Yes and no: With good technique, you certainly work your mid and lower traps, and the rhomboids a bit.
On the other hand, its again a lat-heavy activity and the lat acts as an internal rotator.
So rowing, and its important to not make that lat-heavy as well, is great as a countermovement to balance that out. Row to your chest (elbows out/abducted), mid to wide overhand/prone grip. Less lat, heavy work for mid traps, rear delts and rhomboids.
For a comparison of muscle activation in pulls and rows: Inside the Muscles: Best Back and Biceps Exercises | T Nation
It may not be that a big deal when you have a balanced plan with presses, but his daughter seems to have a lot of activities with internal rotation and no real countermovement, thats why I recommend rowing.
Sure!
If you don't want to overwhelm her with too many things, you're better of sticking with the squat, press, deadlift, bench, and power clean. Adding anything else in a young age with the rest of her activities is going to be a waste and/or a drain on her recovery. Bringing in isolation stuff or accessory work really should wait until a trainee is more advanced and may wait beyond that if they're playing a lot of sports.
Exactly because of her other one-sided activities I recommend rowing.
2-3 sets of something like chest-supported row at the end of a training session is easy for recovery. This exercise in this context is not meant for a 3x5 grindfest - it can even help her recovering, preventing injuries and improve her performance by a balanced posture, more stabilty and strength.
Usually something like "at least 1:1" is thrown around and thats fine.
I add: Look at yourself/your athlete. Do your shoulders protract when standing? Do they protract even if you try hard to retract them when benching? What do you do daily - swimming freestyle/butterfly, studying sitting slouched over your laptop and your student job is standing at an assembly line putting quality control stickers on tiny pieces all that while loving benching and pec flys? That means balancing all this horizontal pushing/adduction activity with a good portion of any variation of rows, more than someone who does less horizontal pushing.
I work in front of/on a computer 8+ hours a day, I bench and press more volume than I pull, deadlifts and rack pulls included, and I have no shoulder anteversion/protraction nor difficulty setting my upper back when pressing/benching. Please explain how does that happen without the 1:1 press: pull. Also, please provide the science behind this, since I am incapable of finding it myself.
Last edited by Murelli; 08-30-2017 at 01:37 PM. Reason: A smiley face showed where it shouldn't