How Rowing Can Make You a Better All-Round Athlete

Rowing can make you a better all-round athlete by building an aerobic base and strength endurance with little impact, and by teaching you to pace an effort honestly. It’s a conditioning tool, not a complete training plan. It won’t make you quicker over 10 metres or higher off the ground. Keep your sport-specific work, then add one or two rowing sessions a week.

What rowing trains, and what it doesn’t

Quality	Does rowing build it?	How to train it on the erg
Aerobic base	Yes	20 to 40 minutes steady at 18 to 20 strokes a minute
Strength endurance	Yes	6 x 2 minutes firm with 1 minute easy
Pacing	Yes	Hold one target split for a set distance
Posture and trunk control	Yes, with good technique	Slow rate, tall sequence, low pressure
Sprint speed on foot	No	Track or pitch work
Jumping and landing	No	Plyometrics
Change of direction	No	Agility work in your sport
Throwing	No	Sport practice

Because the seat carries your weight, you can add conditioning without the landings of running or jumping. That’s the main reason athletes in other sports use it. Our guide to what rowing does to your body covers the physical changes in more detail.

Pacing, in numbers

Pacing is the skill that carries over best, because the monitor gives you a hard fact on every stroke. The sums are simple. A 2k is four 500s, so a 2:00 split gives an 8:00 time. An even 1:55 gives 7:40.

Going out too hard costs more than it looks. Try this exercise once a month:

1. Row 1,000m at a split you could hold for about 8 minutes.
2. Check every 250m that you’re within 1 second of target.
3. Note where your mind suggests easing off.
4. Next time, start 1 second slower and finish 2 seconds faster.

The same habit works over a 10k run, a cycling time trial or the last 20 minutes of a match. Our 2k erg pacing strategy shows how rowers plan a race.

Practising discomfort

A hard piece hurts, and much of that is mental. You can practise getting through it:

• Break it up. Think about the next 250m, not the whole piece.
• Use cues. A word such as “legs” or “long” gives your mind a job.
• Breathe on purpose. Slow, controlled breaths on the recovery keep your head steady.
• Review afterwards. Note when you felt strong, when you faded and why.

Save this for one session a week. Three hard pieces a week will teach you less than one done well. Our page on mental training techniques for Olympic rowers goes further.

Practice and patience

Popular claims about an exact number of hours to mastery are an oversimplification, since the quality of practice, coaching and recovery all matter as well as total time. Improvement in rowing comes from many small sessions. Gains are rarely visible week to week but are obvious over months. Our guide to marginal gains for rowing shows how small changes add up.

Take one technical point per session, such as a quicker catch. Work on it at a low rate, then check it at a higher one. Repeating a movement with attention is more useful than repeating it without. Athletes from skill sports already know this, and rowing gives them a simple place to apply it with a number attached. A benchmark every 4 to 6 weeks, such as a timed 2k, shows you the trend. To put that into a short block, see how to row quicker times in 30 days.

Habits that carry over

• Turning up. Three sessions every week beat six in a good week and none in a bad one.
• Body awareness. You learn to notice breathing, tension and fatigue before your form goes.
• Moving with others. In a crew, you adjust to the people around you.
• Taking feedback. Coaches and screens are blunt. Using them without sulking is a skill.
• Recovery. Sleep, food and rest days are part of training, not extras.

Adding rowing to your own sport

Here’s a sample week for a field or court player with two team sessions and a match. Times are a guide, and in-season work should come second to your sport.

Day	Session
Monday	Rest or easy mobility
Tuesday	Team training
Wednesday	Row, 25 minutes steady at 18 to 20 strokes a minute
Thursday	Team training
Friday	Rest
Saturday	Match
Sunday	Optional row, 15 to 20 minutes very easy

In the off-season, add 6 x 2 minutes firm on one day, and keep a day between that session and any hard sport session. Do your leg and trunk strength work too, and tell your coach what you’re doing so they can allow for it.

Common mistakes:

• Rowing hard the day before a match. Keep it easy, or leave it out.
• Using arms and back first. Learn the sequence of legs, body, arms before you add effort.
• Letting steady sessions become a race. Steady should be a talking pace.

Getting started

Begin with your first month on the erg, which teaches the stroke at a gentle build. If you already row and want to go the other way, our guide to cross-training for rowers shows what other sports can add. If you have a health concern, speak to your GP before you start.