The Meadows row is a one-arm row performed beside the loaded end of an anchored barbell. It is named for John Meadows, the bodybuilding coach who developed it and described it as a modified one-arm row using a T-bar setup in his own instructional article.
The distinguishing feature is that you stand beside the working end of the bar rather than straddling it as you would for a two-handed T-bar row. That puts the bar’s arc across your body and gives the movement its characteristic path.
Brolic lists it as Meadows Row (Barbell), with “Meadow row” as an alias — the spelling variant does not need a separate entry or a separate history.
Muscles worked
The upper back — trapezius, rhomboids and posterior deltoid — along with the lats, with the biceps and forearms working as they do in any row.
Where the emphasis lands depends on your elbow path: a higher, flared elbow biases the upper back, a tighter path pulls the lats in more. Both are Meadows rows if the stance and grip match; just pick one and keep it, rather than drifting between them within a set.
Set the landmine up
Anchor the bar in a landmine attachment or another fitting designed to hold the fixed end. A barbell wedged into a corner is a common improvisation and a poor one — it can skid out under load.
Stand beside the loaded sleeve with your feet roughly perpendicular to the bar, staggered so the leg nearest the bar is forward. Hinge at the hips until your torso is close to parallel with the floor, and brace your free hand on the forward thigh or knee. Rehearse with a light load and confirm the plates clear your body and the floor through the whole arc.
Plate diameter changes your range. A 45 cm bumper plate reaches your body far earlier than a small iron plate of the same mass, so a plate change is a setup change worth recording even when the weight is identical.
Row
Take a pronated (overhand) grip on the sleeve, just behind the plates. Pull the upper arm back and up along the arc the bar wants to travel, then lower under control to a full stretch at the bottom.
Meadows himself emphasised getting a genuine stretch at the bottom and maintaining hip position, and he was not opposed to the shoulder blade moving through the rep. What you are guarding against is the torso rotating to help — using the whole trunk to throw the weight up rather than rowing it.
The thick sleeve challenges grip. If grip ends the set before the back is done, note that as the reason. Straps are a reasonable answer; record when you use them, because a strapped set is a different comparison.
Loading convention: state what the number means
This is the detail most likely to make a Meadows row log meaningless a month later. Record the plates you added to the working end, and keep that convention constant.
Two reasons it matters. The bar’s fixed end carries part of the load, so the weight at your hand is less than the plate mass — and how much less changes with the bar’s angle and the height of the anchor. And whether you count the bar itself is arbitrary; what is not arbitrary is doing it the same way every time.
| Set | Added plates | Left reps | Right reps | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 20 kg | 12 | 12 | Same sleeve grip and stance |
| 2 | 20 kg | 11 | 11 | Rest kept consistent |
| 3 | 20 kg | 10 | 9 | Right grip ended the set |
That is 33 reps on the left and 32 on the right — a hypothetical example, not a target. The note on the last set explains why it ended, which is more useful later than rounding both sides to three sets of twelve. Keep the sides as separate numbers.
Common questions
Is this the same as a single-arm landmine row? Not necessarily. Both use an anchored bar, but many landmine rows are performed facing the bar with a neutral grip. The Meadows version is side-on with a pronated sleeve grip.
Can I compare the load with my dumbbell row? No. The leverage is different and the recorded number may only be added plates. Keep separate histories.
What if I have no landmine attachment? A single-arm dumbbell row or a supported row fills the same role in a session. Record the substitution rather than continuing the Meadows history with different numbers.
Use the free workout log for the per-side entries and the weekly-set tally to review the week.
Sources and method
- John Meadows: Master the Meadows Row — first-person technique explanation from the originator.
- John Meadows: How to Meadows Row — his own demonstration.
- Brolic catalog version 2026-09-05.3 — name, alias and per-side logging.
Meadows’ account of what the exercise did for his own back is coaching experience, not a trial showing it outperforms another row. The example log is original and hypothetical.