 Hello everybody, I'm Lance Coyke and today we're talking about probably, you know, I've said this a couple times But this one's probably the most common mistake that people make because it goes with some of the other mistakes that people make in the inverted row or not the inverted row, but the bent over row so the Premise we're operating on here is people tend to pick the bent over row because it seems like a good muscle building exercise And it's recommended in some 5x5 program or whatever But the issue is that everyone butchers it So please stop butchering it. Please try out a Unilateral row maybe with one arm supported on a bench to figure out how to really secure your spine your core position so that you're actually loading your upper back muscles rather than your lower back muscles trying to stabilize and lift the weight in the bent over row So we've talked previously about turning the row into a lower-body exercise We need to make sure that we're securing ourselves at the bottom With your heels in the ground and your hamstrings turning on if you can't do an RDL and feel it in your legs You probably don't have any business doing a bent over row. So practice that first make sure you can perfect that now Once you get that or if maybe you're just disregarding all of my information and you want to Hear more about your issue Your issue is probably your head falls down. So as you row does this Okay, or or just starts there. That's really common, too So this happens when people really try to they try to brace here in their abdomen They try to use their six-pack ab muscles to kind of squeeze everything together But they shut off these outer lower abdominal muscles and it looks kind of like this You'll get this little pooch forward and you don't have a whole lot of pressure over on the sides And you definitely don't feel them, but you do have a lot of pressure here in the middle in your six-pack area So that describes you or if you've seen that forward head or if you sit at a desk all day for your job You're probably doing this we tend to flatten the neck and destabilize it in exchange for getting general stability in some probably maybe suboptimal way So again, what what does it look like? Let's do that when I bend over like this. I initiate my row this Chest falls forward my head falls down Usually it's a little head tilt back to there we go So when you do that you might feel a little bit of activity in your upper back muscles because they shorten a lot and generally when muscles get really shortened they're more likely to cramp and they They they send more feedback right so you can feel it more. I don't even know where to begin This one is just one. Please don't do that. It gives me a headache watching it I frequently get headaches, but it gives me a headache to watch it Well, how might I cue you out of this? So if I'm here and I notice that thing the first thing I'm gonna say is I want you to stay long From head to your tailbone just like that. I want this to stay flat like a board, okay? As you row you stay flat like a board and then if I'm from doing this thing I'm saying flat like a board long from head to tailbone like this And then I might actually like I just doing it here. I feel it in my legs more I feel my heels down in the ground more Another cue you might want to try don't let your face fall down towards the ground when you row Okay, and then you can use your depth perception to kind of see oh, yeah, I was doing that. Okay You can also make sure you're focusing on a point down there on the ground in front of you And that'll give you a little bit more feedback if you haven't been doing that already Those are probably the major cues that I'm gonna use and if you can't get it in those two cues I don't have better ones like trying other things usually doesn't work So instead you've got to find some way to stabilize that neck and stabilize yourself with your hips before you come back and you try this row and that's why I don't give this row to so many people because So many people don't have that stability they sit at desks all day and It destabilizes their neck and it turns on this six pack ab but not these outer lower abs and they don't have this ability to deadlift with their legs Or bend over and use their legs They just have tight lower backs or maybe even frequent low back pain problems where things get set off and they get Twingy all sorts of stuff. Okay, so if that's you you don't need to do a bent over row It's probably not the right exercise for you try a three-point row variation so that you can still train your upper body You try an inverted row variation that might work as well But I have noticed that people do this thing on the inverted row as well The reason that I this is this is the key the reason that I really like the three-point row variation where my hand is Supported on something is I can then use that hand to cue my neck away from the ground I have something to push there that Stabilizes me so that I can feel myself secure my neck to restore a Semi-normal curvature in my spine and to make sure that I'm not just tightening up my back That's some big one. We've talked about it in some other ones if the head falls down. I do like planks Because it's just another way to kind of stabilize things remember though Make sure you're not crunching and letting your head fall down because then you're not fixing anything You want to be long you want to tuck your hips you want to exhale bring your ribs back Bring your neck back whatever cue works for you. Just make sure it looks Like your low back is a little bit rounded and your spine is mostly straight You could do supine variations. We've talked about those before as well I'm laying down here on the ground I tilt my tailbone up off the ground and I push my low back into the ground and then from there I can Even exhale and then I feel these kick on a little bit more I feel my ribs kind of go away and They're flush with the rest of my body and that tells me that those obliques are pulling them down So I like that I'm just gonna hang on to this and maybe do a leg lowering variation. I Could hang on to that and do even a rotation Lower trunk rotation one of my favorites and that little that turning Helps get your shoulder blades moving to which can help your row That one's a good one dead bug variations are good to just make sure that every time you're doing this You're setting up the right position tailbone slightly up low back is heavy in the ground and Ribs are kind of put away and then you just try to breathe normally See if you know, maybe you just need to hold this position right here You could try a hip bridging variations To like this just make sure you initiate with that tailbone first So that you know you're driving from your hip muscle and your glutes and not from your low back Here because I can get a lot of room on this squeeze But I'm not gonna feel my butt the same way and I'm gonna feel my back a lot more So again the the head is falling down while rowing is really common in a lot of different things We did a hundred videos about the push-up and handstand variations already if I mean It's very similar to the row and if you mess it up there, you're probably gonna mess it up in the row too So maybe go back maybe some of those videos are gonna be the ones that help you just make sure that you're keeping that neck away from the ground and Make sure that you're trying to stay really tall when you do stuff Don't be afraid to use your eyes to focus on something in front of you So I can use that as a little stability point to help my heels find their own stability point. I Think I've given you enough tips Just don't let it happen if you need more help Film yourself look at it. See if you can come up with your own cues show it to your friends show it to a trainer It's it's okay to hire someone to help fix this for you And I do online coaching if you need it. So that is the head falling forward fault during a bent over row