How to do the rowing machine
The rowing machine is the closest thing in a gym to a full-body cardio exercise, and it is almost always done wrong. The stroke is roughly sixty percent legs, and most people row it with their arms.
- Type
- Cardio
- Level
- Beginner
- Equipment
- Rowing machine
- Works
- Legs, Lats, and Mid-back
- Also worked
- Glutes, Hamstrings, Biceps, and Abdominals
- Also called
- Erg, Indoor Rowing, and Concept2
Before you start
- Strap your feet in with the strap across the ball of your foot.
- Set the damper to 3 to 5 — it is a gear, not a difficulty setting, and higher is not harder in a useful way.
- Sit tall at the catch with shins vertical, arms straight, shoulders in front of your hips.
How to do it
- Drive: push with your legs first, keeping your arms straight and your back angle fixed.
- Swing: once your legs are almost flat, open your hips and swing your torso back to about eleven o'clock.
- Pull: finish by drawing the handle to the bottom of your ribcage with your elbows going past your body.
- Recovery: reverse the order exactly — arms away, then body over, then bend the knees and slide forward.
Cues that help
- Legs, body, arms on the drive. Arms, body, legs on the recovery.
- Drive is fast, recovery is slow — around a one-to-two ratio.
- Handle travels in a flat line at the height of your lower ribs.
Common mistakes
Bending the arms too early
Pulling with the arms at the start blocks the legs from contributing. Keep the arms straight until the legs are nearly done.
Cranking the damper to 10
A high damper is a heavy gear that most people cannot pull well. Most competitive rowers sit at 3 to 5.
Rushing the slide forward
Racing back up the slide kills your rhythm and your split. Let the recovery take twice as long as the drive.
How to progress it
Track your 500 m split rather than raw distance at first. Once your technique holds up, build to longer steady pieces of 20 to 30 minutes, then add intervals — 500 m or one-minute repeats — once a week.
How to track it
Log distance in metres and duration. Split is distance and time, so those two fields carry everything you need, and the equipment field can note the machine if you use more than one.
Log your rowing machine
Opens the cardio form with Row already filled in. Free account, no card.
Rowing Machine questions
What damper setting should I use?
3 to 5 for most people. It controls how much air enters the flywheel, which changes the feel of the stroke rather than how hard the workout is.
What is a good 2000 m time?
It varies enormously with size and training history. The useful comparison is your own previous 2000 m, not a table.
Should I row every day?
You can — it is low impact — but rowing is fatiguing on the back and grip. Three or four sessions a week is plenty alongside lifting.