One of the great things about strength training and lifting is the amount of variation that you can find in exercise, programming, philosophy, and culture. Things almost never get stale and people fall in love with this world all of the time. However, in all of that variation, a mediocre idea or two will inevitably sneak in. Or thousands, as seen daily on Instagram.

Such is the case with this one shoulder exercise. It is considered a bodybuilding staple and has torn the lifting community apart since physical therapists and strength coaches alike have discussed (or fought about) the potential harm and misgivings of the movement.

Enter the Upright Row

The upright row is a simple movement. Grab a bar (classically, it is done with a narrow grip) and, under control, pull it up to your shoulder height, and lower it back down.

The problems arise when we observe what is happening at the shoulder and shoulder blade. Let’s talk about shoulder mechanics for a second.

You see, when we lift our shoulder to the side and then above our head (a movement called abduction), a few things need to happen. Overhead movement doesn’t just occur at the shoulder joint itself (the ball and socket). The shoulder blade also needs to rotate upwards about 60° for full movement to occur. Not only that, the shoulder blade needs to also tip backwards a ways so the bottom angle creeps forward on the side of the ribcage (to a point called the mid-axillary line). This upward rotation of the shoulder blade starts at about 60° of arm elevation. In general, this movement will also occur in shoulder external rotation.

These mechanics vary from individual to individual, but this is a good starting point.

Check out this excellent video by Physiotutors for a visual explanation of scapulohumeral rhythm:

If these events don’t occur, typically what will happen is a pinching of some structures in the shoulder. The resulting pathology, if it were to happen, is called shoulder impingement. This occurs when the supraspinatus muscle or the proximal tendon of the long head of the biceps (holy s*** what a long name!) pinches between the acromion and the head of the humerus (you can look these structures up).

The upright row is the perfect exercise to make all of these bad things happen. In fact, it looks suspiciously familiar to some special tests that we perform in orthopedics to diagnose impingement called the Hawkins-Kennedy test and the Yocum test. Look these up. You’ll see what I mean.

So What About Impingement?

Now, there is some debate in the PT world as to the nature, etiology, and even the existence of shoulder impingement as an orthopedic pathology, but most of that discussion is beyond the scope of this article. Just know that in many cases of shoulder pain or structural irritation, overhead movement becomes painful and a lot of signs will point to this impingement of structures we discussed earlier. When we correct these mechanics, the movement and pain improve. Traditionally, a lot of impingement has been attributed to the actual shape and structure of the acromion. Outside of structure, there may be a secondary cause of impingement.

The origin of these debates is hard to pinpoint. However, even as someone who regularly treats impingement patients, I do not like the definition and vast paradigm of care for impingement. If structure was the only thing that caused impingement, then the only thing to fix it would be to change that structure, i.e. surgery.

Let’s not go down that route because orthopedic surgery is already overused as an intervention.

The only other option is that the pathology must be (in some capacity) movement related. When we don’t allow for the natural mechanics of the shoulder to take place, injury is possible, and the upright row is a perfect storm of all of these poor mechanics to start tweaking the shoulders.

Now, you may not have an injury yet, but I am willing to bet that at some point, you will. Enough PTs and strength coaches have eschewed the exercise that I am in good company of my views.

But What if it Didn’t Harm The Shoulder?

Beyond the poor mechanics of the movement, the upright row just isn’t a great exercise. It doesn’t translate to any athletic movement or everyday movement (save for the clean and press, but high pulls and clean pulls will be much more appropriate here).

And so what if it didn’t harm the shoulder? I don’t know about you, but if I were in charge of the health and performance of an athlete or any other individual, I wouldn’t hang my hat on “what if”. There are so many other shoulder exercises that are way more beneficial than the upright row like presses, landmine presses, face pulls, lateral raises, muscle cleans, seated cleans… the list goes on.

Wrapping Up

The bottom line here is that the upright row creates an environment where the components of the shoulder may get injured if done repeatedly. This is where the variability of weight training comes in: Just substitute a different exercise.

If you’re a coach or clinician, you better be practicing in a fashion that eliminates as many possibilities of injury or unnecessary stress.