Inverted Row

darreneatschicken

I was reading Mehdi's starter pack for Stronglifts, and he said that if you can't put 10 lbs on each side of the barbell during a bent-over barbell row, you should try to achieve 3 sets of 12 inverted rows before trying again to do barbell row. At the moment, I can achieve 5 sets of 5 reps for the barbell row (touching my chest on each rep), but only with 5 lbs on each side. So my question is: should I stop doing the barbell row, and try to achieve 3 sets of 12 inverted rows? Then hopefully I will be strong enough to put 10 lbs on each side during the bent-over row, or should I just keep trying to get stronger doing barbell row until I hit 10 lbs on each side.

hearthemelody

What I did is set the barbell on a pair of boxes so that it was HIGH enough for me to reach, but LIGHT enough for me to lift.

ninerbuff

Inverted rows are a great way to build back strength, especially if you're trying to achieve a full pull up.

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HappyStack

Work out from the waist to the lower ribs, then eventually to the chest with the same weight.

Pulling to the waist = engaging the mid-back.
Pulling to the chest = engaging the upper back and traps.
Pulling to the lower ribs = engaging a little of both.

darreneatschicken

What I did is I stacked two sets of three 45 lbs plates on each other. Thus, that allowed me to row to my chest. So should I keep doing this until I am able to put 10 lbs on each side of the barbell?

Then once I can lift 10 lbs on each side, I will stack two sets of two 45 lbs plates on each other instead of three.

Cherimoose

I was reading Mehdi's starter pack for Stronglifts, and he said that if you can't put 10 lbs on each side of the barbell during a bent-over barbell row, you should try to achieve 3 sets of 12 inverted rows before trying again to do barbell row.

That doesn't make sense. You would reduce the weight to 7.5 lbs or 5 lbs on each side, or raise the bar up, not give up and do a different exercise.

hearthemelody

I was reading Mehdi's starter pack for Stronglifts, and he said that if you can't put 10 lbs on each side of the barbell during a bent-over barbell row, you should try to achieve 3 sets of 12 inverted rows before trying again to do barbell row.

That doesn't make sense. You would reduce the weight to 7.5 lbs or 5 lbs on each side, or raise the bar up, not give up and do a different exercise.

According to Medhi, the reason for this is to achieve the height necessary to reach the bar with proper form.

Don't ask me why he hates using a box. Medhi doesn't really make sense to me.

HappyStack

Mehdi isn't really a trainer, that might be why.

No offence to the guy, the SL program is generally solid, but he advertises the bare basic program as free and then doesn't really give any decent advice if you can't follow the program - unless you're paying to use his forums. That's the whole profit model, and usually why you won't see experienced guys tipping their hat to SL as a program.

At least SS, Pendlay 5x5, etc. have free programs and free forums, which they participate in themselves.

darreneatschicken

So I have finally gotten to be able to barbell row 10 lbs on each side. Should I keep the two sets of three 45 lb plates stacked up on each other, or reduce it to two sets of two 45 lbs plates?