The tip of the iceberg – get yourself an appropriately weighted dumbbell, a bench, some trailblazing hip hop tracks and you’re good to go. My playlist is all Kanye but my gym buddy prefers Eminem. It’s a niche thing, pick what gets your auricles pumping.

Now, let’s dive deeper.

We all have the basic idea of how to perform the classic ‘Single-Arm Dumbbell Row’ but for the sake of it, a customary revision.

In order to execute an accurate Dumbbell Row, you place your left knee on the bench, support your upper body with your left arm by normalizing your weight down on the palm and maintain a ‘Table Top Position’.

The tabletop position is hips lower than shoulders and eyes facing downward with the extension of the thoracic region. The lower back is supposed to be under minimal strain.

A thing to keep in mind, while performing Dumbbell Rows, we’re not training the biceps, so avoid, even by lapse of concentration, hammer curls because they can compromise your regime.

While doing this aforementioned exercise, we are training our ‘Lats’, the V-shaped muscles fusing your arms to the vertebral column. Dumbbell Rows are meant to target these muscles and the torso region.

So, once you’ve got yourself in the precise position, all you have to do is pull the dumbbell up, right until your arm’s parallel to the torso or in layman’s terms, mid-back.

Exhale as you pull up and inhale as you rescind. In case, you run out of gas before lineating the arm and torso, halt the pull-up and swiftly retract your shoulder then and there, maintaining the Tabletop Position.

I find it incumbent on me to mention that what was being thrown at you until now was just the basics of Single-Arm Dumbbell Row. There’s a lot more left to chew, a hell of a lot more.

The idea of hitting the gym and exercising sounds so straightforward at times. You just need persistence, punctuality, and periodic overdoses of motivation which obviously can be accumulated from videos online.

But in all this adrenaline rush, what we often tend to ignore are the hallowed stipulations of exercising. You need to tattoo them onto your brains else your iceberg will flip and break away.

The Five Pillars Of Db Rows

1) One cannot perform Dumbbell Rows with a hunchback. If you have a hunchback, then you need at least a couple more exercises to be added to your regime before you step in to perform Dumbbell Rows.

Make sure that such exercises target your mid-back and thoracic region, the portion of the spine below the back of the head, and lower torso. Turning a blind eye on your hunchback can open the doors for numerous back problems.

And don’t feel insecure about having a hunchback. You’re not the only one, it has nothing to do with your posture and it is efficaciously fixable.

2) Extend your back so as to maintain a substantial gap between your arm (with which you perform the pull up) and the corresponding leg.

The Dumbbell should not be impeded during a pull-up or you compromise its potency.

3) The core should be contracted at all times. This not only stiffens your torso but also stabilizes the spine. A ‘Braced’ core will prepare your lats and trap muscles for maximum stress.

4) Ensuring alignment of your face is coordinating it down towards the floor. The chest should be thrown out exposing the rib cage and hips left staring at the ceiling.

The lumbar spine or the lower back should be unstrained nevertheless stretched. Remember, the thoracic spine has been tasked with anchoring this exercise.

5) In case, you are struggling to keep up with 1), 2), 3) and 4), fortunately, there’s an efficient alternative.

Instead of dropping your knee down on the bench, what you can do is stand beside the bench with both knees overlooking the cushion on the bench.

And as you lean onto the bench, mind your weight with the inactive hand, quite like the standard approach.

Keep your head down to the floor, maintain a Table Top Position, feet squared, and carry on from there copy-pasting the ‘exhaling’ pull up and ‘inhaling’ dumbbell retreat.

Footnote –

If you’re starting out with ‘Single-Arm Dumbbell Rows’, make sure to get yourself a cheval mirror. Not for vanity’s sake, you got it right, for precision’s sake.