Rowing is a low-impact form of exercise that quickly raises your heart rate and causes a bead of sweat to pool up on your brow. Aside from the fact that rowing causes a meltdown of fat, you also engage multiple muscles throughout a workout. This helps improve your definition as you lose weight. If you use a rowing machine in your workouts, you can increase the workload on your muscles by turning up the resistance.
Buttocks
You may hear the buttocks referred to as the glutes. This muscle group actually has three parts --- the gluteus maximus, medius and minimus. When you push backward with your thighs during the rowing motion, you perform hip extension, which activates your glutes.
Hip Flexion Muscles
The quadriceps sit on the front of the thighs and consist of the rectus femoris, vastus medialis, vastus lateralis and vastus intermedius. You work the quads when you perform hip flexion and knee extension during rowing. Hip flexion takes place when you move your thigh toward your stomach and knee extension takes place when you straighten your lower leg. Hip flexion also targets the small hip flexor muscles, which consist of the iliacus and psoas major.
Rear Thigh
The hamstrings sit on the back of the thighs and consist of the long and short head of the biceps femoris, semitendinosus and semimembranosus. You work these muscles when you perform hip extension and knee flexion. Knee flexion takes place when you bend your knee and move your heel closer to your butt.
V-Shaped Muscles
The back has a large muscle called the latissimus dorsi. When it is well-defined, it gives the back a "V" shape when looked at from behind. Any time you pull an object toward your body, you work the lats. When you row, the lats get worked as you pull the bar close to your chest.
Upper Arms
The biceps sit on the front of the upper arms. Every time you bend your elbow and reduce the angle between your forearm and humerus, you work your biceps. This motion takes place numerous times when you pull the handle toward your body. The biceps consist of the biceps brachii and brachialis. The biceps brachii has a long and short head.
Upper Back
The rhomboids major and minor sit between the shoulder blades in the upper back. You work your rhomboids during the pulling motion in rowing when you squeeze your shoulder blades together. This is called scapular retraction.
Lower Trapezius
The trapezius gets its name from the fact that it is shaped like a trapezoid. It starts at the base of the neck, then flares out toward the shoulders and down to the middle of the back. In similar fashion to the rhomboids, the trapezius gets targeted when you pull the handle backward. Most of this emphasis is placed on the middle to lower fibers.
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