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Rowing Pyramid Workout with Bodyweight Exercises

August 10, 2015 by Nicole 8 Comments

This rowing pyramid workout combines cardio with strength, in the form of bodyweight exercises. I love pyramid structures with workouts because you get the longest, hardest rounds out of the way first.

For other rowing workout ideas, check out these blog posts as well:

Rowing Pyramid Workout with Bodyweight Exercises

Equipment I Used:

WaterRower (any rower will do!)
Exercise mat

You’ll go back and forth between rowing sprints and bodyweight exercises on the floor, completing a total of six rounds. Round 1 = 600m row + bodyweight circuit. Round 2 = 500m row + bodyweight circuit. Every round, the rowing distance is reduced by 100m. I’ve included some goal times for you so that you know (roughly) how hard you should be pushing–scroll down below the exercise descriptions to see that chart.

Workout Breakdown

10 Side Plank Push Ups (Right) | From the waist up, you’ll be in a push up position. From the waist down, you’ll be in a side plank with the left foot stacked on top of the right. It’s important that the twist is from the waist; you want equal weight in both hands. From here, you’ll do a push up, engaging that right oblique to keep your body in a straight line as you lower the chest towards the ground and then press up, straightening your arms.

Beginners: modify by doing this from your knees (still twist the low body, left knee stacked on top of right knee).

20 Air Squat – Squat Jump Combo | Feet about hip’s width apart, squat down, sending your hips and butt back and down (not the knees forward!). Keep your chest open, shoulders back—it’s natural to lean forward slightly as you lower down, but we don’t want to hunch. Bring your hands in front of you as you sink down to your lowest point, bodyweight staying in your heels. From there, powerfully stand back up, straightening your legs and thrusting your hips forward (squeeze your bum at the top!) and driving your arms behind you. Next time you squat down, instead of simply standing up, you’re going to jump up straight into the air. Continue alternating between the squat and squat jump. 1 squat + 1 squat jump = 1 rep.

10 Side Plank Push Ups (Left)

20 Alternating Squat to Side Kick | Feet about hip’s width apart, start by squatting down, weight in your heels. As you press up to stand, shift your weight over to the left foot and kick your right leg up and out to the side. Bring it back in, landing right back down in a squat, weight once again even between your two feet. Next time you press up to straighten, shift your weight to the right and kick the left leg straight up and out to the side. Each kick counts as 1 rep (so you’ll kick 10 times on each side, alternating back and forth).

Goal Times for Row Sprints

I’ve included some goal times for you hit on your sprints during this rowing pyramid workout. Depending on your fitness level, you may be way below these times or just eking in under the clock. Either way, challenge yourself not to go over these times if injuries/ability allows.

Rowers out there—what are your best times for each of these distances? I don’t do 600m or 400m sprints frequently, but my fastest times for the rest are: 17sec 100m / 36sec 200m / 58sec 300m / 1:49 500m. My competitive people, use my times as motivation to CRUSH this workout (and beat me). 🙂

xo Nicole

Filed Under: Bodyweight, Btone, Burn, Cardio, Full Body, Group Fitness, Pyramid, Rowing, Workouts

5 Non-Rowing Exercises You Can Do on a Rower

July 27, 2015 by Nicole 16 Comments

5 Non-Rowing Exercises You Can Do on a Rowing Machine - Try incorporating these creative uses for a rower into your next workout! #rowing #rower #exercise #exercisetips

IndoRow purists will probably cringe at this post, but I’ve got five non-rowing exercises you can do on a rower. When I teach rowing (or do it on my own), I like to get off the machine and mix it up. As great of a workout as the rower provides, I just can’t sit on it for 45 minutes straight. I find even just a couple brief breaks of doing exercises next to the machine or creatively using the rower on the floor helps me stay engaged.

5 (Non-Rowing) Exercises You Can Do on a Rower

Try adding the following exercises into your next workout with the rower. You could do them all back-to-back in a circuit or separately, layering them into rowing blocks. Get creative!

Plank to Pike

Start in a plank position with your feet on the seat of the rower, facing the back. Keeping your legs straight, pike your hips up into the air, bringing your body into an upside down “v” shape. Try to keep your heels lifted as you do this, sliding on the balls of your feet. Once you hit your peak, slowly lower back down into plank position. If you have tight hamstrings, you might not get very high and that’s ok!

Back Lunge (with Pull Slide at Bottom)

5 Non-Rowing Exercises You Can Do on a Rowing Machine - Back Lunge with Pull Slide #rowing #exercise #fitnesstips

Start facing the back standing to the right side of the rower with your right foot planted firmly on the ground, weight in your heel, and the ball of the left foot planted on the seat of the rower. Bending your right knee, slide the left foot back as you lower into a lunge.

Add in a pull at the bottom to make it harder: You can spice things up by adding in a pull slide at the bottom of each lunge. Keeping the right knee bent at 90 degrees with weight in your right heel, bend the back left knee and slide it forward. Then extend it straight back behind you again. Don’t change height as you do this; stay low in your lunge! You can do one at the base of each lunge or hold low for an extended period of time, sliding that back knee in and out. The longer you hold, the harder this move is.

Bear Plank Crunches

5 Non-Rowing Exercises You Can Do on a Rowing Machine - Bear Crunches #exercise #row #rowing

Start in a plank position with your feet on the seat of the rower, facing the back. Keeping your hips level with your shoulders, back flat, slide your feet forward, bending your knees in towards your elbows. Slide feet back out, straightening your legs into plank position.

The two most common errors while doing this are: 1. Lifting the booty up as your feet slide in and 2. Letting the low back arch down towards the floor. Pull your abs in tight the whole time, maintaining a flat back.

