The Renegade Row

The Renegade Row:

Thank you for joining us on Kettlebell Movement for a lesson on the renegade row. This is a very difficult progression of a weighted row combined with a tight plank position. You can do this exercise with dumbells or kettlebells. As always, start light and work your way up slowly.

Start in the prone plank position holding on to the weights, then take one hand off and stabilize in a one handed plank, switch hands. Once you have the hang of stabilizing in this way, begin the row. Pull the weight off the ground, keeping your forearm close to your body. Squeeze your shoulder blade inward as you pull, then return the bell back to the ground gently. You can either switch with each repetition or rep out one side and then switch. Don’t forget to breathe with each rep.

Many people tend to go into a downward dog when performing this exercise without realizing it. Keep your glutes flexed and your abdomen tight! It is also common to arch the back by allowing your pelvis to tilt down in the front and up in the back. Squeezing the glutes and abs should help this too, just make sure you aren’t arching your back. You may use a slightly wider stance with your feet, especially at first, to add a little stability if needed.

You can add this exercise to your existing workouts, it goes well with many other movements. Even though it is extremely challenging, it isn’t likely to take any one muscle to failure. The fantastic part about this exercise is that it requires strength in so many areas. You will need some extremely deep core tension combined with stability and upper back pulling strength. If you are combining this in a circuit, it will keep the heart rate up as well. As with all of the lessons I teach, I will use this exercise in future workouts, so practice it now so you can play along with us.

Thank you for watching and reading!

Peter Hirsh