The 5 Kinds of Rowing Workouts You Should Be Doing

It’s easy to get sick of the same old, same old workouts week after week. Looking to mix it up? Here are the 5 different kinds of rowing workouts you should be doing. 

ROUNDS FOR TIME

This is an easy format to start mixing in other movements. These can be bodyweight movements, weighted movements with dumbbells, kettlebells, or a barbell, or movements with any other kind of equipment you may have. 

Example:

4 rds:

500m row

20 Push Ups

20 Kettlebell swings

CHIPPER

A chipper workout is 4 or more movements, with typically more reps that you “chip away” at. 

Example:

2000m row

50 Air Squats

40 V-ups

30 Lunges

20 Push Ups

10 Wall Walks

AMRAP

This stands for “as many reps as possible”. You set a time limit, and try to get an many rounds as you can. This is great if you have a specific time constraint, but want to still get a workout in. 

Example:

AMRAP in 15 min:

250m row

10 Sit Ups

10 Burpees

10 Push Ups

X-Y-Z REP SCHEME

This one is a little harder to explain, so I’ll start with an example first:

21-15-9

Cal row

DB Thrusters

This workout goes as follows: 21 cal row, 21 thrusters, 15 cal row, 15 thrusters, 9 cal row, 9 thrusters. So you do 21 reps of each exercise, followed by 15 reps of each exercise, finishing with 9 reps of each exercise. 

Most of the time this type of workout will use rowing calories instead of meters. 

You can pick a whole host of different number schemes for this. Keep it easy to remember, and using number multiples will help with that. It doesn’t have to be limited to 3 numbers. It can be 30-27-24-21-18-15-12-9-6 if you wanted (and that would be a long workout!).

Other rep scheme examples: 20-15-10-5, 12-9-6, 16-12-8-4, etc.

ROWING PIECES

Rowing only pieces allow you to work on your rowing skills. 

These can be shorter with high intensity pieces (think 500m/1ks), longer with lower intensity (>10min pieces), intervals that change stroke rating, or pyramid workouts.  

Those three descriptions don’t nearly cover all of the options when it comes to rowing workouts. 

Some examples:

1:00on/1:00 off x10

4x1000m w/3 min rest inbetween (hard pace)

8min-6min-4min-2min at stroke rate of 22/24/26/28

10K row (can be a swing row or 10K for time)

If you’re looking to mix things up, I suggest starting with one of these styles of workouts! If you don’t know what to program in-between your rowing, hang on because that blog post is coming out next!

For now, start with what you know how to do. Bodyweight movements are also a good place to start. Air squats, lunges, burpees, sit ups, etc. 

If you want more information on how to start mixing in other movements, check out my other post “How to Mix in Exercises with Rowing”.

By all means, these workout styles aren’t the end all be all. There are many ways to get creative in your workouts. 

Depending on how much time you have, you can always put a time cap on your workouts. This will help you out in case you were overly ambitious in what you thought you could accomplish (because we ALL have been there).

So if you decide to do a chipper, but you know you have to be done in 25 minutes, put a 25 min time cap on it and see how much you can get done. There’s no shame in doing what you can, in the time limit you have!

Let’s get rowing!