This exercise is also sometimes known as an Australian pull because you get “down under” a ledge to perform it. If you can get outside, you can also do this exercise underneath something like a railing or a bench in a park or somewhere around your neighborhood.
Make sure to keep your core tight and your body in a straight line while you perform this move. Don’t let your back curve or bend in any way.
Like a regular plank, this works your core, but it places more emphasis on your arms and biceps, which are muscles that a pull-up uses.
You can also do this same move by wrapping a towel around a sturdy pole or pillar somewhere in your home and rowing yourself towards it. Use a longer towel for more range of motion, which will make the move harder.
This is basically a lying-down version of the pull-up that uses your own bodyweight and the floor instead of a bar to target the same muscles. The towel allows you to slide easily across the smooth floor. Imagine a bar straight between your hands on the floor and pretend you’re doing a pull-up on that bar. When you get your chin up to the “bar,” you lower yourself back down again.
If it’s your first time doing bent-over rows, start out with a light weight and focus on your form, so you don’t hurt your back. Once you are comfortable with the form, move up to a higher weight. This is a great way to work your back’s lat muscles, which are 1 of the primary muscles that pull-ups work, as well as your trapezoids, biceps, and other supporting muscles. Adding size and strength to your lats and the surrounding muscles can give you a toned, V-shaped back.
If you have dumbbells, you can try some variations. For example, alternate curling them on 1 side at a time to focus on the muscles in 1 arm per repetition. Or, you can hold them with your thumbs facing forward in what’s called a hammer grip to engage different stabilizer muscles. Try doing seated dumbbell curls by sitting down on a chair or bench. Hold the dumbbells down at your sides with an underhand grip or a hammer grip, then curl them up at the same time or alternate between arms. This puts even more emphasis on the biceps than standing.
Romanian deadlifts are a variation on traditional deadlifts that are easier to do at home because you don’t need mats or an Olympic-size barbell. This exercise can replace pull-ups by targeting your back’s lat muscles, trapezoids, rhomboids, biceps, core, and many other upper body muscles. It also works your hamstrings, glutes, and quads, which makes it one of the best all-around lifts you can do.
It’s best to use hexagon-shaped dumbbells for this exercise because they can sit flat on the floor. It’s hard to balance and stay still to perform this lift if you only have round dumbbells. Take this to the next level by doing 1 pushup between each renegade row repetition. You’ll get a great upper body workout that targets many of the same muscles as a pull-up and more. Make sure you do the same number of repetitions on each side to get even muscle growth.
This is a great pull-up replacement because you can use heavy weights to really hit your lats hard like a pull-up. One-arm dumbbell rows can grow your lats a lot and even help you increase the number of pull-ups you can do the next time you have access to a pull-up bar.
Try different grip variations to target different muscles more or less. For example, a wide grip will target your back muscles like your lats more, whereas a narrow grip will target your biceps and arms more.
You can do this exercise standing up or kneeling down. Kneeling down will work your core’s stabilizer muscles more.
Don’t lean back when you do this type of exercise band pull down. You can place your forehead against the inside edge of the door to help you stand up straight. You could also loop your resistance band over a sturdy exposed beam or pipe as an alternative to a door. Alternate pulling down 1 arm at a time for a variation of this exercise.
Keep your neck relaxed and focus on using your core, shoulder blades, and upper back muscles to hold the resistance band stretched out.
