reckonerMachine high row
Handles up and in front of you, chest on a pad, pull down and back. A high row sits between a pulldown, which pulls straight down, and a seated row, which pulls straight back. The pad holds your trunk still, so the set ends when your back is done rather than when your position gives out.
Chest on the pad, elbows down and back.
- Pattern
- Horizontal pull
- Trains
- Lats, upper back
- Kit
- Machine high row
- Loading
- A weight you choose
- Reckoner prescribes
- 3 sets of 8 to 12 reps at RPE 8
- Progression step
- 5 kg once the top of the range is clean
- Skill
- Simple to learn
- Recovery cost
- Low
Muscles worked
How to do it
Set the seat so the handles start above your shoulders
With your arms reaching up and forward, the handles should sit a little above shoulder height. Too low and it turns into a plain row. Too high and you lift off the seat to reach them.
Get the chest onto the pad
Sit tall with your sternum on the pad and your feet flat. Chest on the pad, which is the cue on your wrist, and it stays there for every rep.
Reach, then pull the elbows down and back
Let your shoulder blades slide up and forward at the top. Then drive your elbows down and back until the handles reach your ribs, and squeeze your shoulder blades together.
Let it rise slowly
Return under control until your arms are long and your shoulder blades are open again. The stretch at the top is part of the rep.
What goes wrong
Pulling to your chin
If the handles finish at your face, your arms and upper traps did the work. Pull to your ribs, which is the second cue on your wrist.
Shrugging at the finish
Your shoulders climb toward your ears and the upper traps take over. Keep your shoulders down and your collarbones wide, then pull.
Leaning back off the pad
Rocking back makes the pull longer and the weight easier, and every rep becomes a little different. Your chest stays on the pad from the first rep to the last.
How Reckoner progresses this lift
Six weeks of this lift, from 40 kg, run through the real engine. Nothing below was typed in: the prescription, the decision and the sentence beside it all come from the same code that writes your week.
| Week | Prescribed | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 x 8 at 40 kg | More reps 8 → 9 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 2 | 3 x 9 at 40 kg | More reps 9 → 10 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 3 | 3 x 10 at 40 kg | More reps 10 → 11 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 4 | 3 x 11 at 40 kg | More reps 11 → 12 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 5 | 3 x 12 at 40 kg | Deload 40% of sets offFive weeks of building, then one week lighter. About 40% of the sets come off. The load holds and your reps stay where you earned them, so you keep the strength and lose the fatigue. |
| 6 | 2 x 12 at 40 kg | Load up 40 kg → 45 kgYou hit the top of the range with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7), so the weight on the machine goes up 5 kg to 45 kg. The weight went up, so the reps come down to eight. You are now working 8 to 12. The lighter week is over, so this is back to three sets. |
Real engine output, not an illustration. Every row was produced by running the engine itself when this page was generated.
The full rule, and why the reps move before the load does, is in how Reckoner decides to add weight.
Questions people ask
Is a high row a row or a pulldown?
Both, in part. The handles travel down and back on an angle, so it trains your lats and your mid back together. Reckoner counts it with your rows, and it swaps with the other supported rows.
Should I use it instead of a pulldown?
Use it as well as, or as a swap for, a row. A pulldown is still the plain overhead pull. If your gym has a high row and you like it, choose it on your plan. Reckoner never puts one in a plan by itself, because plenty of gyms do not have one.
How many sets a week should I do?
More weekly sets keep buying more size and strength, with the returns shrinking as the count rises, and spreading them over more days matters much less for size than the total does1. Reckoner sets the number from your plan and what you logged.
Similar movements
Reckoner eases the load first when this lift stalls, and offers one of these only if it stalls again after that. A lift already as light as your kit goes has no load left to ease, so the offer comes straight away. Each of them has a page.
Sources
- Pelland and colleagues, Sports Medicine, 2025. The resistance training dose response: meta-regressions exploring the effects of weekly volume and frequency on muscle hypertrophy and strength gains sixty-seven studies and 2058 participants, with size and strength both rising as weekly set volume rises and both showing diminishing returns, and weekly frequency compatible with a negligible effect on size once volume is accounted for