Why Does Everyone Hate Upright Rows?

Okay, you pencil-neck geeks, listen up. I am sick and tired of people dogging on upright rows. It is tired, clichéd, and predictable. Don’t believe me? Check out any generic ‘exercises to avoid‘ article and you’ll usually find upright rows there. I am not an exercise scientist, but I am an angry historian which makes me all the angrier.

Seriously what could be simpler? Hold a barbell or dumbbell at waist height. Pull it up towards your face and then lower it again. Simples but think… How many people do you genuinely see doing upright rows in a mainstream gym? Like Pit Bull, I too am Mr. Worldwide and in my travels to various gyms I rarely see people doing the movement anymore.

So… tinfoil hat time… if this isn’t a popular exercise anymore… then why has it become a straw man for people to pad out these lists

And wait… if we’re just padding out these lists with the same content again and again, regardless of whether or not its useful, maybe these kinds of articles are not very useful.

And if these lists aren’t very useful, maybe they should stop doing these god damn posts.

Phew.

I am blessed and highly favoured. Deep calming breaths

More seriously, upright rows have become a target for many within the fitness industry and, it seems, that this trend truly came to the fore with the dawn of the fitness internet. Is this true? Or has the exercise world been turning against upright rows for even longer? Let’s go down the rabbit hole kids.

A Normal and Beloved Movement

One of the best exercises in the line of weight training movements is the upright rowing motion. It ranks very close in popularity to the continuous pull up and press, the deep knee bend, and the two hands snatch, practiced as a repetition exercise. With a slight variation, using the legs and back and handling more weight, an exercise that is usually called the high pull up, it certainly deserves a place not worse than fourth in value among all the exercises.

Cletus Snelbaker, 1944

Upright rows used to be a foundation of any self-respecting muscle or strength gaining program. Check out this Bob Hoffman program from the late 1940s. Very little fluff and, I would argue, actually a pretty decent program all in. God I miss simplicity

Here’s York Course Number 8, “ONE Heavy Dumbbell Course”:

1) Toe touching, one dumbbell overhead

2) Bentover backhand curl

3) Bentover regular curl

4) One arm pull up and press

5) One arm swing

6) Upright row

7) One hand military press

8) One hand swing and split

9) One hand snatch without moving feet

10) Side press

11) Bentover row

12) Side to side bend

Lets be honest. A lot of people could benefit from doing a program like this. What is important here is that very few people took issue with upright rows in this programs. Certainly the bodybuilders loved em.

One of the most innovative bodybuilding coaches of the 1970s and 1980s Vince Gironda, even came up with a cool modified upright row which he thought targeted the delts much more. As an aside I always found the dumbell version of this really effective and comfortable but I digress.

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Also look at the above video’s description

If this exercise does not work for you, you do not need to do it, all exercises are optional

Careful now. That’s beginning to sound reasonable. So for die-hard Olympic weightlifters like Bob Hoffman, upright rows were good. And for die-hard bodybuilders it was a great movement across decades. But to quote the voice of my generation Nelly Furtado (I’m Like a Bird spoke to me), “lovers to friends, why do all good things come to an end?”.

Enter the Scientists

To re-iterate something I have written for the past decade. I am not a scientist. I am a historian so at this point I am turning to a wonderful 2011 paper by Brad Schoenfeld and colleagues on the upright row. Incidentally their conclusion is that the movement comes with some risks, and some benefits rather than your standard ‘it will destroy your shoulders’ claims you’ll find in popular writings.

Anyway, they point to a foundation paper by Dr. Charles Neer from 1972 entitled ‘Anterior Acromioplasty for the Chronic Impingement Syndrome in the Shoulder’ published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. Neer established that 95% of rotator cuff tears are caused by impingement. Put simply his research identified that certain shoulder positions, particularly internal rotation combined with elevation (effectively the top portion of the upright row movement) could cause structural impingement and tissue damage.

The Neer paper was incredibly influential, leading into the Neer Test for shoulder impingement and generally raising greater awareness about movement and injury for the joint. Looking at subsequent studies, especially in strength and conditioning journals, Neer’s paper was cited when discussing the potential danger of the upright row movement.

The late 1990s saw growing professional awareness as exercise physiology textbooks began incorporating shoulder impingement concerns, and fitness certification materials started including warnings about ‘contraindicated exercises.’ This period marked the gradual incorporation of medical concepts into mainstream fitness education. One, if not the most, important article came in 2001 by Chris Durall and colleagues in 2001 in the Strength and Conditioning Journal titled ‘Avoiding Shoulder Injury From Resistance Training.’ Their position was unequivocal

Another exercise that may lead to subacromial impingement is the upright row. During this exercise the arm is maintained in an internally rotated position throughout the full range of elevation. We recommend either avoiding this exercise entirely or limiting elevation to 80º and keeping the elbows lower than the shoulders to avoid rotator cuff impingement

Within a decade, certified personal training groups, like ACE in America, actively recommended people away from the upright row.

The Fitness Industry Responds

Many well known fitness coaches of the early 00s and 2010s respond in kind. Charles Poliquin issues warnings about wrist and shoulders issues caused by the upright row. While not discounting it outright, he nevertheless raised concerns about it.

Eric Cressley summed up the attitudes of many when he wrote

I’ll be blunt; in my experience, of all the potentially harmful exercises for the shoulder girdle, this one (upright row) warrants the most apprehension

Now interestingly a lot of people made verbose statements about the upright row, but then tempered it with the ability to modify it to make it safer for the joints. One good example is a Lyle McDonald article from the 2010s which commented on the rise of ‘exercise police’ who loved dividing things between good and bad before providing useful information on how to do the movement safely. Oddly in the past few years many seem to have taken the ‘upright rows’ are bad idea and not the ‘so lets find some alternatives that work for you’ approach.

Conclusion

So here’s the deal… upright rows didn’t go from hero to zero overnight. This wasn’t some sudden oh my God, everyone stop, we’ve been duped!’ moment. It was a slow burn.

In the 1940s, they were right up there with squats and presses in the York courses. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, bodybuilders swore by them. Then the scientists started poking around, Neer dropped his shoulder impingement research in ‘72, coaches in the ‘90s started warning about it, and by the early 2000s the certifying bodies were stamping ‘Danger’ across the exercise.

Forty years. That’s how long it took for the industry to shift from ‘Do upright rows to get jacked’ to ‘Do them and you’ll die.’

And here’s the thing, that’s not science being bad, that’s just how knowledge works. Someone asks a question, more people dig in, the consensus moves. But just because an exercise shows up in a scary headline doesn’t mean it’s actually wrong for you.

If you love upright rows, your shoulders are healthy, and you do them without pain, go for it. If they feel like hell, drop them and find something else. Because at the end of the day, the exercise police don’t get to run your program. You do.

As Always… Happy Lifting!