10 Benefits of Rowing You Can Get Right at Home
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Unless you’re on the crew team or an Orangetheory regular, rowing probably isn’t top of mind when mulling your workout options. But there are tons of benefits to rowing that might just convince you to give the ergometer at your gym a whirl—and maybe even make it a staple in your exercise routine.
Not only can rowing deliver stellar cardio, helping to bolster your heart health, but it’s also great for challenging your muscles, enhancing your posture, improving mobility, and a whole lot more.
In case you need more convincing, we tapped two instructors to learn all you can gain from making rowing part of your routine, plus what type of workout it “counts” as, which muscles it engages, and the best at-home rowers to shop for. Read on for all you need to know about this underrated full-body workout machine.
What kind of workout is rowing considered?
Hop on a rowing machine for a few minutes and you’ll probably notice your breathing gets ragged and your muscles start to burn. That begs the question: What does rowing “count” as—cardio or strength? Turns out, it’s both.
Rowing is “excellent aerobic exercise,” certified personal trainer Michelle Parolini, CPT, Concept2 rowing master trainer and manager of coach development at Row House, tells SELF. That’s because it’s a continuous movement that engages lots of big muscle groups, which effectively jacks up your heart rate. At the same time, rowing also delivers a dose of strengthening thanks to the resistance created by the machine, she explains. In particular, your quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves work really hard through the drive of the stroke—the motion where you press through your feet, lean back, and pull the handles toward you, Parolini says. Your core, upper-back muscles, and biceps are also firing during this time.
Just keep in mind: The strength benefits rowing provides fall under the category of muscular endurance (the ability of your muscles to work for long periods of time), Parolini says. Rowing won’t tick the box for muscle growth or maximum strength, since it doesn’t involve short bursts of intense effort where you lift heavy loads, which is what’s needed to achieve those two goals. Instead, it’s about performing lots of reps over a longer period of time. Consider, if you’re doing a 30-minute workout and row 30 strokes per minute, that would be 900 reps without a rest! Because of this, even though rowing offers both cardio and strength, it errs more on the side of cardio.
What muscles does rowing work?
Rowing engages so many different parts of your body that instead of listing them all out, “it would actually almost be easier to say what it’s not working,” Parolini says. Indeed, rowing fires up a majority of the muscles in your body, Peloton rowing instructor Ash Pryor, CPT, tells SELF.
But the legs, in particular, are the “powerhouse,” Parolini says. That’s because they are the main force helping you complete the rowing stroke, she explains. Specifically, the quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves help power the drive portion, while your lats, upper-back muscles, biceps, shoulders, and forearms fire up as you pull the handles toward you.
All the while, your core—including your rectus abdominis (frontside ab muscles), obliques (side torso muscles), transverse abdominis (deep trunk muscles) and erectors (spinal muscles)—work hard to stabilize you. “Your core is active 100% of the time,” Parolini says. Basically, rowing engages so many different muscles that you can confidently consider it a full-body activity.
So what are the benefits of rowing?
If you’re wondering if rowing is a good workout we’re here to tell you it most certainly is. From awesome cardio and functional resistance training to enhanced posture, mobility, coordination, and more, there’s a lot to love about this activity—and plenty of rowing machine benefits worth knowing about.
1. It provides stellar low-impact cardio.
Like we mentioned, rowing is an awesome cardiovascular exercise. It simultaneously engages lots of large muscle groups throughout the body, which causes your heart and lungs to work extra hard to deliver oxygen to all those players.
Parolini, who’s tried all sorts of aerobic workouts—including running, cycling, and bootcamp classes—says nothing has challenged her heart and lungs quite like rowing. “Overall cardiovascular health is probably one of the biggest improvements that you’ll see with rowing,” she says. To boot, rowing is low-impact, so, unlike other activities (think: running and jumping), it provides those heart-healthy benefits without pummeling your joints. A small 2023 study of postmenopausal women published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, found that 10 weeks of rowing effectively boosted the subjects’ VO2 max (the amount of oxygen you can take in and use during exercise, which is often considered a stellar marker of cardio fitness.) The low-impact nature of rowing can make it a smart choice for a wide number of people, including older folks and those with physical limitations. In fact, in a small 2023 study, published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, adults with spinal cord injury who completed 12 weeks of upper-body ergometer rowing saw improvements in their cardio fitness.
2. It boosts your muscular endurance.
Anyone who’s hopped on a rower knows it can seriously burn out your legs, arms, back, core… basically, your entire body. That’s the muscular endurance work at play. With rowing, you’re essentially improving the ability of your muscles to work for a sustained period of time.
And not only can that muscular endurance benefit you in the gym and with sports—improving your overall stamina—it can also come in clutch in daily life. Things like climbing the stairs to your seats at a sports stadium or dragging a cooler through the sand at the beach rely on muscular endurance, DeAnne Davis Brooks, EdD, CSCS, certified exercise physiologist and director of graduate studies in the department of kinesiology at University of North Carolina Greensboro, previously told SELF. So the more you have of it, the easier you can perform these everyday tasks.
