Most lifters butcher the form of the barbell row. Do this exercise to fix it.

Tabletop Row

Just before you do any row that involves a bent-over position, have a training partner place a plate or two on your middle upper back.

The Benefits

• Helps maintain a steep, near parallel, bent-over position.
• Improved form because the back must maintain a natural arch for the plate to sit on. Spinal flexion is impossible.
• Eliminates top rock and excessive momentum. Otherwise, the plates will literally fall off the back and injure animals or small children.
• Increased proprioceptive feedback from lats, middle, and upper back. The plates against your body provide sensory palpation, giving you better kinesthetic awareness of your back activation and postural alignment.
• Greater direct overload to the entire posterior chain, including upper back, low back, glutes, and hams, without further fatigue to the arms and grip. As a result, your back muscles are more likely to fail before your arms.
• Keeps you from over-rowing with excessive range of motion because the elbows and shoulder blades will run into the plates, causing them to move around on the back.
• Improves low back strength immensely. The movement represents a combination Romanian deadlift and good-morning in terms of weight distribution with direct tension to the erector muscles.