reckonerRowing machine
A seat on a rail, a strap for each foot and a handle on a chain. It works your legs, back and arms in every stroke, and it is the one cardio machine where technique decides how the work feels. The order is the whole of it: legs push, then the body swings back, then the arms pull, and on the way back the same three in reverse.
- Measured
- Minutes
- Loading
- None
- Ways to use it
- Steady, intervals
- Counts toward
- No muscle's weekly sets
How to do it
Strap your feet in
Set the foot plates so the strap crosses the widest part of your foot, and pull it snug. Sit tall on the seat with your knees bent, shins close to vertical, and take the handle with a relaxed overhand grip.
Set up the catch
Arms straight, shoulders level and relaxed, upper body leaning forward from the hips so your shoulders are in front of them. This is the start of every stroke2.
Push with your legs first
Drive the foot plates away with your legs while your arms stay straight and your back keeps its angle. Your legs are the biggest muscles in the stroke, so they lead it.
Then swing the body, then pull with the arms
As your legs straighten, swing your upper body back through upright to a slight lean, and only then draw the handle in to just below your ribs. Wrists flat, shoulders low, elbows past your sides2.
Come back in the reverse order
Arms out until they are straight, lean forward from the hips, and only once the handle has cleared your knees let the knees bend and slide the seat forward2. The way back is slower than the drive, a moment to breathe.
Keep it long and relaxed
Unhurried strokes are plenty for an easy row. Let your breathing set the effort: you should be able to talk but not sing1.
The two ways
- Steady
- Long, relaxed strokes at a pace you could talk through. When Reckoner places a row, it is this one. It leaves the rower out of a beginner's first week, because the stroke takes a few sessions to learn.
- Intervals
- Harder spells with easy spells between, for example a minute hard and two easy. They are harder work, and a choice you make: the plan never places them.
How to start easy
Spend your first sessions on the order, not the pace. Row with legs only for a few strokes, then legs and body, then the whole stroke, at a light effort for 5 to 10 minutes. Set the damper low to middle: Concept2, the maker, recommends starting at 3 to 5 and advises against setting it high3. Add time before you add effort, and "start low and go slow"1.
What goes wrong
Pulling with the arms first
The arms bend before the legs have done anything, so the smallest muscles do the most work and the stroke is short. Keep the arms straight until the legs are nearly done.
Setting the damper to 10
The damper is not a difficulty setting. It changes how much air the fan draws in, which changes how the stroke feels, like gears on a bike. How hard you work comes from how hard you push3.
Rounding forward at the catch
Reaching for the flywheel by curling the back instead of leaning from the hips puts the start of every stroke on your spine. Lean from the hips and stop when your shins are vertical.
Shooting the seat
The seat slides back but the shoulders and handle do not move, because the legs pushed before the body was braced. Push with the legs and let the handle travel with you from the first moment.
Rowing long before rowing well
In studies of rowers, long sessions on the rowing machine, often more than 30 minutes, are one of the two factors most consistently linked to back pain, and technique tends to slip as a session gets longer or harder4. Keep sessions short while the stroke is new.
Questions people ask
Why is the rower not in my first week?
Because it has a technique to learn, and an easy session should be easy from the first stroke. When Reckoner places cardio in a beginner's first week, it uses the indoor bike, the elliptical and the treadmill, which need no learning. You can still row whenever you like.
What do the numbers on the screen mean?
The big number is usually your pace, the time it would take to row 500 meters at your current speed, so lower is faster. When you log a row in Reckoner, it shows your pace the same way, per 500 meters. Your wrist measures no distance on a rowing machine, so type the rower's distance if you want it kept.
Is it a back exercise?
It works the back in every stroke, but Reckoner treats it as cardio and counts it toward no muscle's weekly sets. Your lifts stay as planned.
Should I row on a pull day?
You can. An easy row after a heavy back session asks the same muscles for a little more, so if your grip or back is tired, a different machine that day is a sensible swap.
Other machines
Sources
- Piercy, Troiano, Ballard and colleagues, JAMA, 2018. The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans the talk test and "start low and go slow"
- Concept2, 2026. Rowing technique the catch (arms straight, shoulders level, leaning forward from the hips with the shoulders in front of them, shins vertical), the drive order (legs, then the back swings through vertical, then the arms), the finish (handle below the ribs, wrists flat, shoulders low), and the recovery order (arms, then lean from the hips, then the knees bend once the hands clear them)
- Concept2, 2026. Damper setting 101 the damper controls how much air flows into the flywheel housing and changes how the stroke feels, like bicycle gearing, rather than the intensity, which comes from how hard you pull; start at a damper setting of 3 to 5, and do not set it too high
- Athy, Hach, Anderson and colleagues, International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy, 2023. Examining the peer-reviewed published literature regarding low back pain in rowing: a scoping review across 78 studies, prolonged ergometer use (many papers naming more than 30 minutes) and a history of back pain were the only risk factors the literature agreed on, and technique was observed to deteriorate with prolonged ergometer use and at higher intensities