Five reasons to love the gym’s rowing machine

Kelly N. Alderete
3 min readJun 2, 2021

When we think of doing cardio in the gym, surely the first thing that comes to mind is the treadmill or Best Rowing Machine. Perhaps someone also thinks about the bicycle (better the spinning one, which better “copies” the movement of the pedals of the road bike than the classic exercise bicycle) or the stepper or stair climbing machine.

However, my favorite for some time is the Rowing Machine UK: surely there is also at least one in your gym and that, in addition, it is almost always free unlike ellipticals (which would be my second option). With the hope that you, too, enjoy these indoor cardio workouts as much as I do, today I tell you five reasons to love (and use) the rowing machine.

Because it is one of the most complete workouts you can do: on the elliptical and on the treadmill, the protagonist is our lower body, even more so if we are talking about the bicycle or the stepper. But the rowing machine forces us to work both the upper body (when pulling the pull) and the lower body (in a movement similar to that of a deep squat) and even our middle zone (to maintain a correct posture).

Because it makes you work on the coordination and mobility of your joints: to achieve good technique on the rowing machine, a coordinated movement of our upper and lower body is necessary, in addition to having adequate breathing to facilitate our movements. Good mobility, especially of the hip and shoulder girdle, as well as great stabilization that will come from the deep muscles of the abdomen, are essential to achieve a fluid movement.

If what you want is to burn calories, this is the perfect machine: when it comes to burning calories, although it should not be the main purpose of our training but rather a consequence of it, the rowing machine is ahead of the elliptical, the stepper and bicycle. Precisely because of what we mentioned earlier: many muscle groups come into play.

Because it is perfect for practicing HIIT: thanks to the involvement of many muscle groups at the same time and in a coordinated way, the rowing machine makes our heart rate rise a lot in a very simple way. This is perfect if we want to do a high intensity interval training, being able to easily reach peaks of high pulsations (more complicated in other machines such as the elliptical).

Because it is a very good workout to improve the shape of the glutes: the explosive push at the beginning of the rowing movement, when we are in the starting position with the knees bent, is perfect for working the glutes.

If you haven’t done it yet, be encouraged to try this gym machine that allows you to do a complete and very entertaining workout, to row!

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