Rowing Body Transformation – Introduction
Can you accomplish a significant body transformation rowing?
And if yes, how does rowing change your body?
If you’re a regular reader of the Fit Apprentice® Blog, you’ll know that my four-step method to transform your body from fat to fit is based on:
- clean eating – set the foundation of real unprocessed food
- walking – minimum requirement of physical activity
- pushups, – a worldwide measure of upper body pushing strength for the front half of your body (anterior chain)
- deadlifts – the king of full-body compound exercises and the U.S. Army standard of pulling strength including your posterior chain muscles
This 4 step process has served me well for the last decade and helped me go from obese to fit in only 6 months back in 2012.
However, you might not be interested in doing deadlifts to dramatically change your body!
Fortunately, there are many other paths you can take on the road to getting back into shape.
For example, if you go into any gym, you’ll probably see dozens of people doing cardio.
They’ll be running, cycling, using an elliptical, treadmill, or going to group exercise classes to get fit, lose weight, and shape up.
The same is true for most home exercisers.
However, there is another type of cardio workout that could actually be better for you than running and cycling.
Rowing!
Whether you use an indoor rowing machine or head out onto the water, rowing is one of the most beneficial workouts you can do.
In fact, if you are trying to decide between buying a cardio machine for your home gym, an indoor rower should be at the top of your list.
This article reveals the incredible ways that regular rowing workouts can transform your entire body, as well as some of the other benefits of this fantastic workout.
7 Great Ways How Rowing Changes Your Body
Not sure if rowing is the right workout for you?
Consider these sensational rowing body transformation effects!
#1. Strengthen and condition your legs
Rowing is a total body workout, but most of your power comes from your legs.
Each rowing stroke starts with a big lower body push.
In fact, if you analyze the leg movement in rowing, you’ll soon see that it looks a lot like a squat, leg press, or deadlift, and they’re hugely rewarding exercises.
While rowing probably won’t build big, muscular legs, it will strengthen and condition your quadriceps, hamstrings, and gluteus maximus muscles.
#2. Increased core strength
Core is something of a fitness industry buzzword.
It basically means the muscles of your midsection, including your rectus abdominus, obliques, transverse abdominus, and erector spinae muscles.
These core muscles encircle your waist like a weightlifting belt to support your spine.
Rowing is a very core-centric exercise.
You need to engage your core to ensure that the force generated by your legs is efficiently transferred into your upper body and arms.
As such, every rowing workout is also a core workout.
If you want firmer abs or a stronger lower back, rowing will help.
#3. Stronger, better-toned arms and back muscles
While every rowing stroke starts by pushing with your legs, they end with a powerful upper body pull.
This movement is similar to exercises like bent-over rows and seated rows.
This means that rowing delivers an excellent upper body workout that targets your upper back and biceps.
If you want to tone and strengthen your upper body muscles as you get fitter and burn fat, rowing could be the solution.
However, because you’ll be doing high reps with light resistance, rowing won’t lead to bigger muscles.
#4. Burn calories and fat
Rowing is a full body workout.
Unlike cycling and running, your upper body has to work just as hard as your legs.
This means that rowing has the potential to burn more calories per minute than other types of exercise.
Of course, the number of calories burnt depends on how hard you work!
That said, regular rowing workouts could help contribute to the all-important calorie deficit responsible for weight and fat loss.
#5. Better posture
Rowing works all of the muscles responsible for holding your body upright against the pull of gravity.
As such, it could help improve your posture.
Posture might not seem all that important, but it can have a massive impact on how you look.
Sitting and standing upright instantly makes you look younger and slimmer.
Also, good posture takes stress off your back and neck.
Back and neck pain can be debilitating, and even mild to moderate back and neck issues can make everyday activities less enjoyable.
Most workouts tend to focus on the muscles on the front of your body.
Rowing emphasizes the muscles on the back, which is what makes it so good for your posture.
#6. Improved cardiovascular fitness
Rowing is an excellent cardiovascular exercise.
As such, it challenges and develops your cardiovascular system.
Cardiovascular refers to your heart and lungs, as well as your circulatory system, that is, your blood vessels.
When you row, your muscles demand more oxygen.
To meet this demand, your heart and breathing rate increase.
Just as lifting weights makes your muscles stronger, aerobic exercise like a rowing machine workout increases your heart and breathing rate which improves the condition of your heart and lungs.
After a few weeks of regular rowing workouts, your resting heart rate will start to decrease.
This shows your heart is getting bigger and stronger and is able to pump more blood per beat.
Your breathing rate at rest may also decrease slightly.
Improved cardiovascular fitness will make many everyday tasks easier and less tiring, such as walking up flights of stairs or steep hills.
You’ll also be able to exercise harder and longer, burning more calories in the process.
#7. Improved cardiovascular health
Better cardiovascular fitness is inextricably linked to improvements in cardiovascular health.
