Muscles worked
The backpack row works the same muscles as a row with a dumbbell or barbell. Your lats and the muscles between your shoulder blades do the pulling, and the back of your shoulders and your biceps help. Because you stand bent over without support, your lower back, glutes and hamstrings also work statically throughout the set to hold your upper body in place. A more upright torso makes the pull more upward, and your upper back and shoulders then tend to take a bigger share.
Common mistakes
- The contents shift around. In a half-empty backpack, whatever moves gives a jolt at the end of every pull. Pack it tightly, put the heaviest items in the middle and fill the gaps with clothes so nothing can slide.
- You rise up during the set. As your back tires, your torso creeps upwards rep by rep. Hold the angle you started with, and end the set when you no longer can.
- Jerking the bag up with your hips. A bounce from the hips adds momentum that does your back's job for it. Keep your hips still, so only your arms and shoulder blades move.
Variations and alternatives
- The barbell row is the classic bent-over row, where you can load far more.
- The dumbbell row, supported on a bench, spares your lower back.
- The towel door row uses your bodyweight instead, when you would rather not stand bent over.
Sets and reps
Weigh the backpack before you start: stand on a bathroom scale with and without it and work out the difference. You can then log kilos just as you would with a dumbbell. For muscle, 10 to 15 reps over 3 sets is a good target. If the bag is so light that you can do more than 20, row one arm at a time with your other hand braced on a chair, which doubles the load on each arm. The guide to sets and reps walks through how your goal shapes the number of reps.
Add one item at a time, such as a book or a water bottle, and weigh it again. A litre of water weighs about a kilo, so bottles make small steps easy. That is progressive overload with what you have at home.