Rowing sits in a gray area between cardio and resistance training, and the honest answer is that it has elements of both. Every stroke involves pushing against resistance with your legs, back, and arms, which creates mechanical tension in muscles the same way a squat or deadlift does. But the load per repetition is far lighter than traditional strength exercises, and the high number of repetitions (20 to 35 strokes per minute, sustained for minutes or longer) tilts the overall stimulus toward aerobic conditioning.
Whether rowing “counts” as resistance training depends on what you’re trying to get out of it. Here’s what the physiology actually shows.
What Makes Something Resistance Training
Resistance training is any exercise where muscles contract against an external load heavy enough to cause structural adaptation, meaning the muscle fibers get stronger or larger over time. The key ingredients are mechanical tension (how much force the muscle has to produce), metabolic stress (the burning sensation from sustained effort), and progressive overload (gradually increasing that demand). Traditional resistance training uses loads heavy enough that you can only perform roughly 6 to 15 repetitions before fatigue, which maximizes the tension each fiber experiences.
Rowing does apply an external load, and it does produce both concentric contractions (muscles shortening during the drive phase) and eccentric contractions (muscles lengthening under tension during the recovery). Research published in Scientific Reports confirmed that leg muscles perform what’s called a stretch-shortening cycle during rowing: the quadriceps and calf muscles stretch eccentrically at the end of the glide phase, then contract concentrically through the powerful drive. That’s the same type of muscle action you’d see in a leg press. The difference is intensity per rep: a competitive rower might produce 600 to 900 watts at peak effort, but that force is distributed across 86% of the body’s muscle mass and repeated hundreds of times, keeping the per-fiber load well below what a heavy squat demands.
Muscles Worked During a Rowing Stroke
Rowing is one of the few exercises that engages nearly every major muscle group in a single movement. The drive phase, where you push off the footplate and pull the handle toward your chest, loads the quadriceps, glutes, hamstrings, erector spinae (the muscles running along your spine), latissimus dorsi (the large back muscles), and biceps. The recovery phase, where you return to the starting position, activates the abdominals, hip flexors, and triceps to control the movement. EMG studies measuring electrical activity in trunk muscles during ergometer rowing show significant activation of the thoracic and lumbar spinal extensors, the lats, the rectus abdominis, and the external obliques.
That breadth of muscle recruitment is unusual. Most cardio exercises (running, cycling, swimming) emphasize either the upper or lower body. Rowing taxes both, which is why it often feels more like a full-body workout than a typical cardio session.
How Damper Settings Change the Stimulus
On an indoor rowing machine, the damper setting controls how much air enters the flywheel housing. Higher settings let in more air, which slows the flywheel faster between strokes and forces you to generate more force to get it spinning again. Lower settings let in less air, making each stroke feel lighter and faster. Concept2, the most widely used rowing ergometer brand, compares this to bicycle gearing: a high damper setting feels like rowing a heavy, slow boat, while a low setting feels like a sleek racing shell.
At higher damper settings (typically 7 to 10), the force required per stroke increases, and the stroke rate naturally drops. This shifts the demand slightly toward strength and power. At lower settings (1 to 4), the emphasis moves toward quicker, more aerobic strokes. However, increasing the damper doesn’t change the fundamental nature of the exercise. Even at the highest setting, you’re still performing dozens of repetitions per minute at a fraction of the load you’d use in a barbell row or leg press. The damper makes rowing feel more like a strength workout without fully becoming one.
The Hormonal Picture
One way researchers compare exercise types is by measuring the hormonal response afterward. A study examining three training protocols in rowers found that endurance rowing produced the largest spikes in growth hormone and testosterone compared to interval training or traditional resistance training at intensities above 85% of maximum. The cortisol response (a marker of stress that can break down muscle tissue) stayed relatively low across all three protocols, suggesting that rowing doesn’t create excessive catabolic stress.
This is a revealing finding. Growth hormone and testosterone both play roles in muscle repair and growth, and rowing triggers meaningful increases in both. But the pattern looks more like what you’d see from intense aerobic exercise than from heavy lifting. In the same study, resistance training at very high loads (above 85% of one-rep max) didn’t produce significant changes in these hormones at all, which suggests the muscle-building signal from heavy lifting comes from mechanical tension on the fibers rather than from hormonal surges.
What Rowing Does and Doesn’t Build
Rowing builds muscular endurance effectively. If you row consistently, the muscles involved will become more fatigue-resistant, more efficient at using oxygen, and moderately stronger. Beginners who haven’t done much physical activity will likely notice some muscle growth in the legs, back, and arms during the first few months, simply because any new stimulus triggers adaptation.
What rowing doesn’t do well is build maximum strength or significant muscle size. The load per stroke is too low and the repetition count too high to generate the kind of mechanical tension that drives hypertrophy in trained individuals. Competitive rowers are often muscular, but they supplement their time on the water or ergometer with heavy squats, deadlifts, and rows in the weight room.
Bone density tells a similar story. Research on elite rowers found that their bone mineral density generally falls within the normal range for the general population, not above it. High-impact sports like basketball and gymnastics tend to increase bone density at loaded sites, while rowing, despite its repetitive force production, has a largely neutral effect. Lightweight female rowers actually showed lower bone density at the spine and femur than their heavier teammates. This suggests that rowing doesn’t provide the same skeletal loading benefit as weight-bearing resistance exercises.
How To Use Rowing Alongside Strength Training
If your goal is cardiovascular fitness, rowing on its own is excellent. It challenges the heart and lungs, works more total muscle mass than cycling or running, and is low-impact enough to protect your joints. If your goal is building strength or muscle, rowing works best as a complement to, not a replacement for, traditional resistance training.
A practical approach is to use rowing for your cardio sessions and dedicate separate days (or separate portions of the same workout) to heavier lifting. Rowing at a moderate stroke rate of 22 to 26 strokes per minute on a low to moderate damper setting provides steady aerobic work. For a more power-oriented session, you can drop the stroke rate to 18 to 20 and crank the damper higher, focusing on explosive drives. This won’t replace squats, but it does train the ability to produce force quickly, which carries over to athletic performance.
Short, high-intensity rowing intervals (think 10 to 15 seconds of all-out effort with long rest periods) push the activity closer to the resistance training end of the spectrum by demanding near-maximal power output from the legs and back. These intervals won’t build muscle the way a set of heavy deadlifts would, but they train the same fast-twitch muscle fibers and can improve power production over time.