Why Row Indoors?

Indoor Rowing, more than any other form of exercise, provides the most 'bang for your bucks' in terms of fitness benefits for training time.

Rowing is a total body exercise

Rowing exercises both the upper body and the lower body. Due to the sliding seat, during the propulsive stage rowing mainly uses the quadriceps of the legs, the gluteus maximus and hamstrings of the posterior chain, and the latissimus dorsi muscles of the trunk as well as minor muscles such as the biceps and the gripping muscles of the forearms and wrists and the stabilising muscles of the core. During the recovery phase of the return up the slide, it mainly engages the pectorals, the triceps, the abdominals, the hip flexors, and the deltoids.

https://www.concept2.com/files/pdf/us/training/Training_MusclesUs

Rowing is a low impact sport

Unlike activities such as running, Rowing places little stress on joints and ligaments.

Rowing combines strength and cardio training

Rowing exercises the neuromuscular system to build strength and muscular endurance while simultaneously developing the cardio-vascular capacity of the heart, lungs and circulation.

https://www.lifespanfitness.com/fitness/resources/articles/rowing-machine-benefits-for-cardiovascular-fitness

Indoor Rowing is Time Efficient

Although Elite level rowers train three or four hours a day and may incorporate gym work and other forms of training, the comprehensive training effect of the rowing action, combined with the convenience of using a single piece of equipment at home or in the gym, enables greater results with less time investment than that for cyclists, runners, swimmers, or triathletes.

Training on the Indoor Rower is precisely controllable

Every parameter of training on an ergometer can be conveniently measured and regulated as in a laboratory. You can accurately plan a training stimulus and its effects and personally determine just what works best for you.

Unfortunately, many Rowers of my generation were introduced to the Rowing Ergometer as an instrument of torture. Used only on isolated occasions, it served as a brutal means of crew selection or as a boring substitute for ‘real rowing’ on an occasional windy day.

In those days, largely unfamiliar with the Erg as we now fondly call it, we would ‘fly-or-die’ to impress our coaches with our determination, then pass out onto the floor (or vomit, for even greater effect). Our on-the-water developed ability to work hard despite being untrained for the specific demands of the machine made us prone to injury on the Erg and our rare unstructured windy day workouts on it were deadly boring. Systematic indoor rowing training, however, is very different from this.

Why Indoor Rowing is particularly effective

When used correctly, rather than being a mere torture device, the Erg becomes a precise scientific instrument for transforming physiological capacities to undreamed heights.

Training on the indoor rower can be conducted without interference from wind, tide, and water traffic. And both ‘external’ parameters such as time and distance, pace per 500m split, the force curve, stroke rate and power output of every stroke, and ‘internal’ parameters such as heart rate and perceived rate of exertion can more easily be measured, controlled, and recorded than they can be on the water. Training loads can be tailored to the physiological needs of an individual, the demands of a particular race distance, and the proximity of a training session to a goal competition event. The Erg allows the most accurate regulation of training and recovery for optimum fitness results imaginable.

Training on an Erg does not need to be boring although your attention does need to shift from trying to ‘make the boat sing’ to making the Erg 'zing': connecting your biomechanics to the acceleration of the flywheel. And, although scientifically determined types of training need to be repeatedly applied, many variations within those types are possible. Anyway, a workout such as ten five hundred metre intervals at race pace is anything other than boring. But even when your training prescription happens to be a long slow steady state session, you can concentrate on maintaining a set stroke rate and pressure, and relaxing to minimise heart rate drift. And if not that, there can always be Netflix (viewing a 1½ hour movie is usually just right!) or else listening to podcasts.

Moreover, experimentation with training methods and analysis of immediate feedback regarding progress become consuming intellectual exercises in their own right.

Could Indoor Rowing also be the ‘Fountain of Youth’?

Just one of the sports these boys will try. But one that will remain useful for life.

Although Indoor Rowing is one of the most demanding forms of exercise, there are people over 95 years of age who still train and compete on the Rowing Ergometer. And, invariably, they look and feel many years younger. Clearly, Rowing delays old age. And Indoor Rowing as you get older is safer and more convenient than rowing on the water in a single scull.

The late Vince Home 95 (Aust.) and wife Beryl 89 both Indoor Rowing champions. Vince set a World record over the full Marathon distance at the age of 94.

Why I Train Competitively

With correct and diligent training I can still develop, in my 80’s, an Oxygen Uptake higher than any untrained 20 year old and boast a 2k time on the Erg of which an average Gym trainer or club level on-the-water rower in their prime would not be ashamed.

And, most important, in a race or on a designated ‘hard day’, I can make myself surge when all my muscles and my lungs are crying out for me to stop, and, once again, take full control over my body.

Some might still call it a form of torture, but few life experiences get better than this!

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