Grip width on barbell row

Hi Rip,

With lock-down 2.0 underway in the UK and gyms closed again, I am back to training in my back garden.

Weather-permitting, squats, press, deadlift and floor press are ok. Chins are out so I'm replacing them with barbell rows.

I've never trained rows before so I went back to the blue book to check on form. I am curious as to why the recommended grip is roughly bench press width (though you do say that this can vary quite a bit) when the recommendation for chins/pull-ups is more like shoulder-width or very slightly wider. I would have imagined that the strongest pulling position for both the vertical and horizontal pulls would be shoulder width.

Am I missing something? Or does this fall into the category of "it's an assistance exercise, don't stress over the price form, choose whatever grip width feels strongest, stick with it and keep increasing the weight"?

Thanks in advance.

Because the bench press grip width allows the greatest ROM around the shoulder at the top of the row, like it does at the bottom of the bench.

Ah-ha - I can see that. Thanks.

Lockdown 2 in the UK is a joke. Guarantee we won’t back open December 2 either.

Pete - yep, I'm with you on that one.

And training outside in November is a lot less fun that it was in June… hoping that I can get 3 mornings a week (on non-consecutive days) where it's dry enough to train (once it's light enough to train) in a window before starting work…

Anyway, with Dom Cummings is out, maybe things will turn up on the Covid front (even if they turn down on the Brexit front…)

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Originally Posted by QuinceTree

Anyway, with Dom Cummings is out, maybe things will turn up on the Covid front (even if they turn down on the Brexit front…)

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No, they won’t. Your countrymen had several opportunities to make decisions that would have run in their favor, and yet they ended up electing the Johnson cabinet. I fear you will have to live with the consequences for a lot longer than the COVID farce.