https://www.topshelfshelly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/img_2967.movhttps://www.topshelfshelly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/img_2969.mov

I don’t often get videos of me on the rower, because I usually choose to run on the treadmill instead of rowing. Since rowing involves sitting down, my heart rate usually ends up dropping too quickly for me to achieve a good calorie burn. This is also partially due to the fact that most of my cardio tends to be of the higher intensity types. It takes a lot for me to get my heart rate up and I really have to work hard to maintain it. This current XIT routine involved some different variations of straight rowing, so I thought I would try it out as written. After all, I could always switch to the treadmill if it wasn’t challenging me enough. Well I don’t know if it was the fact that I haven’t rowed in a while or if I just needed to step up my rowing game, but I was able to keep a strong heart rate throughout the conditioning circuit without needing the treadmill. The first video shows standing underhand rowing, which honestly took a bit of getting used to. I’m normally used to relying on my legs to cover a lot of “distance” quickly. This one killed my arms. The second video is a traditional row, but done as a sprint. It was important to move as quickly as possible, so my heart rate really jumped up during this one.

https://www.topshelfshelly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/img_3048.movhttps://www.topshelfshelly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/img_3051.mov

The third video was also standing up, but we had to row side to side. This one was incredibly awkward. It took forever to get to 300 m. The very last row was a seated overhead row. It really worked the shoulders and involved more coordination than you would think. All in all, I’m really proud of myself for pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. While I foresee myself still skipping some rowing in the future, I am not going to completely skip it anymore.