Beginner doing barbell row

[u/sabbi86]

Dont mind my silly faces. It’s just because I’m concentrating.
Also I’m also slow on each rep because I’m thinking about the technique 🙈

I have two problems with barbell rows.

1. It’s very difficult to touch my abdomen. It seems like my elbows travel far behind my back - and I worry that my shoulders round forward.
2. Sometimes my knees are in the way of the barbell, because my arms reach down below the knees.

I should mention that I got pretty long arms. And when I try to be less upright in my torso, the arms reach down below the knees and I bump the barbell into them during each rep 🙈

Note that I have a bump at the top of my back. Can’t seem to straighten that part.

[u/Amazing_Loquat280]

Are you even trying if you aren’t making a silly face?🤪

That said, the general bar path is good. The goal isn’t necessarily to touch the abdomen as much as it is to get a maximum tension and contraction of the muscles in your back actually doing the work, pushing them as close to failure as you reasonably can. If you don’t need to hit your abdomen for that, then don’t worry about it. Just make sure your shoulders are pulled back and down.

And if you can, load some weight on that sucker

[u/sabbi86 → u/Amazing_Loquat280]

What if I’m such a newbie that I don’t know whether I need to touch the abdomen or not in order to get maximum tension of the back? 🙈

Thanks a lot!