Rowing Machine: Cardio or strength training?

SuzySunshine99

I am filling out a survey from my doctor's office and need some opinions...

Two of the questions they ask are: How many minutes a week of cardiovascular exercises do you do? and How many minutes a week of strength training exercises do you do?

The bulk of my exercise right now is on my C2 rowing machine. Would you categorize this as cardio or strength training? My lungs and my muscles tell me that it's both.

But, if it is both, say I do 2 hours a week on the rower...how would I answer those questions? If I say 2 hours of cardio and 2 hours of strength training, it implies that I did 4 hours of exercise, which would be misleading. Splitting it and saying 1 hour of cardio and 1 hour of strength doesn't seem right either.

It's not terribly important, but I would like to be as accurate as possible for their survey. What would you do?

mmapags

Some of both. The people here that can probably shed the most light would be @AnnPT77 and @MikePfirrman.

AnnPT77

For purposes like that, personally I'd call it cardiovascular.

Yes, properly done it has more strength requirement (and more progressivity) built into it than most people would imagine. At 20spm you'd be doing 2400 reps of essentially a (lightly) weighted lift per week, in those two hours. (Doing higher spm isn't necessarily higher strength workload, BTW - it's complicated.) Years back, I recomped some (ssssuuuuuper slowly! ) by rowing, while obese.

I tried to think how the rowing-related strength progression might equate to lifting, in terms of strength progress (since I've weight trained some in the past, at one point quite regularly for a couple of years). Frankly, I was baffled about how to even do that. The fraction of 2 hours in a week that's strength-oriented . . . is really not very much IMO, in serious heavy-lifting-equivalents. Ten minutes, maybe?

I think the overall impact on strength-fitness and health is more favorable than that would imply, but it's complicated.

With not the slightest disrespect intended, because 2 hours a week of solid rowing is a more than respectable amount of exercise . . . it's not that much rowing, in the scheme of people who are rowing for rowing's sake (focused skills improvement, serious sub-elite competitors, etc.). When I talk about super-slow recomp (which took like years ), it was probably twice that volume and more, and I'm a duffer in the world of rowing.

If the survey has some research purpose (vs. just being your health history), do you have any way to contact the researchers to ask how they'd like it handled? If it's just health history, I'd call it cardio and be done. That's how I handle it, always.

Sorry.

SuzySunshine99

Thank you, Ann, for the response. That’s very helpful, and makes sense. I am very new to rowing, so I’m still learning a lot about it.

The survey is not being done for research, my doctor’s office said they just want to get a sense of how their patients are doing physically and mentally right now.

I’ll count the rowing strictly as cardio. Thanks again.

sgt1372

Both if you are getting your HR up and using your legs to drive the pull on every stroke.

However, you could row w/o any (or at least minimal) cardio and/or strength effects. I've see examples of this watching ppl "trying" to row at the gym.

The way I use it is mainly for strength because I seldom breathe hard while rowing but always exert a concerted force w/my legs during each pull but I do so at a relatively moderate pace of 28-29 spm, which doesn't make me breathe hard or even break a sweat

2829 spm is consider a relatively high spm for causal rowing but it establishes a better balance for me between pace and effort at an energy burn rate of about 650 cals/hr (I don't like using mets or watts as an energy measurement) that actually makes me feel like I'm exerting very little effort.

I've rowed over 5 MILLION meters doing it mostly this way but I occasionally do a 4min HIIT Tabata routine, which is a max cardio event, that wipes me out from doing anything else for at least 30-45 mins thereafter.

I also do some 500m sprints for time to achieve a "ranking" on the Concept 2 website but I also do not often do that.

MikePfirrman

More cardio than strength. I row 6 hours to 7 hours a weak and I'm fairly week from a strength perspective. If anything it's a bit of endurance strength but not like weights.

As sgt mentioned, if you put the DF up (something I don't recommend for someone if they aren't sure their form is 100%) and do sprints, it's more muscle/strength based. Also a good way to throw out a back if not leading with the legs.

SuzySunshine99

Thank you everyone. Even though I'm new to rowing, I have been concentrating on my form, watching numerous videos and having my husband watch me. He's been using a rowing machine for many years.

I've been doing about 24-26 spm, which does elevate my heart rate quite a bit. I had no doubt about the cardio aspect, I just wasn't sure about strength gain benefits. Thanks to the rowing vets for the insight.