3. Rowing smokes your abs—no crunches required.
As you move from the front to the back of the machine, you’re using a ton of core muscles to hold your torso up, including your rectus abdominis, transverse abdominis, obliques, and erectors. But these midsection muscles don’t just keep you from toppling over; they also help shift force from your legs into your arms so you can effectively pull the handle. “The more muscles you engage in your core, the quicker and stronger that transfer of power is to the handle,” Parolini explains.
The core stabilization you build through rowing can improve your day-to-day functioning in lots of ways, whether we’re talking about in the gym or outside of it—for example, allowing you to pick up heavy objects without straining yourself and keeping you upright when your foot hits a patch of ice or a dog barrels into your knees.
4. Your coordination gets a much-needed challenge.
Experienced rowers can make the activity look effortless, but it’s actually a pretty complicated movement. In fact, though it can seem like one fluid motion, there are actually four distinct parts of the rowing stroke: the catch, drive, finish, and recovery. And executing all four of these components with proper form is no easy feat. It’s no surprise then that among the many benefits of rowing machine workouts is that they’re “so good for coordination,” Parolini says. “Other types of gym workouts don’t require a ton of focus or harmony between the brain and the muscles,” Parolini says—like mindlessly pedaling on the indoor cycling bike or strolling on the treadmill, for example. But rowing “forces your brain to talk to your body,” she explains. And the control over your movement that you develop with rowing can help you find greater control in other moments of life, like when you’re decelerating to walk down stairs, lowering objects to the floor, or even bracing your core to swing your child around as you play with them, Parolini says.
5. You’ll stand up a little straighter.
Proper rowing form involves holding yourself upright on the seat, which engages all the muscles that help support good posture, including those in your core and back. Practicing this positioning through rowing can have carryover benefits to your day to day, Pryor says, since it makes you more mindful of how you’re holding your body in tons of scenarios. So whether you’re walking the dog, working at your desk, or chopping veggies in the kitchen, rowing you can help you sit (or stand) up a little straighter.
6. Your hips might feel a little looser.
It may not look like it at first glance, but rowing is essentially a deadlift in a horizontal position, Parolini says. And that classic exercise involves flexing and extending through the hip—a movement known as the hip hinge. When you do that rep after rep (after rep) on the rower, you load and unload your hamstrings on every stroke. This can boost your flexibility there and ultimately improve mobility in the hip joint, Parolini explains, since your hamstrings attach to your hips. That’s huge, since a lot of folks have tight, cranky hips and hammies thanks to all the time we spend sitting on our butts.
7. Your lower back might bark that much less.
Chronic low back pain is an unfortunately common ailment affecting nearly a quarter of adults worldwide, according to Cleveland Clinic. Tightness in the hamstrings and lack of mobility in your hips can contribute to it, Parolini says, so by opening up these areas through rowing, you may find some relief for your achy back. That’s no small win!
8. You can gain a seriously cool sense of accomplishment.
Because rowing can be such a challenging activity to master, it can breed a certain type of mental toughness, Pryor says. You likely won’t nail perfect form the first (or second…or tenth) time you give it a whirl, but persevering and eventually seeing yourself break through to the next level can usher in an immense sense of accomplishment. In turn, feeling like a badass on the rower may just imbue you with confidence that spills over into other areas of your life, like finally asking for the promotion at work or drumming up the nerve to invite that cute barista on a date.
9. And cultivate ultimate zen vibes once you’ve got it down.
The repetitive, rhythmic nature of rowing can be incredibly calming, Pryor says. In particular, moving from the back of the machine towards the front is a “really cool” gliding feeling, Parolini says. In that sense, rowing can be a very soothing activity that puts you in a calm, meditative state. And with all the stress that’s swirling around the universe these days, who doesn’t want that?
10. It’s something you can do for the long haul.
There are tons of ways to adapt the rower to your body and mobility level—for example, by adjusting the seat positioning or fiddling with the resistance level—which makes it an activity you can do throughout your lifetime, Pryor explains. And like we mentioned before, it’s low impact, which means it’s a great pick for people who have limitations with higher-impact cardio, either chronically or temporarily, like if they’re pregnant, for example, or rehabbing an injury.
“The cool thing about the rower is it’s an effort-based machine, which means it gives you what you give it,” Parolini explains. In other words, the harder you push during the drive, the harder the workout becomes. This means that as you build your strength and stamina on the rower, you’re able to continue challenging yourself. “You can never tap out on a rower,” Parolini says.
Okay, so what’s the best rowing machine out there to reap all these benefits?
Indoor rowing machines are pricey, but they can be a great choice if you’re looking to make rowing a regular habit, especially given all the awesome rowing benefits you stand to gain. The best one depends on your budget and fitness goals, but as a starting point, we love the Concept2 RowErg, which is size-inclusive, durable, and simple to set up. Other SELF-approved rowers include the Hydrow Rower, which our tester found to be “sleek, smart, and super user-friendly”—as well as the NordicTrack RW600 Rower, an overall awesome budget pick. And if you don’t want to take the plunge (sorry) yourself, most gyms have at least one kind of rowing machine on their floor, so you can either get your workouts in there, or test out the waters to see what you want for your own.
Regardless of which you choose, know you’re getting a truly terrific full-body workout that can benefit not just your heart, lungs, joints, and muscles, but your brain and mental well-being too. Now that’s what we call a worthwhile investment.
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Originally Appeared on Self
