At-home gyms have seen increasing popularity all years, with this trend, home rowing machine shows to be a smart and efficient choice. Even the TIME MAGAZINE is saying that you should use the rowing machine as an effective training tool, but still you shouldn’t grab one at random. However, just like all fitness or all nutrition plans aren’t right for everybody, there is no cookie-cutter model for every people that exist.a web page about rowing machine on the TIME magazine In terms of buying a rowing machine that values for money, one condition is the rower fits your needs perfectly.

How come an indoor rowing machine is cost-effective?

Although indoor rowing doesn’t charm as much as being on a skiff on the river – the open-air atmosphere and the unexpected sprays of water. But the home rowing machine does target to share one thing in common with kayaking: high-cardio exercise that’s fit for people of any fitness level.a woman kayaking on a blue lake

Let’s do the math

money, calculator, notebook, and ball pen If you purchase a home rowing machine, and plan to row 3 to 4 times per week (which is recommended) in the next five years. Take TOPIOM indoor rowing machine (priced $799) as an example, turns out, it cost about $1 or less for each workout. Not to mention that all members of your family can enjoy the benefits.On the other side, you need to shell out $15-$20 per class multiple times per week for one person and have to wait for a convenient class time. For long-term consideration, you can tell which one is better.

Unique benefits of indoor rowing

If you’re considering buying an indoor rowing machine, you’ve probably heard about the full-body workouts of rowing, and a distinctive benefit is the low-impact.As for cost-effectiveness, it is about what benefits can home rowing machines bring to you. Let’s break down all the characteristics that contribute to its value :
    1. Full-body workout. In fact, rowing exercises all the major muscle groups: arms, back, abdominals (upper-body works about 30%), legs and buttocks (lower-body works about 70%), according to American Fitness Professionals Association (AFPA). As much as you exercise all that muscles, you’re improving your physical fitness in an efficient way. This makes a rowing machine perfect for people who want to do total body conditioning while valuing time and efficiency with their workouts!
A diagram describing main muscles used while rowing
    1. Weight loss & fat burning. It is the big reason why we spend our time and take effort to workout.
Calories burned in 30-minute activities
Gym Activities125-pound person155-pound person185-pound person
Rowing, Stationary: moderate210 cal260 cal311 cal
Rowing, Stationary: vigorous255 cal316 cal377 cal
    1. It’s low impact & joint friendly. Getting to work in horizontal pattern, you don’t have that much gravity drives you down compare to vertical workout motion. It reduces the pressure on your joints. Turns out, a home rowing machine can engage most of your muscles whilst avoid re-injury. Moreover, rowing exercise will help you strengthen your joints, and increase mobility without causing more damage.
A 2014 study of 24 people over 8 weeks found that joint torques, or rotations, in the elbow, shoulder, lumbar, and knee improved by 30 percent.
    1. Suitable for every family member of all ages and fitness levels. Indoor rower is not a discriminate exercise machine. Regardless of the sports you do, you’ll be benefited from rowing as part of your training. You only need to clap eyes on the physiques of the Olympians who are rowing for gold to realize that it’s, undoubtedly, one of the best strength and cardio workouts around.
a child rows by one side of a lawn and two women rest on sofa by another side of the lawn
  1. A home rowing machine can promote the quality of life. That’s not a boasting. Because this machine doesn’t allow you to just moving mindlessly. You have to learn how to move and place your body in the appropriate place (and at the right time, using the proper muscles). This will become a huge advantage because we don’t have enough opportunities in our life to develop an awareness and sensation of your body. By learning this entire movement path, and control muscles, you will get your mind in tune with your muscles. As result, you become more likely to notice stress, anxiety and tension.
Developing body awareness involves passively observing your body and its actions without thinking in terms of “good,” “bad,” “attractive” or “unattractive.” You can think of it like being a scientist investigating yourself. The aim is to detach yourself from personal criticism, and just be interested in perceiving, understanding, and accepting your body exactly as it is.

Home rowing machine for fitness goal

There are a lot more benefits that can be mentioned. With all these benefits, a home rowing machine will show its value for every penny. If you are still in irresolution, you can figure it out by asking yourself these questions. Maybe your uncertainty comes from what you heard (like indoor rowing will hurt your back), but be careful to those unprofessional comments, you can refer to this article to see through those conspiracy theories.Perhaps you have experienced that awesome cardio workout and you decided to buy a home rowing machine to complement the whole home gym. Or maybe it will be the first in-home fitness purchase. No matter what becomes your first reason, it will be a priceless asset in your fitness and health goal.Size, storage, noise level and usability are all important things to consider. When it comes to choosing the best home rowing machine that fits your needs, there are 3 key points for comparison worth noting:

1. Quality and capacity

There is no compromise on quality. Make sure the home rowing machine can withstand the amount of time they plan to use it per week and for the number of people who will be using it. And you’ll get years of trouble-free usage that will help keep you fit and healthy.The more expensive the rowing machine, the better the build quality. However, there are a few “diamonds in the rough” models. You can read this article about the best home rowing machine for around $500.Each indoor rowing machine has a manufacturer-recommended capacity. If a rower of your family is more than 6’6″, you may have to buy a specific model to accommodate the height. Furthermore, pay attention to the weight capacity when someone is overweight. Many budget rowing machines cannot support heavier weight, so your options may be limited. In this case, a commercial-grade rowing machine is your priority.In order to figure out which model will be your choice, you need to keep the maximum value of inseam length and weight among all users in mind. Inseam is the length of the inside of your leg. This is going to be the length of your leg while you are sitting down rowing. Here is a chart with a rough estimate of height vs. inseam length.a diagram of your length and inseam length This factor is going to decide how long the seat rail do you need.