Regular rowing workouts can help:
- Lower your blood pressure
- Lower bad LDL and increase good HDL cholesterol
- Reduce the risk of coronary heart disease
- Reduce the risk of strokes
- Improve circulation
- Reduce stress – a leading cause of cardiovascular disease
While we can’t promise that rowing will help you live longer, it has the potential to do precisely that!
Fitter people tend to be healthier than unfit people, and there is a strong link between fitness, health, and longevity.
#8. A healthier brain
While rowing is most definitely good for your body, it’s good for your brain too.
There are several mental health benefits to rowing, including:
- Less age-related cognitive decline
- More self-confidence
- Less stress
- Better memory
- Improved focus
- Improved memory
- Increased mental toughness
- Greater self-discipline
- More determination
- Less anxiety and depression
While these benefits aren’t unique to rowing, it’s gratifying to know that your rowing workouts are good for your body AND your mind.
Some Additional Benefits of Rowing
Rowing is clearly good for your body, mind, and overall health.
However, there are several additional benefits that are worth highlighting:
#9. A time-efficient workout
Rowing works all your major muscle groups at the same time while delivering a cardiovascular workout.
As such, even just 20 minutes a day will have a significant impact on how you look and feel.
If you don’t have a lot of time for exercising, rowing is an excellent solution as it gets a lot done in a short time.
Improved fitness, fat burning, and full-body toning all at the same time?
That’s what you can achieve through a rowing body transformation.
How’s that for a time-efficient workout!
#10. Low impact
When you run, your feet hit the ground with an impact equal to about eight times your body weight.
That’s a lot of stress if you weigh 120 lbs., and obviously far more if you weigh closer to 200!
And because running is a high impact exercise, it can cause a host of problems and injuries, including foot, knee, hip, and lower back injuries.
It’s no coincidence that so many runners suffer from chronic aches and pains.
In contrast, rowing is a low-impact activity, so it’s much kinder to your joints.
It doesn’t matter how much you weigh; your joints won’t have to deal with any kind of pounding.
Because of this, you should be able to row more often than you can run, leading to better results and faster progress.
#11. There are lots of different ways to work out with a rower
Some people believe that rowing is boring.
Not true!
Rowing is a versatile workout that you can modify for almost any fitness goal.
You can do longer, slower rows to develop your aerobic fitness or shorter, faster rows to work more on your anaerobic fitness.
You can also do interval training.
Alternatively, you can combine rowing with other types of exercise to make your workouts even more varied, for example:
- Row 500 meters
- 20 push-ups
- Row 500 meters
- 10 pull-ups
- Row 500 meters
- 30 squats
- Row 500 meters
- 20 push-ups
- Row 500 meters
- 10 pull-ups
- Row 500 meters
- 30 squats
This workout only needs a rowing machine and power tower or similar.
For this reason, a rowing machine is an excellent piece of equipment and one of the best exercise machines for your home gym.
See the 7 Best Rowing Machines Under $500 Review and 2023 Buying Guide for the most outstanding options on the market today.
#12. Quantifiable workouts
Most rowing machines display and record various details about your workouts.
This information provides useful feedback that you can use to measure your progress and set goals.
Over time you should see that your:
- stroke rate decreases as you get stronger
- speed increases
- heart rate decreases
- training distances increase
You can also measure your performance over set distances, such as 5,000 or 10,000 meters.
Faster times mean you’re getting fitter, and your workouts are producing the desired results.
All of this can be very motivating.
#13. Rowing is also a bonafide sport
While there is nothing wrong with rowing just for fitness, indoor and outdoor rowing are also bonafide sports.
Mass indoor rowing events are very popular, and you can also compete virtually online over a range of distances – from 2,000 meters to full marathons.
Outdoors, rowing clubs are always on the lookout for new members and will teach you how to row correctly.
Rowing clubs often have a strong social scene too.
Whether you compete against yourself or pit your fitness against others, rowing is an accessible and enjoyable sport.
Rowing Body Transformation – Wrapping Up
So, whether you use a rowing machine at the gym or at home or head out onto the water to row, it’s one of the best workouts you can do for your overall fitness, health, and appearance.
Rowing does require a little more skill than other types of exercise but, even then, it’s easy to learn and quick to master.
If you are looking for a convenient, time-efficient, highly beneficial workout, rowing is a great choice.
It could be just what you need to transform your body.
What’s Next
As you now know, rowing is a low-impact activity that provides you with a great workout for almost all of the major muscles of your body.
However, as comprehensive a workout as rowing is, if you want to get better at it, a specific strength training program will help.
Complement your rowing body transformation with the 10 Best Strength Training Exercises for Rowing and our tried-and-tested workout!
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- The Powerful Benefits of Push-Ups to Change your Body
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Rich is a NASM-CPT (Certified Personal Trainer),