Rowing machine workout: the stroke, the damper, and a plan for beginners

A rowing machine, an ergometer or "erg" to rowers, is a sliding seat, a footplate, and a handle on a chain that spins a flywheel against air or water. Every stroke is a push with the legs, a swing of the back and a pull with the arms, then the same three in reverse to get back to the start. Done in that order it's a whole-body cardio session; done out of order it's a tired lower back and a handle that feels heavier than it should.

This page covers the stroke, what each part of the body contributes, the damper and the stroke rate, what weeks of rowing did in the studies, the beginner mistakes, and a four-week plan with an interval session. It's the cardio machine; the seated cable row is the lifting exercise with a similar name. Where a rowing session goes beside lifting is on cardio and lifting.

The stroke, in order

1. The catch. Shins vertical, seat forward, arms straight, back leaning slightly forward from the hips, shoulders relaxed. The handle is close to the flywheel.
2. The drive: legs first. Push the footplate away with your legs while your arms stay straight and your back holds its angle. The handle moves because the seat moves.
3. The drive: then the back. As your legs straighten, swing your back from the slight forward lean to a slight backward one, still with straight arms.
4. The drive: then the arms. Finish by pulling the handle to the bottom of your ribs, elbows past your body.
5. The recovery, in reverse. Arms straighten first, then the back swings forward, then the knees bend and the seat slides back to the catch. Take it slower than the drive.

The drive is the short part. In 10 male rowers at a hard intensity, the ratio of drive to recovery came out at about 40% on a dynamic ergometer and 44% on the water; the recovery is the longer part either way.¹ A simple cue is a count of one on the drive and two on the recovery.

What each part of the body contributes

Rowing is sold as a back exercise and a leg exercise, and the studies say it's both, in sequence.

• Legs drive, back swings, arms finish. In 60 young rowers, 39 men and 21 women, measured with MRI and a rowing ergometer, the muscle area of the front of the thigh best explained the power of the leg drive, the back of the thigh and the lower back together best explained the power of the trunk swing, and the elbow extensors best explained the arm pull. The authors concluded that rowing requires a well-balanced distribution of muscle throughout the body.²
• The muscles overlap, by phase. An early study split the stroke into six phases in 5 experienced male rowers and concluded that the combined activity of two or more muscle groups most likely mattered more to the stroke than the strength of any one muscle, and that coordination of the upper and lower body is a skill worth developing in its own right.³
• At full effort, it's legs and shoulders more than trunk. In 11 healthy, well-trained people doing a six-minute all-out row on a rowing ergometer, the muscles the authors judged most involved were the leg extensors, the shoulder-girdle extensors and the arm flexors, not the trunk and hip extensors.⁴
• Beginners lean on the back. In 9 physically active people with no rowing training, rowing on a fixed ergometer relied on a cumulative effect of the trunk and upper-limb muscles during the drive, where the same people emphasized the legs on a sliding one. The authors' summary: untrained rowers focused on the back muscles on the fixed machine.⁵

That last finding is the one to take to the gym: the order in the steps above exists so the legs, not the back, start the stroke.

The damper and the stroke rate

The damper is the lever on the flywheel housing, usually marked 1 to 10. It sets how much air the flywheel pulls in, which sets how heavy each stroke feels and how fast the wheel slows between strokes; the machine's monitor shows the result as a "drag factor." It isn't a resistance level like a bike's, and higher isn't better. In 12 club rowers tested at drag factors of 100 and 150, the lower setting produced a faster stroke rate and higher heart rates, and rowing economy, the work done per litre of oxygen, was greater at the higher setting.⁶ That was in trained rowers with the technique to use a heavier stroke. For a beginner, a damper of 3 to 5 keeps the stroke light enough to learn the order; raise it a notch once the sequence is automatic.

The stroke rate is strokes per minute, on the monitor. Steady rowing sits around 18 to 24; racing rowers go to the mid-30s and above. Two findings shape the advice:

• Rate comes from the recovery, not a rushed drive. In 12 competitive male rowers across three intensities and three stroke rates, the rate was regulated mostly by adapting the recovery time, while the drive and its mechanics were set mostly by the intensity.⁷ To row faster, shorten the glide back, not the push.
• Efficiency didn't change with rate. In 17 well-trained female rowers at 28, 34 and 40 strokes a minute with power held constant, gross efficiency showed no significant difference between the three.⁸ Rate, in other words, is a technique choice rather than an energy saving, at least in trained rowers.