2. A performance monitor is critical

After researching, we find that one of the most-asked questions is about monitor functionsYou definitely want to achieve some goals like fat-burning through the indoor rower. No matter what are your purposes, the home rower should be able to monitor how you perform.

Home rowing machines for general exercise

Here comes a common scenario: you want the benefits of enhancing health, losing weight and cardio exercise. To reap all these wonderful results, you need a personal tutor (a monitor) to point out how you can row better. By understanding those data matrices, you know how much effort you’ve made. If you pay attention to the figures during each workout, you’ll see the progress clearly.But, nearly every rowing machine monitor will calculate your time, distance, strokes and SPM (strokes per minute). Some low-end monitor also index calories burned (incorrectly).

So, how to choose the monitor?

description of four parameters of a monitor Basically, you can lay on these features:
  • External visual perception
  • Data display and accuracy
  • Wireless connectively

• Physical location – should be at the center of your sight

It should be in the middle and at the level of the eye so that you can watch it clearly while you’re sitting on the rower. In some cases, the monitor on an extending arm is able to be adjusted up and down. You can tuck it away when storing the machine.

• Big and clear

The monitor isn’t of much usage if all of your exercise data is shown but you’re not able to see it. Choose a monitor that has a big screen.The backlit monitor gains ground if you tend to work out in places where the lights are dim.

• What data are monitoring

Most provide distance, speed, pace, Calories, and watts for each workout you do. Some can also display your heart rate, with the assistance of devices (like Polar chest belt, Garmin Watch).

• Accuracy

magnifier glass and numbers“They claim they have it, but that doesn’t mean it works that well.” A monitor that displays inaccurate value is skimble-skamble.To make sure the rower has a great monitor, you’d better do some research on how the monitor performs.

• Performance monitor with Bluetooth & App

Trust me, it’s totally worth it that you spending more on it. So what steps can you take to ensure the best Bluetooth experience with the rower monitor and apps?If you’re considering purchasing a rowing machine with a Bluetooth-enabled monitor, here’s how to do that :
  1. To look at the reviews and consumer forums to see if people commonly report errors with Bluetooth pairing the rower monitor you would use.
  2. Search the internet and check the Compatible Apps of a certain brand. (Search the internet for “compatibility check- app name” )
  3. Go into the App Store on whatever mobile device you have, Android or iPhone, and search for the app name or the product name.
Many commercial suppliers of top-end rowing machines are developing their own rowing programs and racing games to cater to individuals. With these guides, users can strengthen and advance their rowing technique in amused.interfaces of monitor showing rowing programs You’ll generally get an idea of if apps even exist to support the rowing machine you’re considering or not and that will tell you whether or not you’re going to be moving into a higher-tech product or a lower-tech product.That’s ultimately up to you as to whether it’s important to have a fancy monitor or not. Maybe you just want some basic information like duration, distance, SPM, etc.Maybe you don’t even want information when it comes to your workouts. That’s up to you to decide, but it’s sth you should put into your consideration. As the type of monitor you choose will influence the price of the value.

• Programming

This is the key factor to make your workout more interesting and challenging.While if you’re trying to get the heart rate into the upper zones and lose fat, most rowing machines offer workout programs that cater to interval training.Monitors on the “Top End” rowing machines that have different user profiles to store workouts and programs for each user. More than that, you may find some provide training video or rowing live through the APP.An user profile showing seven rowing programs

3. Convenience

When I say convenience, I don’t mean it’s possible for you to curl on the couch and wait for the machine to operate itself. You need to do some actual work to get benefits. Instead of ended in a nightmare, your indoor rower shouldn’t get you in a lot of trouble.From the moment when it arrives till its retirement (a good quality machine will last for about 10 years), it requires to be assembled, stored and maintained.Although assembling an indoor rowing machine is a one-time event, but it still can drive you in a messy. You want to make sure you’ll get support when you run into any problems, not only the guide wrote on the pamphlet, but also a step-by-step video for reference.An easy-to-stored rower (storage dimensions), and only require a little maintenance, will give you great peace in the long run.A woman is moving Topiom rowing machine uprigh

Detailed criteria

Now you know what you should expect from an indoor rowing machine. These factors will determine your experience through the rowing journey. Thus, choosing a home rower base on its quality, capacity, intelligence and convenience can be your priority when doing research. But, with tons of brands cramming the market, it’s still hard for you to see through those varieties.Here are the other things you should take into consideration : a hydraulic-piston rower, a magnetic rower, an air rower, and a water resistance rower
  • Comfort. It will have 3 connection points while you rowing on the machine: Footboard, handlebar and the seat. Their design should be in accordance with ergonomics in order to give you great comfort. Especially for 2K or 5K challenge.
  • Warranty. It is important to make sure that you will get supported for the rest of the time. Good customer service should fringe indoor rowing machine that you bought. Those budget rowers will have short warranty periods. So before you buy, you’d better do some research about if there were some customer service complaints.

Final thought

With tons of brands and models cramming the market, finding the best indoor rowing machine for yourself is like looking for a needle in a haystack. But when taking all the criteria above into consideration, you will see through these numerous options.It’s all about figuring out what you need. If you are still hesitating, please refer to this ultimate buying guide to help walk you through selecting the best home rowing machine. You may also want to check the best rowing machine reviews to generate the ideal rowing machine.
If you are feeling tired and lazy after doing all this research, then let me do it for you! Just leave a comment about your preferences.