So a few days ago I was having a discussion with someone who made a post on Instagram which basically said that chest supported rows are better for back hypertrophy than barbell rows and that you need to stop doing barbell rows if you want to grow your back. As he has a pretty big following, I felt the need to react because in my opinion he’s just spreading BS. His argument was that because you don’t have to stabilise at the hips, lower back and erectors you are better able to focus on the musculature of the back. While that may be true to a certain extent I still don’t see why you can’t make similar gains in hypertrophy with barbell rows if you equate for volume and proximity to failure. I would even argue that barbell rows are a little better because there’s more musculature involved. Am I missing something here?
I don’t think one is significantly better or worse for muscle growth, though the fatigue costs of the barbell row are likely to be higher given the additional muscle mass being involved. To what extent that matters in tolerable volume differences between the two exercise, I’m not sure. Still, if you took two identical twins and had them do the same program, save for one doing chest supported rows and the other do barbell rows for 6 months, I doubt you’d be able to measure a difference in the muscles that both exercises train. That’s kind of a silly scenario though, as why wouldn’t someone do both over the course of a program is beyond me.
Making claims that are not supported by evidence and creating scenarios with no ecological validity is the individual you speak of’s speciality. Perhaps the most surprising thing is the size of his following despite not being particularly well-trained in this field and having limited personal experience getting big and strong. I was summoned to correct him on some dumb stuff he said regarding shoulder safety and bench pressing and after he admitted he was wrong, he did nothing to fix the errors in his post.
Thanks for the reply, Jordan. That cleared up all of the doubts I was having in my own knowledge and experience on this subject.
It’s just a pity that there’s so much misinformation being spread around on social media and the worst thing is that it is getting parroted by the younger/newer generation of coaches and lifters. Luckily we still have you guys.
Duncan