What's up champ! I'm Vince Del Monte of GeneExpressionTraining.com
In this video we are going to look at the truth about the upright rows.
Alright. Yes one of the most controversial exercises out there.
Is it a friend? Is it a foe? Let's take a look at the
pros and cons of this exercise. Pros did I say? Maybe. Let's find out. There may
be a way to do this in a way that's completely 100% safe. Maybe not. We'll
find out. Let's dig in.
I know you guys love me just getting right to the point
so I will say that the way that 99% of people do the upright row
is unsafe. It's unnecessary. I'm going to show you a better exercise in this video
that has the same muscle recruitment patterns and it's far more natural
for the scapula and the humerus in just a moment. Alright.
But let's first take a look at how most people do upright rows.
Most people have been taught to go very close grip. Some people have been taught
to go medium grip. Some people have been taught to go wider grip. Some people been
told to do the straight bar, to do the Z bar. Different variations to try and
alleviate what the biggest concern with this exercise which is impingement of
the shoulder joint, that is a very real reality I will agree with that. If we
look at (one second) if we look at unfortunately I don't have a more
detailed skeleton here but if we were looking at the rotator cuff muscles
doing this movement does smoosh the supraspinatus and it causes a lot of
issues, alright,especially if the movements done too fast and especially if the
movements done too heavy. And where do most people go to build muscle. Too
heavy and too fast right. So that's the big problem first of all. Alright. Now
there are structural issues as we just discussed. Tthe impingement. Right. Now what
I want us to look at is the healthier way to do the upright row. Alright. The
upright row, if we involve natural scapula and humoral rhythms, we can get
the exact same participation of the delt muscles that we would get going up and
down okay. This movement is essentially having
somebody put your arm into an armbar and twist. Anybody been in an armbar before?
It's not nice alright. It does not feel good. So every time you're doing this,
you're literally going in an armbar. Armbar. Armbar. And not to mention to get
into that position if we watch whatever one of the recent videos are regarding
how to do your arm exercises a lot of stuff has to change at the wrist joint.
You see how see what's happening at my wrist. This is called ulnar deviation
alright. All of the stuff on the front is being lengthened and none of this stuff
is engaged. See how the muscles just like popped when I went like that. So you
can't maintain this neutral grip which is creating a lot of ulnar deviation at
the wrist which is putting your joints in a very compromising position. So this
position... see this... see what my wrists have to do to get up here - even here. You
see what my wrists have to do. Look. See my wrists have to go in an ulnar
deviation. I can't maintain what's called radial
deviation where I can get flexion and I can engage these muscles to maintain a
more natural path. Alright. So I'm destroying my wrist for very virtually
no benefit. Alright. Even if I go really wide now my wrists still have that ulnar
deviation. See even if I go way out here I'm still doing some funky stuff at the
wrist to just get into this movement. So we can pretty much say that almost all
variations of an upright role with at least a fixed object like this or a straight
bar can be thrown in the garbage. Alright. Let's look what actually is happening
when we do this movement. This movement. What is does movement look like? If you
cut my arms off right here, you took a hacksaw, slice me off right here, what
does this motion look like? The freaking lateral raise.
This is a lateral raise. Let's look at a lateral raise.
How does this look any different than this. It's the exact same participation
of the same muscles yet with this motion we can allow the natural humeral scapular
rhythm to occur. And we can reach and we can maintain that space in the joint so
that we're not smashing up our rotator cuff muscles.
We're not smashing up the bursa and we have a much more natural motion
alright. So if you guys want to build your shoulders you can do the exact same
movement and what you can also focus on doing is allowing your shoulder blade to
move and you can reach for opposite walls and you can maintain that tension
on the shoulder in a strong position where you can produce force. Alright.
So we're not going to do anything like this or anything like this. The only time that
doing an upright row can be an upright row, a partial upright row, that has the
same movement pattern, that doesn't have as many issues, is something you may
have seen me do in with some of my videos is where I've got the dumbbells
with neutral wrists and I'm just moving like this, and I do that more for just
variety. Again it's the same thing as this, but I can load the shoulder a bit
better because the load is closer to the axis the shoulder axis. Alright. so I can
load the shoulder a little better but I am aware that there's no more benefit to
going up here because now we have smashing into the shoulder joint that
impingement and it's hard to maintain that natural scapular rhythm right here
as opposed to here which is much more natural. Alright so for everybody who has
loved the upright row, I'm going to give you two alternates. Ones that eliminate
the risks and have the benefit of that movement pattern at least a part of that
movement pattern alright. So we're going to start off with dumbbells and I'll
show you cables. So the first thing we want to do set this up in a neutral
shoulder alright, and we're going to allow natural scapular humeral
rhythm to occur just like you were doing a side lateral raise. We're going to make
sure our wrists are locked so we don't have that ulnar deviation stuff going on
that's trashing your wrist. We're going to lock that in and we're just going to
pull out pretend that you're a marionette now and you've got strings attached to your
elbows and there's somebody up there up in the ceiling and they're attached to
those strings to your elbows and they're just pulling you out and then they're
letting you in, they're pulling you out and then they're letting you in
pulling you out and then letting you in and you're just going to work through
this really limited range of motion and this is one way we can challenge the
side delts without all of the crashing into each other at the top. Now some
people have asked me Vince, what about this at the top? How about that?
