Rowing Machine Workout

Having a rowing machine in your home gym gives you the flexibility of getting in some rowing practice and improving your general fitness either when the weather is against you or your schedule is too full to get to the gym.

Technogym Skillrow is one of the most advanced indoor rowing machines yet developed, designed to improve your cardiovascular and respiratory fitness as well as strengthen and tone just about every muscle group in your body. The Aquafeel technology of the Skillrow cleverly replicates the sensation of rowing on the water while you row your way to better stamina, speed, skill, and power.

Combine the machine's Multidrive Technology with the Skillrow Professional App and you can choose the right rowing machine workout whether you're new to rowing or have been taking to the water for years.

Have your rowing machine workout with Technogym Skillrow

Discover Skillrow

What Does a Rowing Machine Workout Do: The Muscles Involved

There are many benefits of a rowing machine workout and you definitely don't have to be a competitive rower to see the positive effects. Rowing provides you with an intense workout that includes resistance training, meaning the heart must work harder to pump blood around the body. This is an effective way of boosting your body's metabolism, fitness, and strength all without putting too much stress on your joints.

At the same time, you'll be burning off a serious amount of calories. You may be asking yourself, however, when I do a rowing machine workout what muscles do, I actually use? You'll be surprised at the answer. You'll be exercising most major muscle groups in the body. You'll feel and see the benefit in your upper back, arms, pectorals, abs, obliques, calves, quads, and glutes.

A Workout on the Rowing Machine for Beginners

One bonus of the Technogym Skillrow is that you can control your movement and pace, setting it to suit your experience level even if you're a total beginner. Start off with routines that include some power or cardio work interspersed with recovery phases (rowing HIIT). Setting your goals and changing modes is easily done from your seated position. You can either plan your own workouts or download the Skillrow Professional App to your smartphone and connect it to the holder on the machine's console.

Try a rowing machine workout for beginners with Technogym Skillrow

The app stores your workouts and training, helping you row your way to your goals while giving you access to a varied choice of workouts for your rowing machine. Ready to give rowing a go? Then try this simple 20-minute rowing machine workout for beginners. As you feel more comfortable with it, play around with your pace and speed, or switch up the intensity scale from UT2 (relaxed rowing with a good rhythm) to UT1 (rowing at an aerobic workout level).

Detail Time Rate
(strokes/minute)
Intensity
Warm-up with
gentle rowing
5 minutes 20
Rowing - arms and trunk 3 minutes 22 UT2
Rowing - quarter slide 2 minutes 20
Rowing - half slide 3 minutes 22 UT2
Rowing - ¾ slide 2 minutes 20 UT1
Cool-down with
gentle rowing
5 minutes 20
  • Arms and Trunk: This is a good starting position that lets you focus on getting your arm movements correct. Keep legs slightly flexed but immobile and row using your arms and upper body only.
  • Quarter Slide: Add a short leg drive to your rowing movement. The quarter slide lets you focus more on your finishing technique.
  • Half-Slide: Start adding more power through your legs, pushing them up until the knees are at 90-degrees. This means your legs and trunks will be working simultaneously, helping you with your coordination and giving a more dynamic push through the stroke.

Three-quarter Slide: Begin to stretch your legs out even further, making your hips do some of the work. As you become more confident with this movement, you will notice increased coordination between your legs and trunk

Rowing Machine: An Advanced Workout

Once you're familiar with your Technogym Skillrow and have built up stamina and confidence on the rowing machine you'll be ready to tackle a more advanced workout. Magnets incorporated into the mechanism of the Skillrow provide the resistance for power mode, needed for strength training. As you follow our workouts or put together your own, you'll be delighted at how easy it is to switch between cardio and power modes by simply adjusting the resistance level of your machine. You can select from over 10 settings and three power modes. Your settings and performance achievements are clearly visible on the console while downloading the Skillrow Professional App gives you a range of advanced challenges to choose from. From our library of guided training, you can set a pace boat target to work with, compete virtually with friends, receive biofeedback information about your stroke force, length, and distance, and train with elite coaches such as Scott Durant and Alexia Clark. To take your rowing to the next level, we've put together an advanced workout plan for your Technogym Rowing Machine.

This Advanced Routine takes 45 minutes in total and is designed to help you develop stamina and endurance (UT2 to UT1) as well as perfect a good rowing technique. During it, you'll work at an average stroke rate of 22 per minute while doing at least 900 strokes in total.
Session Details Time Rate
(strokes per minute)
Intensity
Warm-up • 1 minute of easy half-slide strokes
• 1 minute of full slide strokes
• 5 minutes at a steady rate of 20 spm
• 1 minute at UT1 intensity
• 2 minutes easy rowing at UT2
10 minutes 18-20 UT2 - UT1
Rowing • Focus on form and technique -
switching between quarter, half
and three-quarter slides
• Switch your pace, speeding up
and down to challenge yourself
30 minutes 22 Switch between
UT2 and UT1
Cool-down Easy rowing 5 minutes 20

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