RowAlong – Indoor Rowing Machine Workouts

Mar 25: 25 Min Low Intensity Row — The Chain Height Debate | RowAlong

Join this 25 minute easy rowing workout — low intensity, any machine, any pace, any fitness level. Row along at your own pace while I talk you through technique, tell you a story or two, and generally keep you company for 27 minutes.Today's technique is built around the chain height debate — and it starts with a confession. I made a short video recently that was essentially a rebuttal to a clip Austin from JustRow put out about handle path and chain height. No shade at all — he rows beautifully — but I disagreed with the approach, and I realised after posting it that a 60-second short probably wasn't the best place to make a nuanced argument. So I'm unpacking it properly here.The short version: lowering the handle on the recovery is a useful cue if you're someone who bends their knees too early. But in my experience, nine times out of ten, the rower who does it then opens their hips to lift the handle back up — which is exactly the problem we were trying to fix. Sternum height, relaxed shoulders, straight line in and out. That's still where I land.Along the way I also cover body rock and core bracing, the connection between feet and hands through the stroke, and the feet-out-of-straps drill — which is one of the most honest ways to find out whether your momentum is actually going into the flywheel.And there's a story from the racing years that I skipped a few weeks back — soda doping, a 1K race in Aberdeen, and what happens when you get the dosage slightly wrong with about ten minutes to go before the start. It doesn't end well. Mostly.📋 Find the rest of this week's rows as video RowAlongs here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8ookhrQKwvKEfSfOxp73vX02j8LrtUil (Thursday and Friday sessions are unlisted — bookmark the playlist so you don't lose them)Please consult your doctor or healthcare professional before beginning any new exercise programme, particularly if you have any existing health conditions or injuries. Listen to your body and work at a pace that's right for you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mar 24: Easy Rowing Workout — Build Better Habits With Every Stroke | RowAlong

27 minutes of low intensity rowing that sets you up for the day — any machine, any pace, row how you want. Technique today goes deep on foot plate height and what it actually does to your body position — why too high squashes everything up as you come into the catch, why too low opens the angle the wrong way, and the relationship between your shin angle and how much your upper body has to compensate. There's also a useful cue around keeping your knees inside the box formed by your arms and handle, and what happens to your posture when they poke out the top.The backstory picks up the RowAlong origin story from where we left off — from the knife accident and rehab rows through to COVID, lockdown, rowing machines flying off shelves, and why that moment of people suddenly working out at home changed everything. Plus some honest thinking about where the channel goes next, plans vs daily workouts, and what the rest of 2025 might look like.📋 Tuesday to Friday rows are unlisted on YouTube — find them in the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8ookhrQKwvKEfSfOxp73vX02j8LrtUilPlease consult your doctor or healthcare professional before beginning any new exercise programme, particularly if you have any existing health conditions or injuries. Listen to your body and work at a pace that's right for you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mar 23: 25 Min Easy Rowing Workout — Start the Week Without Overthinking It | RowAlong

The session that does more for your fitness than it feels like it should — 27 minutes, low intensity, any machine, any pace.Technique today covers flat wrists and elbow position — why dropping your elbows shifts the work onto your delts and forearms when your lats and back could be doing the job instead. There's also a useful cue for engaging your lats at the catch with a slight outward arm rotation that's genuinely worth trying. Plus handle height, sternum vs belly button vs upper chest, and why sternum is the target.Back on the day job today — a new series of This Farming Life starts in the edit, which means slightly leaner output this week. The workouts still happen every morning, but the green screen is now running live rather than in post. That's the plan, anyway.The backstory is on pause while the week gets going again — but the story of where RowAlong came from, and where it's heading next, picks back up from Tuesday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mar 20: 27 Minute Low Intensity Row | Chat & Easy Pace Workout | RowAlong

Welcome back to the RowAlong Club! Grab a seat and Row With Me for today's low-intensity session as we tackle a 5k with a 1k tagged on at the end.We'll be holding a nice, easy pace of around 20 strokes a minute for the entire row. I'll guide you through setting up your drag factor, seat position, foot stretchers, and handle grip to make sure you're perfectly comfortable before we kick off.Once we get moving on the 1.3-kilometer EXR course , I'll share some tips on technique, focusing on forward tilt, engaging your quads on the drive, and keeping your chain height level into your sternum. After that, we just chat! I'll tell you the story of how I started making YouTube videos in a friend's gym , the magic of green screens , and my journey getting back into the Welsh and Scottish Indoor Rowing Championships after a nasty hand injury.Don't Row Alone—let's get those heart rates up gently and enjoy the paddle! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mar 19: 25 Min Easy Rowing Workout — Good Technique Habits That Stick | RowAlong

The session that quietly does more for your rowing than almost anything else — 25 minutes, low intensity, any machine, any pace. Today's technique goes deep on over-compression — what it actually is, why heels coming up is usually a posture problem rather than an ankle flexibility one, and what the chain height on your machine tells you about your handle path. Two viewer videos this week showed the same fault from opposite ends of the world: dropping the handle going forward, then pulling early to lift it back up. If any of that sounds familiar, this one's worth paying attention to.The backstory jumps forward. After the 100km world record in France, 2018 brings a hideous winter flu that wipes out a trip to the World Championships in Virginia — sweating through an edit suite, money lost on a flight, and a race that never happened. What followed is the story of how RowAlong actually came to exist: a knife sharpening incident, tendon surgery under local anaesthetic with a heart rate of 34, eight weeks of wiggling one finger on the train, a conversation with Shane from Dark Horse, that led to RowAlong.📋 To watch the videos: find them in the playlist and bookmark it: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8ookhrQKwvKEfSfOxp73vX02j8LrtUilPlease consult your doctor or healthcare professional before beginning any new exercise programme, particularly if you have any existing health conditions or injuries. Listen to your body and work at a pace that's right for you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.