Rowing machines simulate the same rowing motion that you would experience if you were sitting in a boat and pulling oars through water. This dry-land machine has a sliding seat with a platform for your feet and a handle attached to a pulley. A workout on a rowing machine offers you a number of benefits.
Weight Loss
Any repetitive cardiovascular exercise burns calories and melts away pounds. The rowing machine is no exception. A 200-lb. person burns more than 770 calories during a 60-minute vigorous rowing session. This helps you lose weight, if that is a goal.
Cardiorespiratory Endurance
Cardiorespiratory endurance is the ability to perform repetitive tasks without becoming winded. When you to a rowing workout, you strengthen your lungs and heart, which are the main muscles involved with cardiovascular function. By improving your cardiovascular endurance, you will be able to do daily jobs that require lung capacity with more efficiency, such as cutting the lawn or walking up multiple flights of stairs. Increased cardio endurance will also allow you to work out for longer time frames with successive workouts. This, in turn, will burn more calories and speed your weight loss efforts.
Full-Body Workout
Unlike exercises like biking and running, rowing requires you to work muscles in your upper and lower body at the same time. This allows you to get a good workout in a short amount of time if you have a busy lifestyle. The main lower body muscles that get worked are the glutes, quadriceps and hamstrings. The glutes are your butt muscles, the quads are on the front of the thighs, and the hamstrings are on the back of the thighs. The calf muscles, which are located below the knees on the back of the shins, contract throughout the whole workout to stabilize the lower leg. The upper body muscles include the latissimus dorsi, deltoids, trapezius, pectorals, triceps and biceps. The pecs are the chest muscles, the delts and traps are the shoulder muscles, and the lats run from the lower back up to the top. The biceps are on the front of the upper arms and the triceps are on the back. The whole time you do a rowing workout, your abs are also contracting.
Improved Muscular Endurance
Daily tasks, such as raking gravel and shoveling snow, take muscular endurance. This is the ability to do repetitive muscle contractions for an extended period of time. A rowing workout improves your upper and lower body muscular endurance. By improving your muscular endurance, your muscles will not tire out as quickly, and you will work more effectively.
Low-Impact
High-impact exercises, such as jumping rope and running, place a lot of stress on your joints. If you currently have joint problems or want to avoid them, rowing workouts provide you with a low-impact exercise.
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