Side delts exercise
Barbell Upright RowHow to do it, with form in numbers
- Main muscles
- Side delts, Traps
- Also works
- Biceps
- Equipment
- Barbell
- Level
- Intermediate
How to do it
How do you do the Barbell Upright Row?
- Stand tall, bar on your thighs, hands about shoulder-width apart.
- Lift your elbows out and up, keeping the bar close to your body.
- Stop when your elbows reach shoulder height.
- Pause, then lower slowly to your thighs.
Cues
- Elbows lead, hands follow
- Bar close to your body
- Elbows no higher than shoulders
Common mistakes
- Pulling the bar to your chin: stop at shoulder-height elbows.
- Narrow grip: set hands at shoulder width or slightly wider.
- Leaning back to swing it up: stand still and lighten the bar.
Form in detail
What does good form look like?
Starting position
Standing tall, feet about hip- to shoulder-width apart, knees soft, torso braced and upright, head neutral. Closed pronated grip (palms facing the body, thumbs round). Not a narrow, hands-together grip.
The movement
The bar travels straight up, brushing or nearly brushing the abdomen and chest. The elbows lead: they rise out and up ahead of the hands the whole way. The upper traps lift the shoulders slightly only at the very top. Torso, hips and knees stay still: no lean back, no hip drive. The way down retraces the same line slowly to the thighs. Sources disagree on height: the NSCA text puts the elbows level with or slightly above the shoulders and ExRx pulls the bar to the neck; Schoenfeld, Kolber and Haimes (NSCA's SCJ) advise stopping just below 90° to avoid impingement.
End position
(turnaround point): elbows lifted out to the sides to about shoulder height, just below level: shoulder abduction about 85° (accept 75–90°), never above. Elbows higher than the wrists and slightly in front of the body (about 15–20° in front of the frontal plane, per Schoenfeld's "slightly anterior" to the coronal plane). Wrists bent a little as the bar rises, not cocked hard. A short pause.
Tempo
About 2 s up, a 0.3 s pause at the top, about 2.5 s down, a light touch on the thighs with no rest.
Form in numbers
What are the angles and distances?
| Measure | Target | Good range | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shoulder abduction at the top | 85° | 75–90°, never above | |
| Elbows forward of the frontal plane at the top | 15° | 10–25° | |
| Elbow height vs wrist at the top | elbow above the wrist | always | |
| Bar distance from the body | 2 cm | 0–5 cm | |
| Torso lean from vertical | 0° | under 5° |
The targets our 3D demo was built to, from the references below. Bodies differ, so treat the ranges as a guide for your own build.
For coaches
Use this demo in your clients’ programs
The Barbell Upright Row is in Trainaq’s exercise library. Add it to a workout, and your client sees this demo in the free Trainaq app above the sets they log.
Sources
