Rowing Drills

These drills can help you refine your rowing technique on an indoor rowing machine. Each drill focuses on a different part of the rowing stroke. These are excellent drills if you are new to rowing and want to break the technique down into parts. Experienced rowers can also use the drills as a warm-up to help "remind" your muscle memory what the correct motions are.

Warm-Up with Arms and Body Rowing

Learn the proper stroke sequence by practicing rowing with just arms and body. The legs move only after the arms reach out and the body swings forward.

Warm-Up with Pauses

Try pausing your stroke to make sure your legs, back and arms are moving in the correct sequence. Then blend these to create a fluid motion.

Warm-Up with Counting Your Rhythm

For effective rowing, spend less time on the drive and more time on the recovery. This can improve the work to recovery ratio of your stroke. In this video, you'll see that she finishes the drive during the count of 1, and then recovery on counts 2–4.

Warm-Up with Leg Only Rowing

Rowing with just your legs is a good way to practice using these large muscle groups for a strong, effective stroke.