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What's up guys. I've been using Nerd Fitness for awhile but I just got on the forums. I had a question about bent over dumbbell rows. So I started working out again, I have a gym membership now and 3 times a week I've been going in and doing this sites "Beginner Workout." I've had to do it exercise by exercise in sets rather than as circuits cause I wait for first a bench to open up (for my 3 sets of rows) then for the Smith's to open up (I do 4 sets of incline assisted pushups cause I'm pretty bad at real ones atm). My ultimate goal at the moment is to be able to do 1 pullup which is definitely a ways off as I am currently weighing in at about 268 and should be closer to 190-200 (I'm 6'1"). As the members here I'm sure are aware, there's a great article on exercises working up to a pullup on this site and that's what I've been following in addition to the beginners workout. I've been doing my bent over rows pretty much like Steve does in the video, with my back as close to parallel as I can get to the bench and my pulling arm straight down, then I pull the dumbbell toward me and sort of out to the side of the area below my chest. Here's my question--today, in between sets, I noticed another dude in the bench area doing bent over rows only instead of angling his pulling (dumbbell) arm straight down, he had it held out at arm's length in front of him about a 45 degree angle from the ground and he was pulling all the way back to his lower chest/side area then out to arm's length keeping the same angle. Curiosity got the better of me so I decided to try a set and right away I noticed it was quite a bit more strenuous doing it this way--I had been using a 20lb dumbbell the other way and, after trying just a couple reps, had to go all the way down to 12lb doing it this way to do a full set. The other thing I noticed was, doing it the straight down way oftentimes I feel like the exercise is too easy and if I do feel a pinch in my back or shoulders its less isolated and kind of distributed over the length of my arm whereas this way I felt a definite worked-out feeling in my shoulder/upper back area (or at least that's where I think it was, I'm not an expert on the various muscle groups I just started working out, but I know from the pullup article this exercise should be targetting your back). Ok so sorry for my long-windedness, but I guess my question is this: do you guys know if there's a substantial difference between what gets hit in terms of muscles in the traditional way I've been doing it (as shown in Steve's video) and the way I tried it today? Is there a greater risk of injury/not hitting the right muscles doing it the new way? I'm tempted to keep doing it this way because I feel like I got a much better workout for the row sets than I normally do. I already mentioned I'm pretty tall so maybe this other way would work better... ? Anyway peeps, gimme your thoughts and experience on this, again I'm pretty new but I appreciate this community here that Steve has built up, seems like a great place. - Adam

So I've done something to my lats (I think) but I'm not sure what. I think it may have been having a go on the dip bars in the park on sunday, or maybe it's all the inverted rows I'm doing. Anyway, the "sensation" (I wouldn't call it pain) is on my back, either side of my spine, below my shoulder blades. I'm not sure how to describe it, there's a slight stiffness and notice the feeling in them when say pushing on a heavy door. It's definitely not painful though and I don't feel my movement is impeded, I just notice it when I use them. Also, I've just poked about and there's a bit of tenderness in some spots around there. I reckon I should probably ease up on the rows a bit, but my main question is, what the hell do you call this? Anything I'm googling around this talks about pain and immobility, but I don't have that, just something that doesn't quite feel right.

So as many of you know, I've been trying to get to my first pull-up. It's been a long and arduous journey. Despite working on them pretty hard, I feel like I'm not much closer than I was before I started hammering them. I'm no expert, but I'm wondering if it's because my back is weak/I'm not activating it properly. I do notice that during my pull-up attempts (and my assisted ones), my arms get smoked but my back doesn't that bad. Then, when I was doing lat pulldowns the other day, it was the same thing. I sat straight, with a slight angle backwards, and really tried to contract like I was squeezing a pencil between my scapulae. But I still felt it in the arms more than anything else. Should I be doing seated rows (or other kinds of rows)? Or are there other cues I can use to make sure I'm recruiting my back?