Which muscles are trained with the rowing machine?

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All-round training on the rowing machine: these muscles grow when rowing

The rowing machine is one of those pieces of fitness equipment with which you can train almost your entire body. Because on the rowing machine your whole body has to work out as a flowing unit, so you can't really isolate the muscle groups if you do it properly. In this text you will find the answer to exactly which muscles are used and what effect the rowing machine has on your body.


On the rowing machine - which muscles are trained?

The rowing machine offers you a very intense workout, precisely because more than 80 percent of the muscles in your body are used on the rowing machine.

Obviously, these are the upper arms, for example. Especially in the shoulders and biceps you will feel the training (and the muscle soreness) quite clearly at the beginning. The pull on the rower is accompanied by a contraction of the biceps and posterior shoulder muscles, which stabilize the position of the arms. When moving forward, the upper shoulder muscles act to hold the bar aloft. In addition, the latissimus is also involved in the pull, i.e. the back muscles that define the width of the upper body (V-shape).

But the rowing movement comes not only from the arms, but also from the legs. The support against the swing weight is equivalent to a guided squat and uses the front and rear thigh muscles as well as the calf muscles and the knee flexors. The latter prevent you from completely buckling in the rowing machine. The gluteus maximus , the large muscles of the buttocks, is also involved in the tension of the pull. At the same time you are forced into tension on the rowing machine. This body tension prevents you from pulling the pull out of the spine, a classic false compensatory movement that is often observed in beginners with free weights. The tension needed for this comes from the torso, which in the training world is often called the core. Ultimately, this means nothing other than lower back and abdominal muscles. Keeping the lower back upright is particularly relevant for us because we sit down far too much in our everyday lives and the lower back muscles virtually atrophy in this posture.

Training on the rowing machine, which muscles are used and what is the effect on the joints?

A workout on the rowing machine is therefore very demanding for almost the entire musculature of the body. This also explains the high energy metabolism on the rowing machine.

In spite of this high training intensity, the joints are in a restrained position without being completely relieved. The flowing movement of the rowing machine thus ensures a comprehensive, gentle and yet challenging workout.

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Editors fitnessmarkt.de (EA)

Published on: 6 February 2018

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