No intention of hijacking the thread, and the answers may further help the OP out. My question is for those of you who feel that bent barbell rows are the best for lats, could you give some tips on how you perform the movement to really hit the lats? I love bent rows, but I feel it more in the middle of my back, both width-wise and length-wise. Does that make sense? I have trouble feeling any horizontal back exercises in my lats. Vertical movements always pound my lats.
Anyway, any little tweaks y'all do to feel rows in the lats, please share.
Switch your grip for bent over rows every other workout. Standard grip will hit middle and upper back while underhand or reverse grip will hit the lower lats. I find I can pull more weight with the underhand grip, so that's refreshment for my mind as well.
As for proper form, the biggest mitake I see people make is holding the bar too far out from your body. That puts far too much stress on your delts and shoulders and not enough on back (except lower back, which is not good). Coming back from an injury I did bent over rows exclusively on the smith machine for months until I had the perfect form nailed down. The smith machine allows you to worry less about form and balance, and more about pulling up bigger weight. Once you "master" the form, move back to regular barbell. Trust me, this works.
Also, on pullups, alternate overhand, underhand, wide grip, and close grip. I don't even really do bicep curls much anymore because my bis get so much work from rows and close grip pullups. If your bis aren't burning after a nice set of close grips then you're doing them wrong.
