The landmine station is a versatile tool that gives you a lot of options to switch up your lifting routine and this is especially true when it comes to the row.
The humble row comes in a lot of variations and you can do this exercise in one form or another with pretty much any type of resistance you’ve got.
So it’s true, you certainly don’t need a landmine station to get the most out of this exercise – but using one can definitely switch things up a bit (which is always a good thing if you ask me).
After all, variety is the spice of life and changing your routine up regularly is essential to keep making gains.
Plus, let’s be real, it gets boring doing the same old exercises week in and week out. If nothing else, making changes to your routine is a good way to keep things interesting.
But if you have access to a landmine station, this isn’t something you have to worry about anymore.
In this article, I’ll go over a few different rowing exercises you can do using your landmine station. So, by the time your next back workout comes up, you’ll be ready to crush it.
A Few Words On Landmine Stations
If you’re reading this on purpose, I have to assume you already know what a landmine station is, but just in case, I’ll start with a quick review.
A landmine station is really just a little gizmo you put one end of a barbell into to keep it anchored to the floor.
Landmine stations come in a few different forms, including free standing stations that are their own piece of equipment, attachments that connect to power cages, and even portable little caps you put on the end of a barbell.
And if you have the room, you can even put one end of a barbell in a corner (or a weight plate) and essentially make your own landmine station.
All you really need is a barbell and some way of keeping one end of said barbell stationary against the floor.
As simple as these devices are though, they can offer a lot of great exercise variety.
You can pretty much do some variation of any weight lifting exercise with a landmine station and they work incredibly well for core exercises, what with all the rotational movements you can do and whatnot.
But we’re here to talk about rowing exercises.
As I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of ways to do a row and even though the resistance or body position may vary, the exercise itself remains the same.
With any row exercise, you’re targeting your lats and your rhomboids primarily, although your biceps and posterior delts are working a little too.
This makes the row one of the best exercises for developing your back.
I’d even go as far as saying the classic bent over barbell row is one of the best back exercises out there – it might be tied with the standard pull up.
Regardless, here are a few fun variations of the row you can do with a landmine station.
5 Landmine Row Exercises You Can Do From Home
#1 Bent Over Row (aka “T-Bar Row”)
This is my favorite landmine row variation and I’ve started implementing them regularly into my back workouts.
I like this exercise because it hits both sides at the same time and because it really hits your lumbar paraspinals too – well, assuming you keep your back flat like you’re supposed to.
When doing this move, make sure you keep your feet shoulder-width apart or even a little wider, bend those knees, and hinge from the hip so you can keep a neutral spine.
If you start rounding your back, you’re gonna put yourself in a position where you can easily hurt yourself.
Start light and gradually work your way up.
And like any other row exercise, making sure you’re initiating the movement by squeezing your shoulder blades together.
You can do this row with a lot of different handles – the gentleman in the above video is simply using a narrow grip rowing handle, but you can use landmine handles and T-bar handles of any variety.
This is a great exercise to go heavy on, especially if you’re really trying to add some mass to your back.
Recently, I’ve been starting my back workouts with deadlifts and then going right into these landmine rows – it’s a killer 1-2 punch to your mid- and lower back.
#2 Landmine Meadow’s Rows
The Meadow’s row (named after the late John Meadows, the bodybuilder who made it famous) is a unilateral row variation that targets your rhomboids and post delts more so than your lats.
And since this is a single arm variation, your core is gonna be forced to kick on big time during this move – especially if you do it without bracing your opposite arm on your leg.
With the Meadow’s row, you want to lead with your elbow coming up toward the ceiling as you squeeze that shoulder blade in toward your spine.
You’ll also notice the overhand grip, which makes this a nice move to help improve your grip strength as well.
I like to go lighter with weight on this one and instead really focus on form and use reps to get that burn.
I find this one a little more challenging, but it’s a great row variation.
#3 Single Arm Landmine Row
If you combined the two exercises already mentioned, you’d get the single arm row.
This exercise uses a similar arm movement as the T-bar row, but it’s a unilateral variation, so you get to work each side individually.
This is a great exercise because again, it’s gonna force your core to engage, but also because it really hits the lats and rhomboids.
The gentleman in the video is holding the fat end of the bar, but you can also grab the bar lower down below the plate as well.
Playing with your hand position can help you target different areas of your back as well – moving closer to the end of the bar (as shown in the video) should target your lower lats more, while moving your hand closer to the middle of the bar should hit your upper back more.
You can also play with foot positioning, but most will likely find a staggered stance most comfortable.
You can brace your other hand on your knee, or keep it off and make your lumbar extensors do all the work, but the important thing is to make sure you’re leading with your elbow and pulling that shoulder blade in toward your spine as you row.
#4 Chest Supported Single Arm Landmine Row
This variation if very similar to the one mentioned above, but this one uses a bench to provide a little more core support.
Using a bench can be helpful if you wanna give your lumbar extensors a break and instead just focus on your lats and rhomboids.
Keeping your bench in the incline position will make it a lot easier to get the range of motion you need to effectively perform this move, but you can play with your foot position to find whatever feels most comfortable.
You’ll also probably wanna use a little less weight with this one and really focus on retracting that shoulder blade.
#5 Viking Row
I’m gonna be honest, I had never heard of this one before researching for this article, but it’s basically just the bilateral version of the Meadow’s row mentioned earlier.
This is another great exercise for hitting your rhomboids and posterior delts especially and those lumbar extensors are gonna be working too of course.
You could also do this move with your chest supported on a bench, but you might have to play with that bench position to get your range right.
This is another great back exercise and it kinda reminds me of the standing version of a horizontal pull up – which are a lot harder than they should be.
The only problem with the Viking row is that you need a Viking attachment for your barbell, but if you’ve got one, this is a good move to add to your repertoire.
Final Thoughts
Ok, there ya go.
Rows are essential to building a strong back and using a landmine station gives you a lot of different options to choose from when it comes to this classic exercise.
When thinking about your back routine, try to incorporate both bilateral and unilateral moves to make sure each muscle group is getting targeted.
And depending on how you do ’em, unilateral moves are also great to build up your core strength too.
Anyway, I think that about does it.
I hope you found this article helpful and if you know of any awesome landmine row exercises I missed here, I’d love to hear about ’em!
Just leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you shortly.
