Any Row House fans out there?🚣🏻‍♀️

kristyspann2 wrote: »

Looking for friends who are focused on healthy eating and exercise! Wanna be friends?😁 What is your go-to cardio? Fave meal prep recipe?

Hey, cool picture, is that from your phone?
Anyway, my go to cardio is running the stairs, lots of calories burned in a short amount of time. First attempt I ran like 250 stairs, now I’m over 3000+ per workout.. I love it.. (I don’t count the down stairs)

Good luck with your goals! I find the best way to set goals is to have a goal for today and kill it, and then the next day set a new goal.. keeps it simple..

Hi Kristy. I am not familiar with Row House. I do have a Water Rower at home, and I have found it to be a great workout! AnnPT77 offered some great tips that are really helping me with my form.
My preference for cardio has always been the bicycle, but lately I’ve been mixing it up! I try to do some basic food prep on the weekends. I steam a bunch of broccoli and cauliflower to eat throughout the week. Lately I’ve been making my own soups and protein mixtures in the Vitamix as well. If I have a healthy option around after a workout, I will usually make better choices!
Looks like your pic is in a Honda Odyssey. My family has one too. Not sure how humans raised kids before the invention of the minivan.

kristyspann2 wrote: »

Thanks everyone! 😊 I was referring to the “boutique” gym called Row House. One opened up here in TN a little over 7 months ago and I’m hooked! I’ve never been in a real row boat, but it’s on my bucket list. The calorie burn is incredible considering the low risk of injury for the amount of time. Looking forward to to one day getting my own C2 rower to rack up even more meters.

I hope it was clear that I knew what you meant. 🙂 There are quite a few different rowing-machine-centric gym groups, studios, instructor certification programs, and what-not, these days, of which Row House is one, of course. Orange Theory (which is, I gather, a mixed workout with rowing machines - WaterRowers, in their case) is a chain had a location in my area (I think it didn't survive, not sure), and there was another whose name slips my mind, but Detroit area is the closest for Row House.

FWIW, regarding injuries: Does Row House include anything other than the rowing in the exercise program? There are injury risks in machine rowing, some of them from bad form** (which I'm sure they're attentive to). But if rowing is the only workout component, doing that long term can cause muscular imbalances that have potential to lead to injury. Rowing, of course, is "full body" in a sense, but it's almost entirely lower body push, upper body pull. Long term, it will be injury preventive to do other things that work the opposing muscle groups.

** A couple of the main triggers are articulation of the spine, slumping into C-shape rather than staying straight/erect and hinging from the hips, and tension in the wrists (so they're cocked up/down or sideways under load when they should be relaxed/neutral. Like I said, I assume your coach/instructors are correcting that kind of stuff.

Rowing absolutely can be a great workout, indeed. Have fun!

kristyspann2 wrote: »

Yes! Absolutely, one must have great form. Makes ALL the difference! 😊 The coaches emphasize this every time. And, I’ve researched rowing technique from various people and places. Sorry if I was misleading about low risk. I fell in love with the C2 rower/rowing after finally seeing results when I added in rowing to my 3x/wk group fitness class regimen. I also love how you get out of it what you put into it and can always set small (or big) goals for yourself. Depending on which class you’re in, there are other components such as body weight, free weights and stretching. My core is definitely stronger as well as my respiratory endurance/stamina for cardio. Not yet an avid runner (trying to protect my knees!), but thinking about attempting a 10k or 1/2 marathon for future goals.
I am curious to hear about the difference between the rowing machine and rowing on the water with oars (other than the obvious).
Thank you, Ann!

A few quick observations on similarities and differences:

* The basic drive and recovery, i.e., the arms away - body over - slide - catch - push legs - open body - pull with arms thing - is the same as on a machine, kind of coiling and uncoiling your body, applying power on the drive while suspending your weight between the handle and footstretcher, relaxing on the recovery.

* I don't know how much your coaches emphasize slow slide during the recovery (3-4 times as long on the recovery as on the drive), because it's not really important on the machine (unless a dynamic C2, or a regular one on slides). It's very important on the water: In a boat, you basically relax on the recovery, your body pretty much stays in one spot (wrt the riverbank) and the boat glides under you, bringing you back to the catch. If you rush the slide in the boat, it's a force opposite the direction of travel, and slows the boat (we call it "checking" the boat, when rowers do stuff like that that slows it down - there are other technical things that check the boat.)

* Bladework, obviously. While those basic stroke mechanics are going on, you're dropping the oar in the water, prying the boat past the oar, releasing the oar from the water, moving the blade-face parallel to the water in the air (called "feathering" the oar), squaring it back up again, and dropping it into the water for the next stroke. If it's sculling, two oars per person, you do the feathering/squaring motions the same with both hands (mostly with fingers, thumbs on the end of the oar handle with slight outward pressure). If it's sweep, one oar per person, the hand at the end of the handle controls the blade height, and the other hand (further down the shaft) feathers and squares.

* Balance. A racing single is typically about 26 feet long, and 12 inches wide at the waterline. Many of them won't even stay upright in the water by themselves, without oars in the oarlocks and stabilized. Bigger boats are wider, but still tippy. (The eight-rower/one coxswain boats, the largest standard type, are around 60 feet log, weigh 200+ pounds. BTW, a standard part of rowing is the rowers carrying the boat from boathouse to the water, either on their shoulders or above their heads with straight arms.

* Synchronization. If you're rowing a multi-person boat (either sweep or sculling), the boat won't go very fast unless all the rowers are synchronized quite exactly in the basic milestones of each stroke (arms, swing, slide, catch, release). It's very team-y, that way. In sweep (the "one oar per person" thing), the rowers also have to be cooperating to balance the boat at all - it can flop from side to side if their handle/blade heights don't match. (Rowing machines linked together on slides need synchronization among the participants, too, in some of the same ways.)

* Steering and control. Big sweep boats have a coxswain who steers (but doesn't row). Most sculling boats, and sweeps pairs, don't have a coxswain. Remember, the rowers are facing *away* from the direction the boat is traveling. The bow (or single) rower has to glance over their shoulder periodically to spot any obstacles or issues, and either steer the boat themselves (more pressure on the blade on one side than the other), or shout instructions to the other rowers to accomplish any needed steering. In multi-person boat, bow also shouts commands about stopping, starting, slowing, etc., as needed.

* You never let go of your oar handle(s) when seated in the boat, or you'll swim - unless your teammates in a big boat prevent the flip. In a racing single, if you let go, you're swimming. (I know how - well, we all know how - to take off or put on a coat, or get a drink of water from a water bottle that's stored on the bottom of the boat, without letting go of the oars.

Just a few. 🙂 Many of those things have near-endless levels of technical details, too. I'll spare you. 😉