Best Exercise In Ever: Band Horizontal Iso Row with Cable Vertical Pull

The name may need some tweaking, but I think it’s something that could stick. Maybe just initials – BHIRCVP? Nah. We’ll work on it, fam.

Anyway, here’s a cool variation that uses a static row hold with a band with one arm while doing a lat pulldown with the other arm. This helps build some endurance in the row hold in a position a lot of people wind up being fairly weak in, while working on the pulling mechanics from the opposite arm. Plus it looks gangster as hell.

2 things to consider:

1. Use a resistance that’s light enough to allow you to move the shoulder blades to accomplish the work on these. The entire benefit comes from scapular motion, so make sure those puppies are rolling and rocking all over the ribs.
2. Make the row hold locked in stone, no bouncing, shaking, or wobbling around on these. This might mean getting into a bit more thoracic extension that you would normally use, but make it happen and hold on for dear life.

For most lat pulldown machines there are vertical bars you could easily wrap a band around to do this. For something like a seated row where you’re working on a horizontal row movement, there’s less of a chance of finding an overhead anchor point that you could set up a band to do a vertical row hold, but if you have that option it would be a great alternative. I guess one way you could make it work is if you set into a cable crossover and use a low cable while wrapping the band over the chin up bar in the middle, or just around the cross beam, but either way, it would still do something similar and give some variation.

Either way, give it a try and see what you think. Enjoy!