Both rowing machines and exercise bikes are relatively small, inexpensive and lightweight when compared to other cardio machines. Both also allow you to exercise while seated. This is an advantage if you have stability problems, but it doesn’t offer the bone-strengthening benefits of weight-bearing exercise. Despite their similarities, though, bike and rowing machine have a number of differences.
Purpose
Both rowing machines and bikes are common sights in the gym cardio room. But they do more than aid weight loss or general fitness: They are part of the training of athletes. Rowing machines, especially high-quality models, imitate the motion of competitive sweep rowing. Although some exercise bikes resemble a real bike only superficially, some high-end models and group cycling bikes offer a realistic biking experience that you can use to train for cycle racing or triathlons.
Resistance
Bikes and rowers offer some similar resistance options. At the low end of the price range, air-resistance rowers and bikes can be noisy but offer the benefit of a built-in cooling fan. The faster you row or pedal, the more resistance the fan blades generate and the more cooling air you receive. Piston or hydraulic rowers offer a rougher movement than other resistance types, but they are compact, quieter than air-resistance models and inexpensive. This type of rower resistance is much like a direct-tension exercise bike, which provides resistance from the tension of a strap laid directly against the rotating flywheel. Magnetic resistance is a high-end, quiet, smooth-operating option for both bikes and rowers. The best exercise bikes have magnetic resistance, but the highest-end rowing machines go one step further, with water resistance for the most realistic rowing simulation possible.
Programming
Rowing machines don’t lean as heavily on built-in exercise programs as exercise bikes do, but some rowers do offer heart rate control programs or a race mode, in which you race against a computer-simulated rower or against another person on a nearby rower. Exercise bikes, on the other hand, often feature heart rate control programs and exercise programming that automatically adjusts the bike’s resistance.
Features
You don’t have to be a competitive rower to use a rowing machine, but they’re definitely designed with an eye toward that function. As such, they usually offer basic display information like stroke rate, distance traveled, calories burned, energy output and time spent on the machine. Exercise bikes, on the other hand, usually have more general features like push-button adjustable resistance, handgrip heart rate monitors, MP3-compatible speakers and built-in cooling fans.
Muscles Worked
Rowing is a full-body workout that, at high resistance levels, combines speed and strength to build power in both your upper and lower body. Cycling provides a good toning workout for your lower body, but there are few stationary bikes with moving handlebars that lets you get an upper-body workout, too.
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