RowAlong - Indoor Rowing Workouts

Back on the Concept2 this morning. Smooth, fluid, Rolls Royce. After a couple days on the Merach, the difference is instant — your body remembers what rowing feels like, and this machine just glides.But today's really about technique. Spent my lunch yesterday watching a Decent Rowing video on catch connection, and it clicked something loose. Shoulder elongation — not arm length, shoulder reach. You're hanging off the tendons and muscles, getting an extra couple of inches before you even think about pulling. Your knees open slightly into your armpits, staying inside the box your arms create. You wouldn't squat with your knees together. Same principle here.And here's the thing: your leg drive controls everything. Not your arms. Not your back swing. Your legs. Push harder with your legs, you go faster. It's that simple, and that efficient. I spent half this row talking through the mechanics because once you feel that floating sensation as you drive away from the front — that braced, connected feeling all the way to the finish — it changes how you row.Also: big news. Launched the RowAlong leaderboard at rowalong.com/join. Enter your name, get a unique link, tap it after each workout. Tracks your streak, your totals, your five-day weeks. No email, no password, just accountability. 40 people signed up already. Day two of building this thing, still refining it, but the idea's simple — same reason I make these videos every morning. Accountability keeps you showing up.Interestingly, I'd left EXR's pace calculation to EXR Split, rather than Rower Data. So if you pay attention to the distance I'm at on EXR when I say I've completed 5000m and 6000m - you'll see that EXR has me a little slower. A video is coming, to explain what's happening there.6K total today (5K + 1K tagged on), 21 minutes for the 5K. Low intensity because I've got more training later. Whatever your body wants to do today — that's how you row. Stretches included. See you tomorrow.

A 25-minute low intensity rowing workout to start your week — no performance targets, no pressure, just consistent easy effort that actually builds fitness. Zone 2 rowing at around 60–70% of your max heart rate is one of the most effective things you can do five days a week, and today I make the case for why, backed by what happened at parkrun on Saturday.Today's session is on the Merach R50 — a budget-friendly alternative to the Concept2, and something I give an honest, warts-and-all assessment of during the stretches. If you're curious about whether it's worth buying, I've got a full review linked below and a 15% discount code for UK and EU shoppers.There's also a thread running through the row about pacing under pressure — drawn from my 1K world record training, Saturday's parkrun PB (a 17-second improvement), and what happens mentally when the data tells you you're going faster than you've ever gone before. Do you trust it, or do you slow down?Merach R50 rowing machine:👀 Full review: https://youtu.be/3629bcR_AQA🇬🇧 UK: https://uk.merachfit.com/?ref=JOHNSTEVENTON — 15% off with code JOHN15🇪🇺 EU: https://merachfit.eu/?ref=JOHNSTEVENTON — 15% off with code JOHN15(Discount code not available on the US site, sorry!)Please consult your doctor or healthcare professional before beginning any new exercise programme, particularly if you have any existing health conditions or injuries. Listen to your body and work at a pace that's right for you.

It's Friday — last one of the week for me, whenever you happen to be watching this. Today I'm rowing the whole session with my feet out of the straps, which is a lot more revealing than it sounds. We get into why strapless rowing is such a useful technique tool, what it actually forces your body to do, and what it exposes when your stroke has gremlins hiding in it.There's a proper technique thread running through the row today — sequencing legs and back, why doing both at once is less efficient than you'd think, how to use these low-intensity sessions to hardwire good habits so they show up automatically when you're going flat out.And then there's the story. Today the backstory arc arrives at the moment RowAlong actually became RowAlong — the name, the team, and a pattern I've started to notice about myself and the friendships that come and go around the chapters of my life. It's an honest one.Finishing up with a full stretch routine and a heads-up: I'm live on the EXR app Sunday morning at 9am GMT — remember the clocks change.Please consult your doctor or healthcare professional before beginning any new exercise programme, particularly if you have any existing health conditions or injuries. Listen to your body and work at a pace that's right for you.

Pull on a shell, get on the machine — it's a cold one in Scotland today. This session is a straightforward low intensity 5K row followed by a gentler 1K cool-down, and it's exactly the kind of workout you can do every single day without burning out. If anything, showing up when you don't quite feel like it is the whole point.There's a proper technique deep-dive today — we're looking at handle height and the catch: where it should land on the drive, what goes wrong when you scoop or drop at the last moment, and why keeping the chain level matters more than the angle. I also get into the arm-bending debate: elite water rowers do it, so why are we all taught to keep straight arms? There's an actual answer to that, and it's more interesting than it sounds.But the conversation that anchors the session is about Thursday. Why Thursday specifically? And what keeps you coming back when your body's already told you it's had enough this week? I've been rowing every weekday since December, and I talk honestly about what's made that possible — including the part you play in it.Tuesday to Friday episodes are unlisted on YouTube if you want to watch them rather than listen — bookmark the playlist so you don't lose them: ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8ookhrQKwvKEfSfOxp73vX02j8LrtUilPlease consult your doctor or healthcare professional before beginning any new exercise programme, particularly if you have any existing health conditions or injuries. Listen to your body and work at a pace that's right for you.