So for a steady session, a low rate with a strong drive and a slow recovery; for intervals, let the rate climb. Whether a week should hold intervals at all is on HIIT vs steady-state cardio.

What rowing did in the studies

Most of the rowing research is on rowers, so the beginner's evidence is thin and the page says so.

• Novices got fitter over a season. In 12 women on a college novice rowing team, average age 18, peak oxygen uptake rose 10% from October to May of training.⁹
• Intervals improved 2,000 m times in four weeks. In 20 male collegiate lightweight rowers, eight sessions over four weeks of either 10 × 30 seconds at 150% of peak power or 8 × 2.5 minutes at 90%, two days a week, improved 2,000 m time-trial performance, power and peak oxygen uptake in both groups, by about 5 to 6 seconds on the time trial, with no significant difference between the two kinds of interval.¹⁰
• Energy per minute sits above the bikes, mostly. At the same rated effort, the treadmill used the most energy, or tied for it, in all three studies that compared machines (13, 19 and 30 adults). The rower ranked above the bikes in two of the three.^11,12,13

No trial that put untrained adults on a rowing machine for a set number of weeks, against another machine, turned up in a PubMed search for this page; the novice-rower season above is the closest. The rowing machine is a reasonable way to fill the World Health Organization's 150 to 300 moderate minutes a week, or 75 to 150 vigorous,¹⁴ and the studies above say what it trains, not that it beats the alternatives.

The beginner mistakes, and a fix for each

• Arms first. Pulling the handle before the legs move turns the stroke into a seated row with a slide. Fix: straight arms until your legs are nearly straight.
• Legs and back together. Opening the back at the same time as the legs loses the leg drive. Fix: hold the forward lean until the knees are mostly straight, then swing.
• Rushing the recovery. Flying back to the catch raises the rate without adding power, and in the study above rate lived in the recovery.⁷ Fix: count two on the way forward.
• Damper on 10. It feels like strength work and it wrecks the sequence. Fix: 3 to 5 until the order is automatic.
• Leaning back past the hips. A slight lean at the finish is the stroke; lying back is not. Fix: finish with your body at about eleven o'clock, handle at the ribs.
• Knees in the way. On the recovery, straighten the arms before the knees bend, or the handle has to go over them.
• Rowing through something that hurts. Tired legs and a tired back after a long row are normal; a sharp or lasting hurt isn't. Stop, and see a doctor or a physical therapist.

A four-week beginner plan

Three sessions a week, on days you don't lift or after lifting. Pace by the talk test (zone 2 cardio): on the steady rows you can say a sentence; on the hard pieces, a few words.

After week 4, keep adding five minutes to the steady rows until they reach 30 to 45 minutes, and add a round to the intervals every week or two. The intervals here are fewer and lighter than the collegiate trial's, which used eight sessions of either 10 × 30 seconds or 8 × 2.5 minutes.¹⁰ Log the distance or the average split for each session; rowing monitors make progress easy to see.

Rowing beside lifting

A rowing session works the legs, the back and the arms, so it's a poor warm-up for a heavy deadlift day and a good session on the day after one. The rules on cardio and lifting apply: if strength is your priority, lift first and row after, or row on another day, and keep a hard interval row more than two hours from a heavy lower-body session. The back workout already has a horizontal pull in it; a 20-minute row on an off day doesn't replace it.

Common questions

What muscles does a rowing machine work?

Legs, back and arms, in that order on each stroke. In 60 young rowers, the front of the thigh best explained leg-drive power, the hamstrings and lower back the trunk swing, and the elbow extensors the arm pull.² At full effort in 11 well-trained people, the leg extensors, shoulder-girdle extensors and arm flexors were the muscles the authors judged most involved.⁴

Is 20 minutes on a rowing machine enough?

Twenty minutes of steady rowing is 20 of the 150 to 300 moderate minutes a week the WHO guideline asks for.¹⁴ Three or four of them a week, with a walk or two, gets there.

What damper setting should a beginner use?

Three to five. In 12 club rowers, the higher drag factor went with a slower stroke rate and better rowing economy,⁶ but that's for people who already have the sequence. Learn the order on a light setting first.

If you'd rather have the week planned

The stroke takes a session or two to learn; fitting the sessions around lifting, work and the rest of your life is the part that takes a plan. Coaching is the version where your workouts are built around the days you actually have, and a weekly call looks at the week you just had and rebuilds the next one around what's coming. Coaching for a week that doesn't hold still explains how that works, and apply is the first step. Otherwise: set the damper to 4, row 3 × 4 minutes legs-back-arms, and write down the split.