Underhand Bent Over Row

What the underhand bent over row actually trains

An underhand bent over row is a barbell row performed with the palms facing up, hinged forward at the hips, pulling the bar towards the lower abdomen.

The latissimus dorsi and teres major do the bulk of the pulling, with the rhomboids and middle trapezius retracting the shoulder blades, the posterior deltoid assisting, and the biceps and brachialis flexing the elbows. The erector spinae works isometrically to hold the hinge, and the hamstrings and glutes hold your hips in position for the whole set.

The interesting question is what the supinated grip actually changes, and the honest answer is less than the usual explanation claims.

You will be told this version targets the lower lats. That is folk anatomy. The latissimus dorsi is a single muscle with a broad attachment, and you cannot select a portion of it by turning your hands over. What the grip genuinely does is change the elbow path. With the palms up, the elbows track close to the ribs, so the movement is more shoulder extension and less horizontal abduction, and the bar finishes lower on the torso.

The second real change is the biceps. Marcolin and colleagues found that forearm position meaningfully alters biceps brachii and brachioradialis involvement across curl variants, and the same principle applies here. A supinated grip puts the biceps in its strongest line, which is why this row feels stronger and why the arms often give out first.

Lehman and colleagues compared activation across latissimus dorsi exercises with different grips and found the variations produced broadly similar levels of lat activity. Grip changes emphasis at the margins. It does not create separate muscles.

Setting up and executing

Set the bar over the middle of your feet and take a supinated grip at roughly shoulder width.

Stand up with it, feet hip width, then hinge at the hips with a soft bend in the knees until the torso reaches around forty five degrees. Keep the back flat.

Let the bar hang with the arms straight and the shoulder blades allowed to travel forward, which is the stretched position you want.

Brace the abs, then pull the bar towards the lower abdomen with the elbows brushing close to your sides. Pause briefly when it touches or nearly touches.

Lower under control over two to three seconds until the arms are straight again, and do not let the torso rise as you pull.

The mistakes that cost you the most

Standing up as you pull is the fault that defines every barbell row. As the set gets hard, the torso creeps towards upright and the movement becomes a partial deadlift with a shrug on the end. The angle you set on rep one should be the angle you finish rep eight at.

Curling the bar is the fault specific to this version. With the palms up, the biceps are in their best position and will happily do more than their share. Drive the elbows back past your ribs rather than bending the arms.

Rounding the lower back is the genuinely risky item on the list. Cholewicki and colleagues measured lumbar loads during heavy lifting and found the demands rise steeply with load, and a flexed spine is a poor place to absorb that. Reduce the weight before you negotiate with your hinge.

Pulling to the chest fights the grip. A supinated hand position wants a low pull; aiming for the sternum forces the elbows wide and the wrists into an awkward line.

And short reps at the bottom remove the stretched position where the lat produces its best work. Straighten the arms every rep.

Sets, reps and rest by goal

Treat it as a primary lift, because it loads like one.

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

Take the full rest on the heavy sets. The limiting factor on a barbell row is often your ability to hold the hinge rather than your back's ability to pull.

Straps are worth using once the loads get respectable. McGill's work on trunk stiffness is a reminder that the useful part of this exercise is the braced pull, not a forearm test.

Progress in small increments, adding reps before weight.

Schoenfeld and colleagues found a dose response between weekly hard sets and hypertrophy, and sets here count towards back and biceps volume at once, which is a reason to check your total arm work before adding more.

Refalo and colleagues found stopping a rep or two short of failure produces comparable growth. On a hinged row, the failure rep is the one where your spine rounds, so leaving reps in reserve costs you nothing.

Where it fits in your split

Early in a pull or back session, as the main horizontal pull.

On push, pull and legs it goes on pull day. On a bro split it comes early on back day, usually after the vertical pulling. On an upper and lower split it takes the horizontal pull slot. On a full body programme it is a strong pick when you only want one rowing movement.

Whether to row or pull down first is a real decision. Whichever comes first gets the most progress, so pick based on what you want to improve rather than by habit.

Where this sits against the overhand version is a smaller question than it looks. Fenwick and colleagues compared rowing variations and found differences in trunk activation and spine load, but the back musculature is doing much the same job in each. Running one for a block and the other for the next handles it.

Once or twice a week is plenty, given the recovery cost of the hinge.

Variations worth knowing

The overhand bent over row uses a pronated grip and a higher pull, which brings the rhomboids and posterior deltoid in a little more and takes the biceps down a notch.

The Pendlay row resets the bar on the floor every rep from a horizontal torso, which removes any stretch reflex and makes each rep an honest concentric effort.

The chest supported row puts a pad between you and gravity, removing the hinge and the lower back entirely, which is the better option if the erectors are your limiting factor.

The single arm dumbbell row lets one side work at a time with a longer range.

A T-bar row with a neutral grip keeps the wrists in a comfortable middle position and is often kinder to elbows than a fully supinated bar.

And the seated cable row trains the same pattern with no spinal loading, which makes it the sensible substitute on weeks where your lower back has had enough.

What the evidence says

Fenwick and colleagues compared several rowing exercises and measured trunk muscle activation, lumbar motion and spine load, finding that the variations differ meaningfully in what they ask of the torso even when the pulling looks similar, which is the real basis for choosing between them.

Lehman and colleagues examined activation during traditional latissimus dorsi exercises with different grips and found broadly similar lat activity across them, supporting the view that grip changes emphasis at the margins rather than creating a different exercise.

Marcolin and colleagues compared curl variants and found forearm position alters the contribution of the biceps brachii and brachioradialis, which explains why the supinated grip makes the arms a bigger part of this row.

Cholewicki and colleagues measured lumbar spine loads during heavy lifting and reported very high compressive and shear forces, which is the argument for holding a flat back and being conservative with load rather than for avoiding the exercise.

McGill's work on core training and trunk stiffness supports bracing hard before the pull and treating the torso position as the thing that defines the set.

Schoenfeld and colleagues found a dose response between weekly hard sets and hypertrophy, and rows contribute to back and biceps volume at the same time.

Refalo and colleagues found stopping a rep or two short of failure produces comparable growth to going to failure, which suits a lift where the final rep is where technique gives way.

Common questions

Does the underhand grip really hit the lower lats?

No. The lat is one muscle and you cannot pick a region of it by turning your hands over. What changes is the elbow path, which sits closer to the body, and the biceps contribution, which goes up.

Why does this feel stronger than the overhand row?

Because the biceps are in their most advantageous position, so more of the load has help. That is also the catch: the arms are more likely to fail before the back has had enough.

Underhand or overhand row, which should I pick?

Either, and swapping between them across training blocks beats agonising over it. The overhand version pulls higher and does slightly more for the upper back, the underhand version pulls lower with more biceps. Neither is a different exercise in any meaningful sense.

Should I use straps?

Once the weight is meaningful, yes. Grip is not what you came here to train and letting it end the set early costs you the actual work.

My lower back is the thing that fails first. What now?

Use a chest supported row or a seated cable row for a block. Both give you the same pulling pattern without asking the erectors to hold a loaded hinge, and neither is a downgrade for back size.