As a runner, you’re engaged in a fantastic form of exercise that will optimize your aerobic fitness as it burns calories, strengthens, and shapes your lower body. But it’s also pretty hard on your joints. So, when you’re looking for a cross-training exercise to complement your runs, you should choose a low impact option that is joint-friendly while, ideally working your entire body.
Look no further than the rowing machine.
The Needs of a Runner
To get better at running you need to run. But to get really good, you need to cross-train with complementary exercises that will allow you to achieve your goals faster. Here are the areas that should be addressed by a quality cross-training exercise for runners …
Cardio and Muscular Endurance
Endurance is the ability to keep going. Certain forms of exercise have been shown to actually have the ability to increase the volume, structure, and capacity of the mitochondria in your muscle cells. This is the energy factory that powers your muscles. The more powerful that factory is, the more endurance you will have.
Glute & Core Strength
Your gluteus maximus muscle is potentially the strongest in your body. Strong glutes will keep you upright as you run over a long distance. A strong core will likewise help you to maintain an upright running position as fatigue sets in during a long run.
Coordination
An exercise that promotes coordination between the upper and lower body is very useful to runners. Running is a lower body-centric form of exercise, so if you can choose a cross-training movement that equally balances the work between the lower and upper body, you will be able to strengthen your upper body to balance out your body’s strength, development, and coordination.
Rehab Suitability
When you’re coming back from a running injury, you are probably going to want to be off your feet. You need a form of rehab exercise that takes the compressive pressure of being upright away. That knocks out a lot of cardio training options.
Why Rowing Meets the Needs of Runners
Rowing Improves Endurance
Rowing fits the bill on each of the requirements listed above. It is a form of training that improves both the cardiovascular and muscular endurance of the body. Rowing will improve the volume and efficiency of the mitochondria in the cell to increase stamina, helping runners to maintain their pace for longer.
Rowing Hits the Glutes & Core
Rowing does a good job of engaging the glutes. On the leg drive, the glutes are directly involved as they push the butt back on the seat. A lot of the power of your drive comes from your glutes.
Rowing will also help to strengthen your core. The core works to stabilize the body as you are moving back and forth on the seat of the rowing machine. Over the course of a 20-minute rowing session, your core will be constantly engaged as it helps maintain your rowing posture and keeps you upright.
Read Start Rowings’ best rowing machine guide to get more information on the different types of machines available.
Rowing Works the Whole Body
Rowing is quite unique as a cardio exercise choice in that it equally works the upper and lower body. Most cardio forms of exercise are lower body-centric. Chief among them is running. So, when you add rowing as a cross-training exercise, you can provide your upper body with the workout that it is probably missing out on.
Rowing is a great exercise to strengthen the latissimus dorsi muscles of the upper body, as well as the shoulders, biceps, and trapezius. At the same time, it is also working the quads, hamstrings, glutes, and the muscles of the core.
Because it involves the upper and lower body working in unison with one another, rowing develops functional flexibility. This is something that is lacking in many runners.
Rowing Is Great for Rehab
When it comes to suitability for runners’ rehab, rowing is an ideal option. This is an exercise that you do while sitting down, so you’re taking the weight off any lower-body injury. You are also able to adjust your pace and intensity so that you can start off at a level that is appropriate to your level of rehab and then gradually increases the intensity as your fitness level returns to its pre-injury state.
Rowing is Low Impact
A final benefit of rowing is that it is a near-zero impact form of exercise. Rowing is considered to be a closed chain exercise because your feet never lose contact with the exercise machine throughout the exercise; your feet are firmly strapped into the foot pedals throughout the rowing movement. As a result, there is virtually no impact on your ankles, knees, or hips. This makes it a great complement to the high-impact stresses that these joints encounter when you are running.
It turns out that not only is rowing not bad for your joints, but it can also actually benefit them. In a 2014 study of 24 people who exercised on a rowing machine for 8 weeks, it was shown that joint torque, or the ability to rotate the joint improved by an average of 30 percent in the knee, elbow, and shoulder joints. Rowing will also strengthen your joints. The repetitive resistance movement will even improve the density of your bones.
Rowing for Active Recovery
On the days when you are not running, you want to engage in a form of active recovery that is totally distinct from running. That cuts a lot of the most common cardio options out of the picture. The treadmill, stepper, and elliptical are all variations of the running action. Two options that are not are rowing and cycling. Cycling can be a good option every now and again but it does not engage the upper body in the same way that rowing does.
Rowing will provide you with a completely different cardio experience from running. As well as providing all of the benefits we’ve already covered, it will also give you a mental break from running, to keep you fresh and engaged.
Wrap Up
Rowing is a fantastic cross-training option for runners. Spending 20-30 minutes on a rower on your active recovery days will make you a better, fitter, and stronger runner. It will also improve your endurance, provide a refreshing low impact contrast to running, and offer an ideal rehab option.
Why not get started with your rowing cross-training program today?
Author Bio
Sam Watson is a functional training specialist and writer for startrowing.com. She has a passion for all forms of exercise and loves being able to help others move more freely.