Put more power behind those strokes and maintain speed,” Kamal Chhi-kara, fitness trainer and owner of Delhi-based gym, Reebok CrossFit Robust, calls out. He’s addressing a group of fitness enthusiasts who are training hard on fancy whirring machines that look something like rowing boats. Sitting on a sliding seat with feet on footpads and hands gripping the handle, each ‘rower’ pushes back his seat as far as his or her legs go and then slides forward, ready to push back again, thus simulating a rowing action. 

After a one-minute water break, the whooshing sound and thumping music resume as the sweat-soaked trainees go back to their machines. 

The machines might look intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of the technique, you have the perfect cardio workout on your hands. “This is the king of cardio workouts,” says Chhikara.

He hollers out another set of exercises and the group switches from the machines to squats and push-ups for a minute before getting back on them. “If you increase the pace of the strokes, it will elevate your heart rate and, hence, become an effective cardio workout,” he says. On the other hand, he says, when you lower the stroke rate, you generate power by using your legs, core, trunks and arms, thus converting it to a muscle-strengthening exercise.”

“Rowing might just be the most efficient exercise ever because every part of the body gets used with each stroke. It’s actually a full-body workout,” says Jatin Arora, a Gurgaon-based, ACE Certified Personal Trainer from the US who trains at CrossFit Life Performance.
 

The workout engages the glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings, core, trunk, lower core, upper body and lower back. “It’s also a great way to tone your legs and sculpt your upper body,” he says. “If you want the difficulty level increased, just crank up the resistance anywhere from one to nine.”

Despite being a high-intensity work-out, it’s really low impact on the joints. It improves posture, works 85 per cent on the muscles and also gets the heart rate up. “It helps most people who are hunched forward over their desks all day by waking up the muscles of the back,” says Arora.

Wait, there’s more. If you’re attending rowing classes, rest assured that there will never be a dull moment. For, in-between rowing you’ll have the chance to get off the machine to do mat work, weight training and squats. “Variation in the routine is crucial if you want to reap its benefits,” says Chhikara. So, you can row for one minute and switch to a minute of push-ups, goblet squats or box-jumping (basically jumping over a box). “I make it a part of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) to make it more effective and interesting,” he adds.

“Usually each rep is a combination of a leg press, a dead lift and a row. A 30-minute workout burns about 350 to 450 calories,” says Akash Kuchekar, a fitness trainer at CrossFitOM in Mumbai who trains his clients on the machines.

“It’s an addictive workout,” says Chitranjan Singh, owner, CrossFit Gurgaon, who holds about five daily sessions.

But Chhikara rues the fact that indoor rowing is one of the most misunderstood exercise regimens. It’s usually mistaken only for an upper body exercise, which isn’t true since the majority of the power comes from the legs. “Another misconception is that it’s too rigorous,” he adds.

The best part of the workout is the fact that anyone can do it. “I have been running in the past but feel that my knees had started to give away,” says 51-year-old Kimman Balakrishnan, who runs his own software company and has recently taken to rowing at a gym. “I have resumed fitness classes after 20 years but discovered rowing to be a great exercise, especially since it doesn’t impact my knees,” he says.

Being an indoor activity, it’s conducted in a pollution-free environment. Says Arora: “You don’t even need an elliptical trainer or a treadmill as the rowing machine is everything rolled into one.”

It’s also a perfect workout that helps in healing injuries. “I had a ligament tear and was unable to play football,” says 26-year-old footballer Nitish who trains at CrossFit Robust, Delhi. “The workout is helping me recover fast and since it is low-impact, I can do it without aggravating my injury.”

However, warm-up exercises are imperative before getting on to the machine, advises renowned fitness expert, Mickey Mehta. “Stretch your entire body, do slow-forward bending, side bending and few Yoga asanas like the reverse boat position to avoid back problems,” he says.

So, we say, row your boat to that perfectly sculpted body!