Rowing Machines
Welcome to the Rowing Machines page, this is our guide to buying rowing machines online including models from brands such as Concept, Delta, York, V Fit, Tunturi, Body Sculpture and Kettler.
Rowing Machines are a very popular type of exercise equipment, this is because they offer excellent all round body exercise, they work most of the major muscle groups while you are rowing. This is similar to swimming and is a great way to get in shape as it works your whole body in one go, the legs will benefit most as they do most of the work followed by the waist. The most popular brands of rowing machine in the UK are Concept, Body Sculpture and York.
The way rowing machines work is simple, there will be a long base that is usually around a foot above the ground and at the far end there is a unit which contains the handle and the unit which provides the resistance. So to row all you do is sit on the seat and hold the handle and then move back and forth on the base, pulling the handle towards you with each repetition. You should keep your back straight at all times and do not completely straighten your legs when you are at the end of the base, keep your knees slightly bent.
There are two main types of rowing machine, they are the ones that have a base above the ground (as described above) and the ones that are flat on the ground. Rowing machines have varying ways of providing resistance, the ones that are flat on the ground generally use a hydraulic system to provide resistance. This involves having a metal arm which is connected to a hydraulic mechanism on each side of the rower, you simply hold these arms and pull them back with you with each stroke on the rowing machine. These are generally the cheaper models and they are good for beginners, one word of warning though when they have been used allot they can make allot of noise, a screeching sound that can get very annoying.
The other type of rowing machine is the one with the elevated base, these normally have either air or magnetic resistance. These rowing machines are bigger but offer better support, the base is generally on a slight slope giving a better rowing experience. The air resistance models often offer a clever way of offering resistance in that the harder you pull the harder the resistance will be, this is great as the rower will provide just the right amount of resistance for your work out.
Most rowing machines also come with an LCD screen that offers statistics about your work out, these statistics include how long you have been rowing for, the amount of strokes you have done, the distance you have traveled, the calories you have burnt and the speed at which you are rowing. Not all rowing machines offer all of this information but they all offer most of it, one model may not provide one of the statistics but you do not generally need them all. They are very useful for setting targets, for instance if you decide that you are going to have a thirty minute work out every day then you can see how many strokes you do in that 30 minutes and try and improve on it day by day. So say you do 1500 strokes in your first thirty minute work out then you could aim to hit 1600 within the next week and so on, you can obviously also increase the amount of time you do your rowing. Some rowing machines also have heart rate monitors, these tell you how hard your heart is working while you are exercising. This is very useful information as your heart will beat faster as you put more effort into the work out, there is an target heart rate that you can find out by looking in the documentation that comes with your rowing machine, maintaining this level will give you the best work out possible.
There are many manufacturers that make rowing machines and they include Concept, Body Sculpture, V Fit, York, Delta, Tunturi and Kettler. Concept are probably the most popular but they are more expensive, Body Sculpture, Delta and York are very popular with the catalogue companies like Argos. Most of the companies sell a wide range of rowing machines including rowers with air, magnetic and hydraulic resistance.
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