Bent Over Row

British beer: a storm in a pint glass

These should be the best of times for the Campaign for Real Ale. In many ways, they are: with more than 120,000 members, the organisation has never been so well-supported while next month’s Great British Beer Festival (GBBF), which Camra has run for 34 years, is expected to be better attended than ever before. Good beer, it appears, is back on the national agenda, industrial lager is engaged in an (as yet, slow) retreat and Camra can take much of the credit.

As ever, though, things are not quite as peachy as they seem. The microbrewery revolution of the past ten years (Britain now has approaching 800 breweries) has seen an explosion in not only cask brewers but also brewers who, conversely, reject Camra’s central tenets. Indeed, a number of new brewers believe the organisation – set up in 1971 to support traditional British cask beer – stifles innovation and promotes mediocrity.

One such is Scotland’s Brewdog (who, it must be said, have plenty of critics of their own). They’re advocates of what Americans call ‘craft beer’ – a term that suffers for the lack of a simple definition but which appears to mean good, innovative beer made on a human scale – and critics of cask ale (which, nonetheless, they brew, although they put far more of their beer in kegs). They’ve long been vocal opponents of Camra. Speaking to the Independent last November , co-founder James Watt said: “I’ve been to a few Camra beer festivals in Scotland and I wanted to shoot myself after 10 minutes – there were bagpipes, it was so clichéd and stuffy.”

It was a surprise, then, when it emerged earlier this year that BrewDog would be at this year’s GBBF. It seemed the two sides had kissed and made up. That is, until last week, when the Fraserburgh brewers revealed they would not, after all, be appearing at the great fete of British beer. The reasons for that are disputed, but they go to the heart of the row splitting British brewing. The likes of Brewdog believe Camra should embrace all types of quality beer; Camra say their role is to promote cask-conditioned, or ‘real’ ale (cask real ale contains live yeast and undergoes secondary fermentation, as opposed to keg, which doesn’t – although sometimes it does. Confused?).

The organiser of the GBBF, Marc Holmes, says that the fault for Brewdog not appearing at GBBF lies with the brewer. Both sides acknowledge that there were differences over the size of the kegs to be used (Camra wanted them to be bigger: “I said to James, ‘come down this year.Come see our bars and see how it would be impossible to have smaller containers, due to the amount of work, "says Holmes. "We run a tight ship"), but Watt said Holmes did not meet the payment deadline, which fell either Thursday or Friday, depending on who you believe.

Deadlifts and Sandies: Keith Wassung on the Bent Row

Bent over rowing is a great movement for the upper body. The work of this movement hard and do not be surprised if you see increases in the bench press, squat and dead lift and an increase in muscle development. A key aspect of the curved line is that there are a variety of techniques and variations to choose from which means that anyone can find a method of performing this movement regardless of their body structure. The important thing is to ensure that your technique is fairly consistent so that increased poundages are the result of strength gains, not in favorable advantages in the biomechanics of the lift. The width of your hand spacing should be slightly wider than your shoulders, but this will vary with each individual. Your hand spacing and grip should put you into a position where you can strictly row with the greatest amount of weight. You can use either a pronated or supinated grip. The pronated or overhand grip tends to hit the upper back harder, while the supinated grip tends to work the lower lats a bit more. Experiment with both variations and see which one works best for you, or even use both grips in an alternating fashion. I have found that the supinated grip works best when using an E-Z curl bar to take the strain off the wrists. Use plenty of chalk and or resin on your hands to ensure a firm grip. If you happen to train at a commercial gym that does not allow chalk (somebody should really invent flesh colored chalk) then purchase some resin bags and place them in a large colored sandwich zip-lock bag. You can dip your hands into the bag and get plenty of resin and there will be no waste at all. Take a good solid stance, with the feet about shoulder width. Lean forward and bend the knees just slightly so that you nearly settle your abdomen onto your thighs with the hips being the center of gravity. If you have ever played football and had to get into the classic 3-point stance, as similar position will suffice for the barbell row-ie, you want to get into a stance where you can generate the most power. The angle of your upper body can be anywhere from parallel to about 45 degrees though I believe that you should try and get as close to parallel as you can. People with a longer torso tend to do a bit better with a higher angle than an individual with a shorter torso. Make sure the back is flat and stable keeping a slight arch in the lumbar region before the weight is pulled off the floor.

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