That's probably one of the worst things you can do because you are loading your
muscle where it's the weakest. You're pulling pulling pulling. The muscles are
the weakest here and then you're adding rotation. You're adding rotation when the
muscles the weakest and the loads the heaviest so probably the worst thing you
can do for your shoulders. Keep it safe. Keep it simple. All you're going to do is
pull out and come in pull out and pull in that's it I'm sorry it's not more
fancy than that guys. That's your move alright. So the next version of an
upright row which will blow up your shoulders - very limited range of
motion. I'm going to walk you through it. It's a cable upright row. So the first thing
we have to understand is that these things are trying it cross us. Alright.
So to prevent that from happening we need to oppose it. So we're going to
oppose it with what? Our delts. So right from here we have to contract our delts.
A lot of people have a hard time even feeling their delts so this motion
here gets us into that position to start fighting and creating force within our
delts. If we look at the wrist, look at my wrist, this is ulnar deviation. This is
neutral. This is a bit of radial deviation. You want neutral wrists. We want
to think about these things actually being attached here and here at the
elbows and we're going to initiate from that angle, we're just going to pull up.
It's a very small range of motion. Again just think lateral raise. Think you're
doing a side lateral raise and just pull the cables out.
This creates a lot of side delt activation. It feels really good and you
want to think about elbows to the outer walls. And that's it. Sorry I didn't wear a
tank top for you guys but you guys can feel this when you're at the gym
alright. So it's out in. Out in. Small range of movement we don't need to go way up here.
That's when the wrist stuff starts changing that's when the crashing starts
occurring. I think you guys can experience the benefit of this by
practicing it yourself. Alright guys. So to wrap up I give you guys one more
analogy. We talked about the marriage analogy. We've talked about the car door
analogy, we're going to start talking about the stock analogy. Alright. If we're
looking at our exercises like stocks, you're always trying to figure out is
this a stock I want to invest in. Right. All stocks have risks. All stocks have
rewards. Alright. We're always looking for the risk profile - risk benefit ratio.
Right. Upright row is an exercise that has very very small benefit when going
up here. High high high risk alright. The biggest two issues with it
is the speed and the amount of weight all right. To make this exercise better
we have learned in this video that if we line it up and we maintain the same
movement pattern as the side lateral raise, we allow that natural humeral
scapular rhythm to occur where you're not going to smash the head of the
humerus into your chromium and into that into those rotator cuff muscles which
are going to cause you issues, and we'll be able to still get a nice contraction
alright. So again it's really that simple. I am NOT a fan of any version of
a barbell upright row. I think it's an exercise you can safely throw away
and you can make and you don't need to do it because you can make it a lot
better just with the versions we've taught you in this video. Alright guys
so again, start looking at your exercises from a perspective of stocks. Is this a
stock you want to invest in? Is this a stock that's going to pay you back or is
this a stock that's going to cause you to go bankrupt?
Is this a stock that's going to put you in the ground and that's going to be
unrecoverable from? You guys are looking for a resource to show you how to
execute all your movements, all the shoulder exercises to build great delts,
then pick up MassMechanics.com A link in the description box below. Also a link
on the screen. It will take you to a page that will tell you all about the
principles of building muscle with baby weights. Alright.
You'll learn how to build your body in a safe way not a way that hurts
you. I wish I did. I wish I discovered it 15 years ago. I can't tell you how many
guys in there 40's, 50 s have come up to me in the gym who watched this YouTube
channel and said man kicking myself. I wish I discovered this stuff years and
years ago. Thank you for putting this out there and the young guys who are taking
this advice, they're building great bodies without the wear and tear. A lot
of your favorite idols on YouTube they're not going to be around in five
ten years from now because they're causing more harm than good. They think
they're invincible. They will pay. They might not pay now but they will pay
later. And you don't have to. Pay by investing
into yourself. Buy MassMechanics.com. Learn how to execute all your movements
properly. Link on the screen link in the resource section below in the
description and you'll learn how to execute all your movements safely with
proper contraction cues. Allow your body to change without destroying it. Without
burying it. Without beating it into the ground. Alright. And you're going to
look awesome. You're going to feel awesome. You're going to move awesome.
Alright. You'd be so so grateful that you had an open mind to learning
how to work WITH your body not just ON your body. If you guys are enjoying
"The Truth About" series, let me know what exercises you want to unpack in upcoming
videos. Just let me know in the comment section below and remember to also tell
me why are people telling you that this is a bad exercise because I'll need to
understand like if someone says sit-ups or bad well why are situps bad if
somebody says the leg press is bad well why is the leg press bad. Explain to me
what people are saying because I don't have time to watch everybody's videos,
but I will read your comments alright. So let's continue the series with your
feedback. I look forward to doing the next one with you. Thank you for all your
comments for all your support. Thank you for sharing this video. Thank you for
liking this video. I'll see you guys next time.