Dumbbell row: on a bench, standing, or with no bench at all

The dumbbell row is a horizontal pull: you brace one hand, let the dumbbell hang from the other, and pull your elbow back toward your hip. Because the braced hand holds your torso still, the effort goes into the pull rather than into holding yourself bent over, and because it's one arm at a time, a single dumbbell is enough.

This page covers the one-arm row on a bench step by step, the standing, chest-supported and no-bench versions, what the row trains, the faults, and where it fits in a week. The full back session it belongs to is the back workout; its vertical partner is the lat pulldown.

How to do a one-arm dumbbell row on a bench

1. Brace on the bench. Your left knee and left hand on a flat bench, hand under your shoulder; right foot on the floor, a little out to the side.
2. Set your back. Flat and roughly level with the floor, in a neutral position from your head to your hips. Your neck follows your spine; look at the floor a little ahead of the bench.
3. Let the dumbbell hang in your right hand under your shoulder, arm straight.
4. Pull your elbow back past your ribs, close to your side, until the dumbbell reaches the side of your stomach.
5. Lower it under control until your arm is straight again, and let your shoulder blade move forward a little at the bottom. That's one rep. Finish the set, then switch sides.

Pull toward your hip rather than straight up to your shoulder. Keeping the elbow low and close has some support: a 2026 review of 23 studies of lat activity found that, in separate studies of the seated cable row, a narrower grip and elbows kept lower and closer to the body were each linked with more lat activity.¹

Dumbbell row muscles worked

The studies agree with that picture. In 12 men holding each pull still for ten seconds, the seated row produced the most activity in the muscles between the shoulder blades of the four pulls tested, and a high ratio of lat to biceps work.² In 17 women, the one-arm row worked the lower trapezius more than the upper trapezius at both a light and a hard effort, and the middle trapezius more than the upper too.³ And in 10 untrained men who trained one arm with one-arm dumbbell rows and the other with curls for eight weeks, the rowing arm's elbow flexors grew 5.16%, about half as much as the curling arm's 11.06%.⁴

So the row trains the arms too, though not as much as a curl does. One gap: the 2026 review's 23 studies of lat activity covered the pulldown, the pullover, seated, barbell and bent-over rows and the pull-up,¹ not the dumbbell row itself, so most of what's known about it is borrowed from rows in general.

Standing, chest-supported and no-bench versions

• Standing one-arm row. Feet staggered, free hand on a rack, a sturdy chair or your front thigh, torso leaning forward with your back flat. More of you has to hold still: in 15 resistance-trained men, a one-arm free-weight row worked the obliques and the deep muscles along the spine more than one-arm cable and machine rows did.⁵
• Two-arm bent-over dumbbell row. A dumbbell in each hand, hinged forward with no support. The same study found the muscles along the spine more active when both arms rowed at once.⁵ It's the hardest version to hold, so learn the hinge first. With a bar, it's the barbell row.
• Chest-supported row. Face down on an incline bench, a dumbbell in each hand. The bench holds your torso, so the effort goes into the pull. Useful after a heavy hinge, when holding a bent-over position is the hard part.
• No bench at home. Brace one hand on a chair seat, a couch arm or a low table, or rest your forearm on your front thigh in a split stance. Anything that holds you steady at about knee to hip height works.

One arm or two? A 2025 meta-analysis of nine studies found no difference in muscle growth between one-limb and two-limb training, while strength rose most in whichever version was trained.⁶ Pick the version that suits your equipment and keep it long enough to add weight.

Common faults, and a fix for each

• Twisting to lift the weight. Your torso rotates open as the dumbbell comes up. Keep your hips and shoulders square to the floor, and go lighter if they won't stay there.
• Pulling to the shoulder. The elbow flares out and the row turns into a shrug. Aim the elbow at your hip.
• Jerking the weight up. Momentum moves it, not your back. Pull smoothly, then lower in about two seconds.
• Cutting the range short. Arm straight at the bottom, elbow past your ribs at the top.
• The back rounding as the set gets hard. Keep it flat and in the position you set, and stop the set there.
• Rowing through pain. Sharp pain is not soreness. Stop, and see a doctor or a physical therapist.

Feeling it in your arms, not your back? That's common. In 20 people with little or no lifting experience doing a seated row, instructions to use the back muscles raised lat activity in the first reps, but had little effect across a whole set taken to failure.⁷ A cue helps you learn the movement; the arm work doesn't switch off, and that's fine. Think of your hand as a hook, and pull with your elbow.

How it fits a back workout

The dumbbell row is the horizontal pull, one of the three slots in the back workout: pair it with a vertical pull, such as the lat pulldown or a pull-up, and a hinge. Some numbers to start from:

• Two or three sets of 8 to 12 per arm, with a rep or two in reserve. (How to judge reps left.) The American College of Sports Medicine's 2026 position stand advises at least two sets per exercise, and found muscle growth was enhanced by ten or more sets per muscle group a week.⁸
• Start with your weaker side, and match its reps on the other.
• Add weight at the top of the range. When every set reaches 12 with reps to spare, take the next dumbbell. The same 2026 stand found strength gains didn't differ between free weights and machines,⁸ so if your gym has a row machine you'd rather load, that works too.

Rows count toward your arm work, as the trial above showed, which is why the arm workout counts them. On a full-body plan, one row a session is enough; on an upper/lower split, put it on the upper days alongside a press.

If you'd rather not plan it alone

A dumbbell row is one slot; deciding which row, how many sets your back already gets, and how it sits beside your presses is the part a page can't do. Coaching is the version where your workouts are built around the days you actually have, and a weekly call looks at the week you just had and rebuilds the next one. Coaching to build muscle explains how that works, and here's how to apply. Otherwise: find a bench or a chair, pick a dumbbell you can row 12 times, and do three sets each side.