Upright Row Alternative: 8 Shoulder-Friendly Swaps for Delts and Traps

The best upright row alternative for most people is the lateral raise, ideally on a cable, because it trains the side delts through the same range without twisting the shoulder inwards at the top. If your goal is bigger traps rather than wider shoulders, swap the upright row for shrugs. And if you like the upright row's pulling feel and just want it to stop hurting, a wide-grip high pull that stops at chest height keeps most of the movement with far less pinching.

Almost everyone searching for a replacement has the same problem: a sharp, pinchy feeling at the front or top of the shoulder as the bar nears the chin. That isn't random, and once you understand why it happens, picking a swap gets easy.

Why the upright row pinches

At the top of a classic narrow-grip upright row, your upper arms are lifted out to the side at or above 90 degrees while your hands, locked onto a bar in front of you, force the arms into internal rotation. That's the textbook position for squeezing the tissues (rotator cuff tendons and the bursa) that sit in the narrow space under the acromion.

The research on this is fairly consistent. A Japanese ultrasound study of healthy young shoulders found the compressive force on the subacromial structures averaged about 21 N at 90 degrees of abduction with maximal internal rotation, against 3 N or less with the arm in neutral or turned outwards (Yanai et al., Clinical Biomechanics). The authors' conclusion was blunt: it's not lifting the arm that causes impingement, it's lifting it while rotated inwards. A separate study of 34 pain-free adults measured the acromiohumeral distance (the gap between the top of the arm bone and the shoulder roof) and found it was significantly smaller with the humerus internally rotated than in neutral or external rotation (Kim et al., Journal of Physical Therapy Science).

One study looked at the upright row directly. Italian researchers scanned 25 men holding a 4kg load and found the subacromial space was larger at 90 degrees of abduction with the arm externally rotated than it was at the top of an upright row (Longo et al., Physical Therapy in Sport).

So the job of a good alternative is simple. Keep the target muscles working, and either keep the arm below shoulder height or let it turn outwards rather than inwards.

Pick by goal: side delts or traps?

The upright row trains two things at once, and you'll get better results replacing them separately. Our main upright row guide covers the lift itself in detail.

Your goal	Best swap	Also good
Wider shoulders (side delts)	Cable lateral raise	Lean-away dumbbell raise, Y-raise
Rear delts and upper back	Face pull	Band pull-apart, rear delt fly
Bigger upper traps	Shrugs	Wide-grip high pull
Same feel, less pain	Wide-grip high pull to chest	Cable upright row with rope

Side delt alternatives

1. Cable lateral raise

This is our first pick. Stand side-on to a low pulley, take the handle in the far hand and raise your arm out to the side until it's level with your shoulder. Because the cable pulls across your body, there's real tension at the bottom of the rep, where a dumbbell raise goes slack.

Cues that matter:

• Lead with the elbow, keeping a soft bend, and think "push the handle away" rather than up.
• Stop at shoulder height. Going higher just hands the work to your traps.
• Keep the thumb level with or slightly above the little finger. Pouring an imaginary jug (little finger high) rotates the arm inwards, which is the exact position you're trying to avoid.

There's a full breakdown, including setup height, in our cable lateral raise guide.

2. Lean-away lateral raise

Hold a door frame, rack upright or cable column with one hand and let your body lean away at around 15 to 30 degrees, with a dumbbell in the free hand. The lean shifts the hardest part of the lift lower in the range, so the delt is loaded when your arm starts out by your side rather than only near the top. It's the best home version of the cable raise if you only own dumbbells.

3. Standard dumbbell lateral raise

The classic still works. Use a weight you can control for 12 to 20 reps (for most people that's 4kg to 10kg), lift slightly in front of your body rather than straight out to the side, and lower over two or three seconds. See our lateral raises guide for the common form faults.

4. Y-raise

Lie chest-down on an incline bench set to about 30 to 45 degrees, or stand at a low cable, and raise your arms up and out in a Y shape with thumbs pointing to the ceiling. The thumbs-up position puts the arm in external rotation, so even though your hands finish above shoulder height, the shoulder isn't jammed the way it is in a narrow upright row. It hits the side delts and lower traps, and it's humbling: 2kg to 5kg dumbbells are plenty. Our cable Y-raise guide covers the cable setup.

Trap and pulling alternatives

5. Shrugs

If the upright row was mainly a trap builder for you, shrugs do that job better with zero shoulder rotation. Hold heavy dumbbells by your sides, lift your shoulders straight up towards your ears, pause for a second, then lower slowly. Don't roll the shoulders; it adds nothing. Dumbbells usually feel more natural than a barbell because your hands sit at your sides. Form details are in our shrugs guide.

6. Wide-grip high pull to chest

This is the upright row with the dangerous bits removed. Take a grip about twice shoulder width on a barbell, EZ bar or cable bar (or use dumbbells), pull your elbows up and out, and stop when the bar reaches the bottom of your chest with elbows level with your shoulders. A study of 16 trained men found that widening the upright row grip to twice shoulder width increased deltoid and trapezius activity and reduced biceps involvement compared with narrower grips (McAllister et al., Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research). So you aren't losing anything by going wide.

A rope attachment on a low cable is even friendlier, because your hands can separate at the top and the wrists aren't fixed to a straight bar.

7. Face pull

Set a rope on a cable at roughly face height, pull it towards your forehead and pull the ends apart so your hands finish beside your ears with your knuckles pointing back. That finishing position is external rotation, the reverse of the upright row, and it trains the rear delts, mid traps and rotator cuff together. If you don't have a cable, our face pull alternatives list covers band and dumbbell options.

8. Band pull-apart

Hold a light band at shoulder height with straight arms and pull it apart until it touches your chest. It's not a mass builder, but 2 to 3 sets of 15 to 25 reps between other exercises is a cheap way to keep the rear shoulder and upper back strong, and it costs about £10 for a band.

Common mistakes when swapping

Pulling every alternative too high. The fix for the upright row is lower elbows, so don't recreate the problem by raising lateral raises above shoulder level or yanking high pulls to your chin.

Going too heavy on raises. Side delts are small. If you have to swing your torso to get a dumbbell up, it's too heavy, and the traps take over.

Letting the hands rotate inwards. On any raise, pinky-up "jug pouring" brings back internal rotation. Keep the thumbs level or slightly up.

Replacing only half the job. Swap the upright row for lateral raises alone and your rear delts and traps lose work. Pair a side delt move with a trap or rear delt move.

A simple shoulder session without upright rows

Do this once or twice a week, alongside your pressing work.

1. Cable or lean-away lateral raise: 3 sets of 12 to 15 per arm
2. Face pull: 3 sets of 15
3. Dumbbell shrug: 3 sets of 10 to 12, one-second pause at the top
4. Y-raise: 2 sets of 12 to 15, light

Add weight to the shrugs first; the raises progress slowly, and a jump of a kilo or two per dumbbell is a big increase for the side delts. If you train at home, a set of adjustable dumbbells makes those small jumps easy, and the rest of our home gym guides cover benches and cable options.

Recommended reads

• Upright row: how to do it safely
• Cable lateral raise
• Cable Y-raise
• Face pull alternatives
• The best adjustable dumbbells in the UK