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Indoor Rowing: What You Need to Know — and a Workout to Try It!

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Have you tried indoor rowing yet? Ah, you have to! It’s such a great low-impact workout that’s full body and pretty darn fun. But, we’ll admit, if you’ve never been on the indoor rower before, it can be a bit intimidating. Or, actually, pretty easy to get your row on without the best of form if you don’t have the proper guidance.

To help us all get in the know about this new hot workout craze, we picked the brain of Betina Gozo, CrossTown Fitness‘ fitness director to chat about what we need to know about indoor rowing. Read on for why indoor rowing is such a great workout, how you can do it properly and even some indoor-rowing workout ideas!

Indoor Rowing Tips, Tricks and a Workout

Why is indoor rowing such a great workout? With rowing machines, you can get a great total-body cardio workout without the high impact! You can also increase the resistance, so you are able to challenge and tone your legs, glutes, back, shoulders and arms with each stroke.

What’s the one thing everyone should know about indoor rowing? Just like with any exercise, form is very important. Especially since it is a cardio exercise, it is easy to tire out easy and lose your form. If you are at a gym, ask a trainer to make sure you are doing it correctly.

In case a trainer isn’t around, can you share a few tips and pointers on proper indoor-rowing form and position? It should be a fluid movement. Sitting tall with your shoulders back and core engaged, you straighten out your legs and lean back to about 75 degrees as you pull the handles to your chest, squeezing your shoulder blades back. Then you straighten out your arms and lean forward to about 105 degrees before you bend your legs again. Then repeat!

What are a few of your favorite indoor rowing workouts? You can row in intervals, just like spiriting on the treadmills. I like to “sprint” row for about 400 meters, then take it easy for 200, then sprint again and repeat until I get to 2,400 meters, which equates to about 1 mile long of sprinting. You also don’t have to use the rower only for rowing. Here is a fun video I made with some other things you can do with the rower!

Alrighty, we gotta know: Have you tried indoor rowing? I love it, but definitely could tweak my form a bit for the better! Jenn

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Comments

8 Comments
  1. Awesome! I have eyed up the rowing machine for years, but never really ventured to use it. Too bad, because it sounds like a great two in one cardio and upper body workout (I am ALL for saving time!!). I’m inspired to give this a shot in the gym this week – hopefully I can perfect my technique!

    🙂 Jill
    Latest Post: Working Out and Not Seeing Results? How Overtraining Can Stall Fitness and Weightloss

  2. Deekron says:

    Great article. Rowing has definitely made a comeback. Wer’e exited to offer coached rowing workouts in our new app. #motiontraxx

  3. Deanna says:

    I absolutely LOVE indoor rowing!!!! I had a personal training teach me a few years ago and still try it out from time to time. I joke with my husband that the next piece of gym equipment that we would purchase would be a rowing machine. 😛 Hey, maybe one day it would happen. 😀

  4. Sarah says:

    The rowing machine is the BEST! I used it to help me get rid of 50 lbs. that had been dogging me for years, and now it’s my steadfast, always-ready partner to keep the weight off. I wrote up my story here in case it’s of interest: http://ucanrow2.com/sarahs-story/

    Can’t say enough good things about rowing, but I would also second the point made in the article that you should get help from someone with experience to get your technique down, preferably a certified indoor rowing instructor.

  5. Karen OConnor says:

    I’ve tried and recommend it for people with bad knees.

  6. Indoor workout is also good for health and mind . Because indoor you will get sufficient energy to understand how to do workout.

  7. Mary says:

    I was always skeptical about using a rowing machine before but recently I started using the one at the gym and I have to admit it I was worried about nothing. In fact working out on a rower is easy and fun and helped my burn 250 calories in 20 minutes. yaaaay 😀

    I plan to get one for home use too? Any suggestions on what rowing machine would be best and reasonable too?

  8. Jessica says:

    Rowing is by faaar the most effective, easy to use and fun cardio machine, better than the treadmill, spin bikes and even elliptical trainers. Rowing has been part of my routine for quite sometime now and I have been able to lose 25 pounds :D.. Thanks for the tips though

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