Squatting Biceps Curls

5 Non-Rowing Exercises You Can Do on a Rowing Machine - Squatting Bicep Curls #rowing #rowworkout #exercisetips

Facing forward and straddling the rower, grab the handle with an underhand grip. Squat down, weight in your heels, butt and hips back and down, chest open. Holding your elbows at chest-to-shoulder height with your palms facing up, curl your hands in towards your shoulders, pulling against the resistance of the rower wheel. Release back out, keeping your elbows lifted.

Especially if you’re using a water rower that doesn’t allow you to increase resistance, this is an exercise you should do for a longer period of time. This is because it’s a lighter resistance, so you want high reps for it to be effective. Try to hold a squat the whole time for an added low body burn. You can also do it seated on the rower.

Side Lunge (with Lateral Slide at Bottom)

5 Non-Rowing Exercises You Can Do on a Rowing Machine - Side Lunge with Pull Slide #rower #rowing #fitnesstips

Start facing the side standing at the end of the rower with your right foot planted firmly on the ground. Weight should be in your heel, and the left foot planted on the seat of the rower. Bending your right knee, slide the left foot to the side as you lower into a side lunge. Think of sitting in a chair on that right leg; it’s essentially a single-leg squat.

Add in a pull at the bottom to make it harder: You can spice things up by adding in a pull slide at the bottom of each lunge. Staying low on the right side, bend the left knee, sliding it in towards you. Then extend it straight back away from you again. Don’t change height as you do this; stay low in your squat! You can do one at the base of each lunge or hold low for an extended period of time, sliding that back knee in and out. The longer you hold, the harder this move is.

5 Non-Rowing Exercises You Can Do on a Rowing Machine #rower #rowing #workout

For more rowing workout ideas, check out these:

xo Nicole

Filed Under: Cardio, Exercise Tutorials, Group Fitness, Rowing Tagged With: rowing

Core Stacked Circuit Workout

June 24, 2015 by Nicole 2 Comments

Your third and final installment of this workout series! If you missed it, Monday was lower body; yesterday was upper body; and today we’ll finish with core. Again, you can do all three circuits back-to-back for a 45-minute full body workout (same structure as Burn’s Power class) or just pick the muscle group on which you feel like focusing.

Core Stacked Circuit Workout

Equipment I Used:

12-lb dumbbell
Sliders (or dishtowel)
Gymboss Interval Timer

This circuit will take you just 13 minutes to complete. You stay on each exercise for 30 seconds, rest for 30 seconds after each round, and add on an exercise each round. Confused? Here’s what the start of the workout looks like:

Exercise 1
Rest
Exercise 1 + Exercise 2
Rest
Exercise 1 + Exercise 2 + Exercise 3
Rest

So the first round is only 30 seconds long (one exercise) and the sixth and final round is 3 minutes long (all six exercises). You’ll do exercise 1 (side plank dips with top crunch) six times and exercise 6 (russian twists) only once at the very end. Even though the length of time you’re working gets longer and longer, you only get 30 seconds of rest each time. I set my interval timer for 26 rounds of 30 seconds of work and 0 seconds of rest so that it beeps at me every 30 seconds, but you could also just watch the clock.

Side Plank Lift ‘n Crunch (alternate side each round) | Start in a side plank with your right hand on the floor directly underneath your shoulder. From here, lower your hips towards the floor and then engage that right sidebody to lift the hips back up. Next, crunch your left knee in towards your left elbow while keeping your hips up (don’t let them sag down as you do the crunch—right oblique is still engaged!).
Plank to Pike to Bear Crunch Sliders | Start in a plank position with your feet on a towel or sliders. Keeping your hips level with your shoulders, back flat, slide your feet forward, bending your knees in towards your elbows. Slide feet back out, straightening your legs into plank position. Now, keeping your legs straight, pike your hips up into the air, bringing your body into an upside down “v” shape. Try to keep your heels lifted as you do this, sliding on the balls of your feet. Once you hit your peak (if you have tight hamstrings, you may not be able to get your hips up very high—that’s ok!), slowly lower back down into plank position.
Army Crawl | Put your feet on a towel or sliders and get into a plank with your forearms at the end of an exercise mat. Army crawl your way up the length of the mat, one forearm in front of the other, maintaining the plank position as you slide forward. When you can no longer go any farther forward, reverse the motion, crawling your forearms backward towards the starting edge of the mat. As you move, try to keep your hips level in a plank. They’ll want to dip side to side with each step of the forearms; use your core strength to stabilize them. Beginners: you can do these from your knees, just make sure to add an extra towel for padding.
Dumbbell Toe Touches | Lay on your back with legs extended straight up in the air, feet flexed. Hold a weight in both hands and crunch up, reaching your hands towards your toes. Lower back down a few inches and repeat. To make these more challenging, you never lower all the way down; shoulders stay lifted off the floor the entire time. The hardest part of this exercise for me is just keeping my legs straight—holy tight hammies! Adding a soft bend to the knees will make these easier, but try your best to keep those legs straight.
Dumbbell Full Body Crunch | Start laying on your back with legs outstretched and hovering a couple inches off the ground. Holding a weight in your hands, arms should be outstretched overhead and hovering as well. From this starting position, crunch up, bringing your knees in towards your chest as you lift your shoulderblades off the ground and bring the weight up and over towards your shins. Extend back out, lowering to starting position. The goal is to never bring the legs and/or weight to rest on the ground when you extend back out.
Russian Twist | Start seated, holding a dumbbell in both hands at your chest, feet lifted off the ground with your knees bent. Lean back slightly, core engaged, balancing on your tailbone. Twist to one side, bringing the dumbbell to the outer side of that hip; then repeat in the other direction. Really twist at the waist—you want your chest to be totally facing whatever side you’re bringing the weight.