But when building strength, you must step out of the boat and into the gym. The strength-building milestones that you can achieve within a weightlifting room or through asymmetrical core training, you absolutely cannot reach within the boat.

Incorporating strength training exercises into your training regime holds multiple benefits. Firstly, it helps increase raw strength development, which in turn helps increase endurance. Strength training also helps increase your power output, decreases the chances of injuries, and drastically improves your rowing performance.

Raw strength naturally increases with age; for example, a year-old will have greater raw strength than a year-old. But if you strength train, you can speed up this natural strength development. When rowing, it all comes down to how fast you can row and in how little time.

This is especially important for coastal rowers; even 15 minutes of coastal rowing puts significantly more load on your body than still water rowing of the same time duration. For competitive rowers, increased muscle mass means you can perform more vigorous strokes, making the boat cover a greater distance with each stroke.

When you strength train, your muscle mass increases, so they can use and store more oxygen within their fibers. This means you can row for more extended periods before your muscles cramp. This increased endurance of muscles is critical for rowers looking to participate in rowing marathons or triathlons.

Further, for rowers wanting to lose excess fat, strength training can help them work out longer without fatigue. Regardless of your stroke-per-minute rate, your boat will only travel faster if you generate efficient power through each stroke.

Strength training helps ensure that your power output for each stroke remains high. The power required for each stroke gets generated through your lower body and core. The gluteus muscles and the quadriceps femoris are the primary power generators within your lower body.

So if these muscles are strong, you can generate greater power. Your core, on the other hand, helps stabilize your entire body. Strong core muscles will help keep you stable and efficiently transfer power from your lower body to your upper extremities. This means that most of the power generated by your legs will get transferred to your arms, resulting in greater power output.

As per a report by the University of Rochester , rib stress fractures, inflamed wrist tendons, and lower back and knee pain are amongst the most common rowing-related injuries. A study by Massini et al. shows evidence of increased bone mineral density even among older adults that performed strength training.

This means your risk of fracturing a rib or any other bone decreases when you strength train. Further, multiple studies show the impact of strength training on the stability of tendons and ligaments.

Rowing requires stable joints, so rowers need to work on this, especially during the off-season. Stable tendons and ligaments decrease pain and inflammation in lower back and knee.

Rowing puts your entire body to work, so you must strength-train all major muscle groups from top to toe to truly see the results on the water.

Regardless of whichever rowing strength training routine you follow, ensure that you focus on your core strength, leg and hip strength, shoulder arms, and back strength. For your legs, you can focus on squats, leg presses, step-ups, and lunges.

The good old plank or Russian twist is your best friend for the core, whereas overhead presses, bench pulls, and push-ups are great for building upper body strength. Here are some of the best strength training exercises for rowing that you can add to your training routine:.

Rowing generates power through your legs, so you must have strong leg muscles to create more power with each row. You can oscillate between sumo squats, regular squats, or weighted squats based on the intensity of your workout.

While squats mainly focus on your quadriceps muscle, lunges focus on the hamstring opposite the quads. When strength training, it is vital to work on the hamstrings, to minimize the risk of imbalance injuries.

Like squats, deadlifts also strengthen your hamstrings, which is essential to maintain balance in both opposing muscle groups. It also helps to improve your glutes, core, back, and trapezius, making it the perfect total body exercise.

Step-ups also help to build lower body strength as they activate your glutes and quads. Both these muscles are vital for efficient power generation during rowing.

For those that like to work with machines, doing leg presses is a great way to work your glutes and quads. They also strengthen your hamstrings. Planks; you either love them or hate them! But to build core strength, you must make them your best friend.

Start with a second plank and increase the time as your core strengthens. Russian twists seem easy to do, so most people love doing them.

When doing this exercise, start without weights and work on perfecting your form. Once the form is correct, add weights. Your body weight is the weight. But ensure that your form is correct. Otherwise, you could injure yourself. If you want to test your limits further, add weighted plates on your back or do a single-handed push-up.

The bench press is a great way to build upper arm strength since it puts your deltoids, triceps, and chest to work. Plus, perfecting the form is easier since you use dumbbells instead of a machine.

Overhead press targets your trapezius, deltoids, and pectoralis muscles, making it a great upper arm and shoulder exercise. A more muscular upper body means better-pulling motion and increased strokes per minute.

Athletic Performance is week lifting training program designed to enhance strength, speed, explosiveness, and overall performance within your respective sports.

Our program is perfect for anyone who wants to improve their performance in:. Rowers must ensure that they train in an organized manner and always strength train before endurance training if they wish to avoid injuries.

The for 30 method is a great way to pace your strength training and prevent muscle fatigue. Here are some key factors that you must keep in mind before starting your rowing strength training program:. A rower must focus on all five fitness factors, i. Therefore, you must organize or Periodize your training routine.

You can start by focusing on two main fitness factors to do this. You can start working on your technique and strength in the first five weeks and then move on to endurance and balance.

Multiple studies support this way of training and show optimal performance outputs through this method. There should be an 8-hour gap between strength and endurance training sessions to avoid muscle fatigue and joint injuries. But if you must train both succeedingly, start with strength training first.

Although if you strength train and then go for endurance, you may not have the most fruitful rowing session, your chances of getting injured would decrease multiple folds. This is a popular method of strength training when it comes to rowing.

The work is work! Intervals are two to five minutes in length and are designed to challenge you, but are not an all-out effort.

Drive workouts are dynamic, challenging, and usually pretty high energy. While rowing does work the majority of your muscles, having cross-training options can help you get even stronger and ensure a balanced body from head to toe.

On The Mat workouts include strength, mobility, pilates and yoga. Available classes include:. Like to have a little bit of extra warm-up before you hop into your Hydrow workout?

Want an extended cooldown to transition out of a particularly sweaty session? Tag an a la carte cooldown onto the end of any workout to ease back into your day. Your muscles will thank you tomorrow! Counter balance the strength and fitness gains from your rowing workouts with cross-training On the Mat workouts.

These workouts are minutes in length and range from functional strength instruction to circuit or bootcamp-style workouts. Yes, we have a whole library of yoga workouts, too! Yoga classes range from 5 to 20 minutes in length and are offered in three classifications: Restore, Align, and Flow.

To ensure length, flexibility, and a strong core, try incorporating Pilates workouts into your weekly workout routine. The Boathouse. How to choose a rowing machine workout based on your fitness level.

or ever. If you work out regularly, but are new to rowing. Types of rowing machine workouts offered by Hydrow. Breathe workouts.