Dumbbell Incline Row

What it is

This dumbbell exercise is a foundational pulling movement that effectively targets your middle back. You perform it leaning into an incline bench, which helps isolate the working muscles. It also engages your biceps, forearms, latissimus dorsi, and shoulders as secondary muscles.

Technique tips

• Focus on pulling with your back muscles, not just your arms.
• Retract your shoulder blades before initiating the pull.
• Maintain a neutral spine and stable core against the bench.
• Control the descent of the dumbbells to maximize muscle engagement.
• Pause briefly at the top to enhance peak contraction.

How to track your progress

Log the weight and reps of each set. Straddly turns every set into an estimated one-rep max, so a heavier single and a strong set of eight both count as progress, and it flags a personal record the moment you beat your best.