Rowing back to the gym

By Roy M. Wallack, Special to The Times 
June 5, 2006  

I looked at the rowing machine before me. I looked at the 14 other people sitting down to their rowers. I looked up front at the instructor who promised to take us on a strenuous 50-minute rowing workout that he said would "change the way we think about fitness." 
 
And I suddenly became very afraid.

I wasn't afraid I couldn't hack it. I was afraid my back couldn't hack it.  
 
Ten years earlier, having heard about the great all-body workout and monster calorie burn of rowing, I sat down and attacked a rowing machine at my gym for about 20 minutes. About two weeks later, I was finally able to walk without wrenching pain screaming up and down my spine.  
 
No wonder there's only one or two rowing machines at the gym, I thought — and why no one is ever using them. It seemed obvious why participation in indoor fitness rowing plunged from 14 million to 6 million from 1987 to 2001, according to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Assn. — and why sales of rowing machines fell from 17% of fitness machines in 1987 to the point where the association no longer kept track. 
 
Who would want to risk rowing when more popular — and more back-friendly — alternatives such as steppers, ellipticals and Spinning classes are now on the scene? 
 
But some say that rowing's relentless decline is set for a U-turn. "It's only down because people don't know how to use the machine," says my instructor, Josh Crosby. "Rowing is a technical skill, like golf. Teach people proper form, crank up the music, get enthusiastic, knowledgeable instructors, and they'll love it. Rowing could be the next Spinning." 
 
Now, comparing a back-busting relic like rowing to a worldwide phenomenon like Spinning might seem a little daffy, but the former Brown University rower, 32, is turning naysayers into believers. 
 
Two years ago, Crosby brought 12 ergometers (rowing machines' official name) and the idea for a group rowing program to the Revolution Fitness studio in Santa Monica and soon was selling out seven classes a week. Building on that success, in March he launched the concept at industry bellwether Sports Club L.A., which purchased 25 ergs for its West L.A. club and watched its newborn "Indo-Row" classes max out almost overnight. 
 
In May, Crosby successfully rolled out Indo-Row at Sports Club's Beverly Hills branch and has begun gearing up for September launches in the Irvine and New York clubs, with Boston, Chicago and Washington, D.C., down the road.  
 
As the fitness world tries to determine if Indo-Row is trend or fad, Crosby meticulously puts instructor trainees through three-month apprenticeships. And he's not alone. Over the last two years, former collegiate rowing coach Angela Hart has taught fully booked rowing classes at two D.C.-area Gold's Gyms and trained dozens of instructors. As the program director for the Indoor Rowing Training and Certification Institute, she has certified 84 instructors around the country, 30 in the last six months. 
 
"We're on the cusp of this thing [rowing] exploding," Hart says. She recently conducted a workshop for CrossFit, a hot new workout program that makes frequent use of rowing, and trained instructors on the reality TV weight-loss show, "The Biggest Loser." 
 
"They will be using rowing machines on shows airing in the fall," she says. "When that hits, the benefits will be too obvious to ignore." 
 
The machines work all the major muscle groups — legs, butt, back, arms, you name it — and can burn 500 to 800 calories in a 50-minute class. Not only is it great cross-training for such activities as cycling and running, it's uniquely democratic. The rowing machine, alone of all machines, is horizontal, so overweight people don't have to support their own weight.  
 
And its appeal crosses age lines. At Revolution, 47-year-old Anna McDowell rows with her teenage son Quinn Harper, and heavy-set Ricardo Navarro proudly keeps pace with the sleeker set.  
 
"Unlike any other classroom workout, it's accessible for everyone — old and young, fit and fat," Hart says. "Low to the ground, low impact, no pounding. The motion is so fluid that I even taught a rowing class the day before I gave birth to my son. 
 
"We just need to get instructors trained so that people can do this right," she added. "It's not like aerobics class, where anything goes. Form is key to rowing." 
 
How to do it right 
 
"What happened to you is typical," Hart told me. "People tend to get on an erg and pull like mad with their arms — and hurt their back and shoulders and never try it again. But rowing isn't mainly about arms. You don't need a strong upper body. On the contrary, rowing is 70% legs."

