How to do the Smith Machine One-Arm Upright Row

Steps

1. With the bar at thigh level, load an appropriate weight.
2. Take a wide grip on the bar and unhook the weight, removing your off hand from the bar. Your arm should be extended as you stand up straight with your head and chest up. This will be your starting position.
3. Begin the movement by flexing the elbow, raising the upper arm with the elbow pointed out. Continue until your upper arm is parallel to the floor.
4. After a brief pause, return the weight to the starting position.
5. Repeat for the desired number of repetitions before engaging the hooks to rack the weight.

Tracking it in OneRep

Add the smith machine one-arm upright row to a routine and your previous weight and reps sit beside every set, so the decision to add load is made by what is already on the screen rather than by memory. Exercise history and volume trends are one tap away, and logging works offline for the gyms where signal does not reach.

Because OneRep tracks food on the same timeline, a stall on this lift can be read against what you were actually eating that month — which is the difference between a programming problem and an eating one. More on that in tracking progressive overload without a spreadsheet.

Where the instructions come from

The steps above come from free-exercise-db, a public-domain exercise dataset. They are general guidance, not coaching for your body: if a movement hurts, stop and get someone qualified to look at it.