With obesity rates continuing to rise, adopting and maintaining healthy habits is more crucial than ever. If you're seeking effective ways to manage your weight and enhance your overall health, rowing might be the answer. Rowing provides a full-body workout and can be a great way to burn calories and build muscle. But how long should you row for weight loss? This article delves into the ideal duration for rowing sessions, the numerous benefits of rowing, and provides workout plans to get you started.
Understanding Rowing and Weight Loss
An indoor rowing machine simulates the action of rowing on water and is often called a rowing ergometer (or erg) because it measures the amount of work performed. Rowing engages both the lower and upper body, making it an excellent exercise for raising your heart rate and promoting weight loss.
Important Note: This article is for informational purposes only and does not substitute professional medical advice.
The Fundamentals of Weight Loss
Weight loss generally comes in three forms: water weight, fat burn, and muscle loss. Losing muscle mass is not ideal, as muscle tissue helps burn calories and maintain strength. Water weight loss is temporary. To effectively lose weight, it is important to burn more calories than you consume, creating a calorie deficit.
Lars Wichert, a sports scientist and former competitive rower with 13 years on the German national team, emphasizes the importance of healthy habits. His experience as a trainer, athlete, and sports scientist allows him to address a wide audience, making exercise fun and highlighting the significant health benefits achievable with minimal effort.
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Calorie Burn and Rowing
The number of calories you burn while rowing depends on your body size and fitness level. Larger individuals typically burn more calories than smaller individuals performing the same activity. For every liter of oxygen you inhale, you burn approximately 5 calories. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) on a rowing machine can further increase calorie burn during and after your workout, thanks to excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC).
Rowing in conjunction with a caloric deficit can be an effective combination to reduce body fat. Pairing rowing with a nutrient-rich diet that focuses on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lean protein, and healthy unsaturated fats, will aid in helping to burn fat. Resistance training, no matter what form it takes, is also key. And the other key to this equation is consistency.
How Long Should You Row?
The ideal rowing session length at home varies based on your fitness level and goals. For most adults, effective rowing workouts range from 15-60 minutes per session. Beginners should start with 10-20 minute sessions, focusing on proper form, while intermediate rowers might aim for 20-40 minutes. Advanced enthusiasts can benefit from 30-60 minute workouts with varied intensity.
General Recommendations:
- General Health: 30 minutes a day at moderate intensity or 15 minutes a day at vigorous intensity.
- Beginners: Start with shorter workouts and gradually increase duration.
- Experienced Rowers: Longer periods of training.
- Weight Loss: Potentially more than the general health guidelines suggest.
The Importance of Consistency
Achieving fat loss results requires consistent effort in both nutrition and exercise. A weekly schedule could include five 30-minute sessions of moderate-intensity rowing, where you can talk and row simultaneously.
Other Factors Influencing Weight Loss
Beyond cardiovascular exercise, non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) also plays a role in weight loss. NEAT represents the energy expended for everything you do that is not sleeping, eating, or exercising. To increase NEAT, find more opportunities to move and include them into your daily routine.
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Rowing vs. Other Cardio Exercises
Rowing vs. Running
Both rowing and running offer cardiovascular benefits, including improved heart and mental health. Running's advantage is its accessibility, requiring only a pair of shoes. However, running is a high-impact exercise, while rowing is low-impact, making it suitable for individuals with joint issues.
In general, running seems to burn slightly more calories than rowing. For example, a 175-pound (79-kg) person running at moderate intensity (12-minute mile pace, or 7 minutes per km) for about 1 hour burns around 889 calories, or 222 calories every 15 minutes - versus 555 and 139 calories, respectively, from moderate rowing (2).
Rowing Machine vs. Elliptical
Both rowers and ellipticals provide low-impact, full-body cardio workouts. Ellipticals are weight-bearing and done standing. According to Harvard Health, a 185-pound person burns 378 calories in a 30-minute moderate-intensity workout on an elliptical, compared to 294 calories on a rowing machine.
Rowing machines often have a smaller footprint for storage as many models fold up.
Benefits of Rowing
Rowing provides numerous benefits beyond weight loss:
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- Full-Body Workout: Rowing engages 86% of your muscles in each stroke, working major muscle groups like the chest, back, glutes, and hamstrings.
- Cardiovascular Endurance: Rowing improves cardiovascular endurance by engaging both the lower and upper body muscles.
- Muscular Endurance: Rowing recruits more muscles than other forms of cardio, improving muscular endurance.
- Low-Impact Exercise: Being seated makes rowing lower-impact than exercises like running.
- Muscle and Strength Gains: Rowing stimulates most of the major muscle groups - including your lats (latissimus dorsi), upper back (rhomboids), quads (quadriceps), hamstrings, core, biceps, and forearms.
- Improved Heart Health: Regular cardiovascular exercise lowers blood pressure, resting heart rate, and bad cholesterol, while raising good cholesterol and promoting a healthy body weight.
Rowing Technique
Proper rowing technique is crucial to maximize results and prevent injury.
- Starting Position (Catch): Sit with a neutral spine, upright posture, and engaged core muscles. Feet should be tight in the straps, and arms extended.
- Drive: Use your legs to push off and begin the stroke.
- Finish: Lean to about 100 degrees and pull against the flywheel with your arms.
- Recovery: Return to the starting position, letting your arms move forward first, then your torso, and finally bending your legs.
The sequence generally followed when rowing is:legs, back, arms on the catch, drive, and finish phasesarms, back, legs on the recovery phase
Rowing Workouts
Types of Rowing Workouts:
- Steady-State: Rowing at a consistent pace for 20-60 minutes.
- Interval Training: Alternating between high-intensity rowing and active rest periods.
- Pyramid Workout: Gradually increasing and decreasing the intensity of rowing.
- HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training): Short intervals of high effort followed by short recovery periods.
- Tabata: Eight rounds of 20 seconds of all-out rowing, followed by 10 seconds of rest.
Workout Examples:
Beginner: Focus on technique. 20 minutes of moderate-intensity rowing, 3 days per week.
- Warm-up (5 minutes): Light rowing at an easy pace.
- Workout (10 minutes): Moderate-intensity rowing.
- Cool Down (5 minutes): Light rowing at an easy pace.
Intermediate: Ascending intensity intervals.
- Warm-up (10 minutes): Light rowing.
- Workout (15 minutes): Intervals with increasing SPM (strokes per minute).
- Cool Down (10 minutes): Light rowing.
Advanced: High-intensity interval training (HIIT).
- Warm-up (10 minutes): Light rowing.
- Workout (20 minutes): Alternating intervals of high-intensity rowing and rest.
- Cool Down (5 minutes): Light rowing.
Integrating Rowing into Your Routine
- Frequency: Aim for 3-5 rowing sessions per week.
- Variety: Incorporate different workout styles to challenge your body.
- Consistency: Regular sessions are more effective than occasional long workouts.
- Nutrition: Pair rowing with a balanced, nutrient-rich diet.
Tracking Your Progress
Rowing machines often track speed, distance, and calories burned. Take "before" photos and track how you feel after workouts to monitor your progress.
Types of Rowing Machines
- Air Rowing Machines: Use air flowing over a flywheel to create resistance.
- Water Rowers: Use water to provide resistance.
- Magnetic Rowers: Allow manual control of resistance using magnets.
- Hydraulic Rowers: Use a piston filled with liquid or air for resistance.
The Role of Technology
Apps like ASENSEI can enhance your rowing experience with personalized programs and virtual coaching from world-class instructors.