3 Things to Improve Your Inverted Rows

Happy Monday to you all, hope everyone has shaken off the cobwebs from their late night watching of THAT series finale. I have returned from blog hibernation to bring you all a quick post to help everyone maybe feel a little less pain in their backside...or shoulder, same thing, right? Let's look at the inverted row and how to tweak it.

Inverted rows are an exercise I program for a wide variety of clients for a few reasons; they’re fairly simple, they’re a very effective upper body pulling exercise and there’s something about being able to control your body weight through movements like this that I find extremely valuable. There’s a few ways to do them, the most popular being a suspension trainer like the one I’m using here.

Here’s the thing, because they’re simple, doesn’t mean the technique is less important. Here’s a few things that can easily go awry that have quick fixes so your shoulder doesn’t grouchy 🤬 at you.


Have a look at the first video and then the second.

The first you’ll notice a few things;

1. My head is all over the place, not a great idea unless you’re actively trying to make your neck/spine hate you.
2. When I row I’m very much overdoing the movement. This might not be a big deal over time, but if I continue to do this and pop the head of my shoulder out the front, as I call it, my shoulder will eventually get very angry (you won’t like them when they’re angry).
3. I’m more or less just letting myself go, now I’m giving my shoulder another jolt and popping it out again. A double whammy of things that will get me in trouble with this joint.

Let’s look at the 2nd

1. My head is fairly still, whether it’s perfectly neutral or tucked, up for debate what’s best. Do what’s comfortable and keep it steady.
2. When I row I’m rowing just so my elbows are about in line with my rib cage and squeezing those shoulder blades together.
3. I’m controlling my decent and not just letting my shoulders do as they want, let the snaps move, but keep the head of that shoulder right where it belongs.
4. If you find yourself struggling to do any of the above, walk your feet back to make the exercise more doable.

Give these things a look and your inverted rows will be more effective and less painful. Hope you all have a great rest of the week, go out there and get after it.