The classic rowing stroke travels from the strongest muscle group to the weakest. It is initiated by the legs, then the torso and finally is finished by the arms.  
 
"It's like lifting a heavy box overhead," says Crosby. "You initially use legs, and then call upon the back, shoulders and arms in the latter part of the movement."

The standard indoor rowing motion has four parts: The Catch, the Drive, the Finish and the Recovery.  
 
•  The Catch, the compressed starting position, turns your body into a coiled spring. The legs should be bent, arms extended straight ahead, body leaning forward, with shoulders ahead of hips, heels up, shins vertical. 
 
•  The Drive is an explosion, a complex, momentum-generating movement that flows from legs to core to arms. It is easiest to understand as two separate parts: 
 
Drive A (Leg power): The first part of the drive is all legs. Keeping the arms straight and the body tall and angled forward, blast backward by contracting the quads and rapidly extending (straightening) the legs. 
 
Drive B (Torso hinge): The second part of the drive utilizes the body's core. Thinking of the torso as an opening door that hinges, begin to lean backward before the legs fully straighten. Keep the arms straight (and therefore uninvolved in the pulling of the handle) until the legs have straightened and the body is momentarily vertical. 
 
•  The Finish: When the legs are done and the torso has hinged most of the way back, the arms take over. As the body leans backward, pull the handlebar toward your chest.  
 
Then, the legs should be straight and the bar touching the chest. Don't bounce your knees at the finish or let your hands pause. 
 
•  The Recovery is literally your time to recover. Don't rush it; you will wear yourself out by going back and forth at the same speed. The recovery should be done twice as slowly as the drive, a 2-1 ratio. It is, essentially, the drive in reverse, but slower, with more clearly defined arm, body and leg motion. Hart calls it "reach, rock and roll." "Think of it as being pulled forward by the handle," she says.  
 
Start the recovery by pushing the hands straight away from the body, then bending the knees. Fight the urge to pop the knees up quickly as you slide back into the catch. Bending the knees early wrecks the next stroke; your shoulders won't be positioned ahead of your knees, and you'll pull with too much back too soon, unnecessarily straining it.  
 
Bending early encourages you to over-compress the knees in the catch position, leaving you too upright, with back and hips too far forward.  
 
Anatomically, Hart says, you are strongest when your shoulders are a little bit ahead of your hips. 
 
As a final check, there are two things to keep in mind about mastering the complex rowing stroke:  
 
Don't try to push with the legs and pull with the arms at the same time.  
 
And if your lower back hurts, you're definitely not following the technique. 
 
The lesson learned 
 
The Indo-Row class was hard work — solid cardio that would build to near-gasping when Crosby would have us "race" one another. Muscles of the butt and shoulders especially "felt the burn." But when it was over, nobody looked exhausted. First-timers and veterans alike were remarkably upbeat. 
 
Rookie rower Pam Kraushaar, a 50-year-old Beverly Hills high school administrative assistant, said she enjoyed "the challenge of getting through class."  
 
Newbie Lisa Gerson, an interior designer who runs three days a week and lifts weights, vowed to stick with rowing for its upper-body toning.  
 
But the comment that struck me the most came from 10-week rower Zuzu P. Spadaccini, a 53-year-old Hollywood information technology specialist with a tattoo of an unraveled roll of film snaking up both arms and around his shoulders. 
 
"After training twice a week since March, I'm just now getting the technique down," he said enthusiastically. "I feel like I'm just scratching the surface." 
 
So am I. Just as people aren't perfect golfers after one lesson, neither are they perfect rowers after their first time. The movement is complex and not automatically coordinated.  
 
But the fact that my back didn't hurt meant I didn't have to be afraid of rowing anymore, and that I now had this superb all-body workout available to me. But this day was exhilarating for a more basic reason: I learned something new. In 50 minutes, I got noticeably better.  
 
"Hey, you developed a new skill today," Crosby said to me. "A new skill you can keep perfecting." 
 
How often do you get that on the elliptical machine?