Reverse Grip Bent-Over Rows
Also works: Biceps · Lats · Shoulders
A bent-over barbell row taken with palms facing up. Supinating the hands rotates your shoulders outward, which pulls the elbows in against your sides and shifts the pull lower on the back — more lower lat and biceps, less rear delt and upper trap than the overhand version.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Take the bar with your palms facing up and back toward you, hands roughly shoulder width — wider makes the supinated wrist position worse.
- Unrack or deadlift the bar to standing, then hinge: hips back, knees soft, torso to about 15-30 degrees above parallel.
- Set your wrists straight and locked; a bent-back wrist under an underhand grip is where the pain starts.
- Let the bar hang directly under your shoulders with the shoulder blades allowed to reach forward.
- Take a breath into the belly and brace hard before the first rep, and again at the bottom of each one.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — Big breath and brace at the bottom, hold it through the pull, exhale at the top. One second up, one second held, two to three seconds down. Never breathe at the bottom while hinged under a heavy bar.
Before you load it
- If you have had biceps tendon trouble at the shoulder or elbow, this is the row most likely to aggravate it — the supinated grip loads the long head directly under a heavy hinge.
Sets, reps & load
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
Start with the empty 20 kg bar to find the torso angle and the wrist position before loading anything. Most people can handle roughly 10 percent more here than on an overhand bent-over row because of the biceps contribution. Rowing bodyweight for 8 clean reps is a solid intermediate marker; add 2.5 kg once the torso angle holds for every rep.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Fix the torso angle by picking a spot on the floor a metre in front of you and keeping it in view. Strip 10 kg rather than raising your chest to move the bar.
Keep the wrists dead straight and the bar low in the palm against the heel of the hand. Narrow the grip to shoulder width or slightly inside, and use an EZ bar if a straight bar still hurts.
Drop the weight and slow the eccentric to three seconds, cueing the shoulder blades to move first. Move any direct curl work to after this exercise, never before.
Aim for the navel and let the elbows stay tucked. If the bar keeps drifting high, you are pulling with the rear delts — think about driving the elbows straight back past your hips instead.
Why bother
Grip decides elbow path, and elbow path decides which fibres do the work. An underhand grip externally rotates the upper arm, so the elbows track tight to your ribs and the bar lands low on the abdomen. That low, tucked path recruits the lower lat fibres that an overhand row, with its flared elbows and higher bar contact, largely skips.
The biceps also contribute far more here than in any other row, which is both why most people can handle roughly 10 percent more weight and why the arms often fail first. If your forearms are cooking before your back feels anything, the load is too high, not your back too weak.
Where it fits
Main horizontal pull on a back day, three to four sets of 6-10, done before any direct biceps work. It stacks poorly on the same day as heavy deadlifts — the unsupported hinge and the erector demand are close to identical — so place it on the other pull day of the week.
If this one isn't it
No kit, too hard, or too easy — here's where to go instead.
Same job, different kit
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When this gets easy
Asked and answered
Does an underhand grip really hit the lower lats?
It genuinely changes the elbow path and the point of bar contact, which shifts the emphasis lower and away from the rear delts and upper traps. Calling it a 'lower lat' exercise oversells the precision — you cannot isolate part of a muscle — but the difference between an underhand and an overhand row is real and worth training both.
My wrists hurt. What can I change?
Narrow the grip to shoulder width or slightly inside, keep the wrists straight rather than letting the bar roll back into the fingers, and sit the bar low in the palm. If it still hurts, switch to an EZ bar, whose angled sleeves let the forearms sit in a semi-supinated position that most wrists tolerate far better.
How far over should I bend?
About 15 to 30 degrees above parallel. Fully parallel is the strictest version and the hardest on the erectors; much more upright and the bar path drifts toward a shrug. Whatever angle you choose, the test is that it is the same on the last rep as on the first.
Should I use straps?
Not usually — an underhand grip is more secure than an overhand one and grip rarely fails first here. If anything gives out early it is the biceps, and straps do not help with that. Save the straps for heavy overhand rows and deadlifts.