rather than a jerk.

Row explosively to the lower chest, keeping the hips and torso still. The bar moves; you do not.

Lower the bar back to the floor under control rather than releasing it. Let it settle quietly, reset the brace, and pull again.

The mistakes that cost you the most

A rising torso through the pull is the fault that quietly converts this into a different exercise. As the weight climbs, the chest lifts to help, and by the end of the set you are doing a series of partial deadlifts with a bent arm finish. Fix the angle and hold it.

Turning it into touch and go removes the entire point. If the bar bounces off the floor and rises again, you have a bent over row with a longer range and worse leverage. Let it settle.

Dropping the bar is the more common version of the same problem. Cutting the descent loose throws away the eccentric, and Pallares and colleagues found full range training produced better outcomes than partial work. Half a rep is half a rep.

Pulling to the belly shortens the elbow path and shifts the movement towards a shrug.

And loading it like a deadlift is the trap the lift invites, because the bar is on the floor and the position feels like a pull. The weight that lets you hold a horizontal torso is far below what you can heave off the ground, and the heave trains almost nothing.

Sets, reps and rest by goal

Treat it as a primary lift and keep the rep ranges low enough that position survives.

For muscle gain, four sets of six to ten with two minutes rest. For strength, five sets of three to five with three minutes. In a fat loss phase, three sets of eight to twelve with ninety seconds.

Rest properly. The isometric demand on the lower back accumulates across a session, and short rests here degrade position rather than saving useful time.

Schoenfeld and colleagues found a dose response between weekly hard sets and hypertrophy, so this movement should be one contributor to back volume rather than the whole of it.

Refalo and colleagues found stopping a rep or two short of failure produces growth comparable to going all the way, which matters more here than usual. The failure rep on a Pendlay row is the one with the rounded back in it, and it buys you nothing.

Where it fits in your split

First in the session, when you are fresh and your lower back is not already fatigued.

On push, pull and legs it opens pull day. On a bro split it opens back day. On an upper and lower split it serves as the heavy horizontal pull. On a full body programme it works well on days without deadlifts and badly on days with them.

The scheduling question that actually matters is how it interacts with everything else that loads the spine. Cholewicki and colleagues measured very high lumbar loads during heavy lifting, and the erector demand of a horizontal row sits in the same bucket as deadlifts, squats and good mornings. Stacking all of them in one session or across consecutive days is how people end up blaming a single exercise for a problem that came from the schedule.

One heavy rowing session a week is enough for most people, with a supported row or a cable row later in the week for volume.

Variations worth knowing

The bent over barbell row is the touch and go version with a slightly more upright torso, which allows continuous tension and more total reps.

The Yates row is more upright still, taken with an underhand grip, and allows the heaviest loading of the three.

The seal row is the same pull with the chest supported on a raised bench, which removes the lower back from the equation completely and is the better hypertrophy option.

The T-bar row uses a landmine or a fixed machine with a neutral grip, and the supported end of the bar reduces the balance demand.

The dumbbell row works one arm at a time with a hand and knee on a bench, letting you brace the spine against the support.

And a snatch grip Pendlay row widens the hands and pulls higher, which shifts emphasis towards the rhomboids and middle trapezius at the cost of load.

What the evidence says

Fenwick and colleagues compared rowing exercises for trunk muscle activation, lumbar motion and spine load, and found unsupported bent over rowing produced considerably higher lumbar demands than supported variations, which is the central trade off of this exercise.

Lehman and colleagues examined muscle activation across traditional latissimus dorsi exercises and found grip and hand position change activation far less than most lifters assume, a useful corrective to the belief that each row variant trains something separate.

Vigotsky and colleagues cautioned against reading small differences in surface electromyography amplitude as differences in muscle growth, which is worth remembering whenever someone claims one row hits the lats measurably harder than another.

Cholewicki and colleagues measured lumbar spine loads during the lifting of extremely heavy weights and documented how quickly those loads rise, supporting the emphasis on bracing and on not stacking heavy spinal work across a week.

Pallares and colleagues found full range training beat partial range work for strength and hypertrophy, which supports controlling the bar back to the floor instead of dropping it.

Schoenfeld and colleagues on weekly volume and Refalo and colleagues on proximity to failure supply the programming, and the latter argues for leaving the grinding final rep alone on a lift where technique fails before the muscles do.

Common questions

How is this different from a bent over row?

The Pendlay resets on the floor every rep and uses a flatter torso; the bent over row keeps tension throughout with a slightly more upright angle. The muscles trained are the same. The Pendlay is better for producing force from a standstill, the bent over row is better for accumulating tension and reps. Owning both is unnecessary; pick by goal.

Should the bar touch my chest?

Aim for the lower chest and get as close as the load allows. If the bar stops well short of you on every rep, the weight is too heavy and you are rowing a partial with a rising torso, which is the worst version of the exercise.

Is it bad for my lower back?

No, but it loads it, which is a different thing. The erectors work isometrically to hold a horizontal torso, and that demand is real enough to matter when you also deadlift and squat in the same week. Brace properly, keep the angle, and schedule your heavy spinal work with some spacing.

Can I do it for higher reps?

You can, but position degrades badly. Your lower back gives out before your lats do, so the last third of a long set is rowed with a rising chest. Use a chest supported row or a cable row when you want sets of fifteen.

Do I need it at all if I want a bigger back?

No. A seal row or a chest supported row trains the same muscles with better consistency and no spinal cost. The Pendlay is worth doing if you want explosive pulling strength or a strict standard you cannot cheat, and it is a reasonable choice rather than a required one.