Rowing is the ultimate, non-jarring, full-body exercise. Rowing provides one of the best all-round cardiovascular work-outs. It’s also one of the few non-weight bearing sports that exercises all the major muscle groups. It works your legs, stomach, back, and arms. While the legs provide most of the power of the rowing stroke, the upper body adds the rest and rowing is one of the few aerobic activities that can condition and strengthen the back, It quickly and efficiently burns calories and builds muscle tone. If you’re always pushed for time to work out, an indoor rower is perfect.

As it is low-impact on joints, it’s an especially good way for participants of other sports to maintain aerobic fitness while rehabilitating from injury especially good for runners with dodgy knees!

Rowing is a great calorie burner and combined with healthy eating, will help shed pounds as it conditions the muscles, and therefore increases your metabolism. Rowers help you to burn calories at the rate of 20 calories per minute, thus, with a work out for half-an-hour, you will be burning 600 calories.

Rowing exercises muscles through a wider range of motion compared to other activities – muscles are stretched and the joints are move to a greater extent – thereby promoting flexibility and mobility.

There are a wide range of rowing machines to choose from. Basically, there are five types of rowing machines and each type uses different kind of resistance type.

* Air resistance rowing machines
* Air/magnetic resistance rowing machines
* Magnetic resistance
* Piston resistance rowing machines
* Water resistance rowing machines

Air resistance rowing machines use a fan or propeller to generate resistance. When in use the machine automatically increases or decreases the resistance depending on the stroke rate so you feel like you are actually rowing. Typically, this type of rowers are longer than other types so occupy more space. You can however find a few models that can be folded.

Air/magnetic type rowing machines use both air resistance and magnetic resistance. These rowers provide you option to select any of these mechanisms during your work out. Generally, magnetic resistance offers noise-free and smoother work out and these machines come with features like tension adjustment, programmable settings and different weight capacities etc.

Magnetic resistance type rowers have strong magnets that produce different levels of resistance. Unlike air resistance rowers, they do not generate noise but they are generally as long as their counterparts. The main advantage of magnetic resistance is that it offers easy work out for beginners and it allows the users to use different setting levels to do various work outs to their own comfort levels.

Piston resistance rowers use hydraulic cylinders and arms on either side. They are much cheaper, smaller and take up less space. Suitable for entry level rowers, the main advantage of piston resistance machines is that it gives all the benefits of rowing exercises without making a dent in your budget. Although they are noise-free, they don’t provide the fuller, smoother elongation that magnetic resistance allows. They are compact, but may not be suitable for everyone, especially if you are tall.

Water resistance rowers imitate real rowing and function. The rower has a water tank and there are varied levels of resistance depending on the amount of water in the tank. As with air resistance rowers, the resistance of water rower increases or decreases depending on the speed of stroke. Rowing on this type of rower is perhaps the closest experience to actually rowing on water. The resistance created by the paddles is authentic. The rocking motion on the seat with proper technique replicates the movements on a skull.

Rowing is the perfect overall exercise and the water resistance rowers are in my opinion the the perfect rowing machines. If your really serious about getting into the best shape of your life then rowing is the perfect choice.

1000 meter row to warm up, Tabata rowing, 2 minutes hard, followed by 1 minute easy X 10.
500 meter cool down. Stretch.

I have a WaterRower so todays workout is going to be a rowing one.
Distance Row (easy/medium intensity row – 55-65% of MHR) 2000 meters to warm up.
5000 meters Steady State Distance Row at an intensity around 60-70% of max heart rate. 500 meters cool down. 5 minutes stretching.