Benefits of a Rowing Machine

One of the best things about using a rowing machine is that it can help a vast array of people. Perhaps you want to cross-train for another sport, lose weight, gain better fitness in general or help your body recuperate from an accident or surgery, it doesn’t matter. Rowing is a total body exercise that will do all of these things for you if you stick with it and more.

The benefits of a rowing machine are especially powerful because they involve toning and strengthening both the upper and lower body. This is an unusual thing for an exercise machine to do, as most of them have the ability to do one or the other, but not both. Here are some more of the benefits a rower has to offer:

1. Cardiovascular and Aerobic Assistance

Using a rower is a surefire way to raise your heart rate and can burn as many as 600-800 calories every hour that you do the exercise. It is suggested that your average healthy adult could benefit from at least 150 minutes of moderately intense exercise every week. This can easily be accomplished through 30-60 minutes of such exercise done 5 days a week or 20-60 minutes of extreme exercise 3 days a week. A rower can keep your heart rate well balanced in a moderate intensity and an extreme intensity. Furthermore, there are many rowers that actually have heart monitoring devices with sensors that are built directly into the handles of the machine. You can enlist the help of a heart rate monitor as well.

2. Complete Body Conditioning

Using a rower provides the muscles of your shoulders, plus those of your upper and lower back with a truly fabulous workout. With the addition of the sliding seat, you also get a lower body workout too. You really can’t do better if you think about it, because every single stroke involves the calves of your legs, your quadriceps, glutes, abs, hamstrings, pecs, biceps, triceps, upper back lats, and deltoids. Using a rower will even strengthen your wrists due to the grip needed for the handles of the rower. It’s further suggested that a rower can help you develop better posture because it strengthens your back.

3. Versatility

Using a rower is vastly different from the act of running because it enables you to do both HIIT and LISS training. This means that you are able to change over from intense intervals to steady-start cardio practice by merely altering the resistance level.

4. Saves Time

Rowers are able to save you a great deal of time. When you do a total body workout you save time because you are working out your upper and lower body and getting a cardio workout all at the same time.

If you were to do each group separately it would end up taking three times as long and would even eliminate fewer calories. Who wouldn’t find it easier to burn fat, create muscle, and get a full cardio workout all at once?

5. Diabetes Aid

Since there are more than 442 million people globally who suffer from diabetes in one form or another, there’s no denying that it is an extremely serious problem. Besides making radical changes to your diet, one of the most powerful things you can do to fight diabetes is to increase your physical activity.

It has been shown that people who had type 2 diabetes and used a rower for a period of 8 weeks saw an 8.5 percent drop in their blood glucose levels. Now that’s amazing! And it’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the many ways in which a rower can benefit all of us.

6. Improves Bone Health

By making the effort to keep your bones healthy you can prevent injury from occurring, sustain muscle function, and help to extend the quality of life longer into your life span. Rowing helps halt bone loss and notably improves the levels of bone mass and bone mineral density.

Nowadays it isn’t just guessed at, but it has been proven that older individuals who increased their amount of physical activity managed to slow down bone density and mineral loss substantially. These types of benefits to bone health are akin to the ones obtained from jumping rope.

7. Cancer

Probably never thought you’d be hearing this, but chances of getting about 13 various types of cancer are lowered notably in individuals who do the amount of aerobic exercise that rowing provides at least 3 times a week.

Moreover, survivors of breast cancer underwent a 17 percent increase in the function of their upper limbs after they experienced 4 months of rowing.

Conclusion

Because it is such an excellent form of exercise and stimulation, using a rower is becoming ever more popular. The more we use it, it seems like the more we learn about the tremendous benefits it offers us if we are just willing to harness them efficiently and effectively. Who knows what the future might hold?