Does Rowing ‘Count’ as Strength Training—or Is It Just a Cardio Workout?

What sort of exercise is rowing?

Anybody who’s tried a exercise on a rowing machine is aware of that it’s going to problem your cardiovascular endurance, leaving you breathless, and oftentimes, soaking in sweat.

Nevertheless it’ll additionally depart your butt, legs, and again feeling spent—identical to they do after a tough energy exercise.

So, which form of exercise is rowing: energy or cardio?

Merely put, it’s each. Rowing is a cardio train as a result of it entails steady, repetitive motion that will increase your coronary heart price.

However it might probably additionally problem your muscular tissues from a energy perspective. Through the drive, you’re partaking your glutes, quads, hamstrings, and core, Crawford says.

And as you pull the deal with towards you, your lats, upper-back muscular tissues, and biceps fireplace in flip.

One cause for the muscle advantages? The shape you employ once you row appropriately—driving every stroke from the back-of-the-body muscular tissues in your legs and butt—is definitely the identical motion sample utilized in conventional energy coaching workout routines like a deadlift or kettlebell swing: the hip hinge.

However as an alternative of pulling in opposition to the resistance of, say, a barbell, you’re transferring in opposition to the resistance of your personal body weight and the wind within the cage.

Nonetheless, whereas there’s each a cardio and energy element to rowing, it leans extra within the cardio path, Sam Chan, DPT, CSCS, a bodily therapist and athletic coach at Bespoke Remedies in New York Metropolis, tells SELF.

That’s since you’re working repeatedly on a rower—much like the way you do on a treadmill or an elliptical—and actually getting in a whole lot of reps (or strokes).

For example, individuals usually carry out about 20–26 strokes per minute when rowing at a average depth, Crawford says.

Which means in the event you row for simply 5 minutes, you’ve racked up greater than 100 straight reps.

That’s far more than you’d carry out throughout that interval when energy coaching. If you’re engaged on getting stronger, you may have intervals of labor (your units) and intervals of relaxation (once you take a breather in between).

This rest-and-reset means that you can actually problem your muscular tissues with increased load or resistance throughout your working units.

As a result of the burden is more difficult to your muscular tissues, you must do manner fewer reps (say, normally between 6 to 12 reps per set) after which relaxation so your physique can do it once more in a minute or two.

Actually, in the event you used the identical resistance on a rower as you probably did when energy coaching, you doubtless wouldn’t be capable of maintain it for greater than 15–20 seconds, Dr. Chan says—a lot lower than the size of a typical rowing exercise!

So whereas rowing does problem your muscular tissues, “it’s extra of a muscular endurance exercise” than a strength-focused or muscle-building exercise, says Dr. Chan.

For these latter objectives, you’d want to make use of progressive overload with energy coaching—regularly difficult your muscular tissues with step by step rising weight.

How will you use rowing to construct energy?

Rowing just isn’t going to be one of the best sole modality for particular energy or muscle-building objectives, however it may be an awesome complement to them.

That’s as a result of sure rowing exercises can actually hone your energy, which has a powerful carryover to your fitness center routines.

Actually, high-intensity rowing exercises recruit the identical kind II muscle fibers—those who create plenty of drive, however for brief durations—that lower-body energy coaching does, analysis reveals.