FOCUS ON HEALTH:
Please leave boat at the door
Indoor rowing is becoming popular for those seeking a low-impact, highly effective workout.
By Amanda Pennington
COSTA MESA — As her daughter's wedding approached last year, Newport Beach resident Kathi Glover was looking for a way to tone up and look her best. After a woman in her bunco group invited the other members to join a class, Glover discovered rowing, a low-impact way of keeping fit. Quickly, she became hooked.
"I wanted to get in better shape than I thought I was," she said. "I needed an upper-body workout."
Glover, who is in her 50s, continued with the classes and watched what she ate, which led her to drop a number of dress sizes in about seven months.
"That's why I kept doing it, it was a total overall body workout," she said. "I wouldn't think you'd be working your legs as much, but you're working the legs, arms and abdominal muscles."
Glover gave up her previous regimen, which included running the stairs at Newport Harbor High School, and upped her routine from two days per week to five or six because it was fun and effective.
Indoor rowing is especially effective for cross training, said Xeno Müller, who opened the Iron Oarsman indoor rowing gym in Costa Mesa three years ago.
Because rowing uses all the major muscle groups, Müller said, it's good used in conjunction with popular workouts including Pilates, tennis and golf.
"The goal about improving your main discipline is to be able to cross train for maximum effectiveness," he said, standing in front of his 18 rowing machines at his small 17th Street studio. "Indoor rowing is the perfect ambassador to cross training."
Müller, who won Olympic Gold and Silver for Switzerland in the men's single skull rowing in 1996 and 2000 said he started his business to "open up rowing to a lot of people."
Typically indoor rowing was used only by those competing in the sport, and the equipment was generally sold to boat houses and universities, Müller said.
"It boggles my mind that rowing has never really surfaced, but it is about to surface," he said. "It's the only sport that's zero-impact and you can do it while you're seated."
Like most exercise programs, it's not necessarily for everyone said Janet Grattan, a physical therapist at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian's Outpatient Services.
"It can be nice to use as cross training tool, and a lot of people do really well at it, but the mechanics are not ones I find as useful as other modalities," she said.
During the workout, your feet are strapped in and you engage the gluteus muscles while hinging at the hip. The user sits up straight and tall and follows through with the arms, engaging the back and stomach muscles as well.
"If you can sit on the couch pain-free, chances are you can row pain-free," Müller said. "That's a big thing."
Indoor rowers can also connect with others throughout the world through the Online World Rankings put out by Concept2, the manufacturer of most of the rowing machines in Müller's studio. In the 2006 season — May 2005 through April 2006 — Glover ranked 2,812 out of 4,065 worldwide users who individually posted their results. After each class, rowers can track how many meters they've rowed. Since she started, Glover has logged more than 5 million meters. The gym itself ranks No. 2, Müller said.
"You can row about 8,000 meters per workout, or about five miles, and you can burn more than 350 calories," he said. "The better you get, the more you can burn because you become more efficient."
The workout, according to Müller and his wife Erin Müller, draws a different crowd than your local gym or spin class.
"It's a different crowd on a different wavelength," Erin Müller said. "People who may get intimidated by going to a regular gym come here and are comfortable."
Xeno Muller, Olympic gold and silver medalist, indoor rowing, rowing technique.
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