Join this 25 minute easy rowing workout — low intensity, any machine, any pace, any fitness level. Row along at your own pace while I talk you through technique, tell you a story or two, and generally keep you company for 27 minutes.Today's technique is built around the chain height debate — and it starts with a confession. I made a short video recently that was essentially a rebuttal to a clip Austin from JustRow put out about handle path and chain height. No shade at all — he rows beautifully — but I disagreed with the approach, and I realised after posting it that a 60-second short probably wasn't the best place to make a nuanced argument. So I'm unpacking it properly here.The short version: lowering the handle on the recovery is a useful cue if you're someone who bends their knees too early. But in my experience, nine times out of ten, the rower who does it then opens their hips to lift the handle back up — which is exactly the problem we were trying to fix. Sternum height, relaxed shoulders, straight line in and out. That's still where I land.Along the way I also cover body rock and core bracing, the connection between feet and hands through the stroke, and the feet-out-of-straps drill — which is one of the most honest ways to find out whether your momentum is actually going into the flywheel.And there's a story from the racing years that I skipped a few weeks back — soda doping, a 1K race in Aberdeen, and what happens when you get the dosage slightly wrong with about ten minutes to go before the start. It doesn't end well. Mostly.📋 Find the rest of this week's rows as video RowAlongs here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8ookhrQKwvKEfSfOxp73vX02j8LrtUil (Thursday and Friday sessions are unlisted — bookmark the playlist so you don't lose them)Please consult your doctor or healthcare professional before beginning any new exercise programme, particularly if you have any existing health conditions or injuries. Listen to your body and work at a pace that's right for you.

27 minutes of low intensity rowing that sets you up for the day — any machine, any pace, row how you want. Technique today goes deep on foot plate height and what it actually does to your body position — why too high squashes everything up as you come into the catch, why too low opens the angle the wrong way, and the relationship between your shin angle and how much your upper body has to compensate. There's also a useful cue around keeping your knees inside the box formed by your arms and handle, and what happens to your posture when they poke out the top.The backstory picks up the RowAlong origin story from where we left off — from the knife accident and rehab rows through to COVID, lockdown, rowing machines flying off shelves, and why that moment of people suddenly working out at home changed everything. Plus some honest thinking about where the channel goes next, plans vs daily workouts, and what the rest of 2025 might look like.📋 Tuesday to Friday rows are unlisted on YouTube — find them in the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8ookhrQKwvKEfSfOxp73vX02j8LrtUilPlease consult your doctor or healthcare professional before beginning any new exercise programme, particularly if you have any existing health conditions or injuries. Listen to your body and work at a pace that's right for you.

The session that does more for your fitness than it feels like it should — 27 minutes, low intensity, any machine, any pace.Technique today covers flat wrists and elbow position — why dropping your elbows shifts the work onto your delts and forearms when your lats and back could be doing the job instead. There's also a useful cue for engaging your lats at the catch with a slight outward arm rotation that's genuinely worth trying. Plus handle height, sternum vs belly button vs upper chest, and why sternum is the target.Back on the day job today — a new series of This Farming Life starts in the edit, which means slightly leaner output this week. The workouts still happen every morning, but the green screen is now running live rather than in post. That's the plan, anyway.The backstory is on pause while the week gets going again — but the story of where RowAlong came from, and where it's heading next, picks back up from Tuesday.

Welcome back to the RowAlong Club! Grab a seat and Row With Me for today's low-intensity session as we tackle a 5k with a 1k tagged on at the end.We'll be holding a nice, easy pace of around 20 strokes a minute for the entire row. I'll guide you through setting up your drag factor, seat position, foot stretchers, and handle grip to make sure you're perfectly comfortable before we kick off.Once we get moving on the 1.3-kilometer EXR course , I'll share some tips on technique, focusing on forward tilt, engaging your quads on the drive, and keeping your chain height level into your sternum. After that, we just chat! I'll tell you the story of how I started making YouTube videos in a friend's gym , the magic of green screens , and my journey getting back into the Welsh and Scottish Indoor Rowing Championships after a nasty hand injury.Don't Row Alone—let's get those heart rates up gently and enjoy the paddle!

The session that quietly does more for your rowing than almost anything else — 25 minutes, low intensity, any machine, any pace. Today's technique goes deep on over-compression — what it actually is, why heels coming up is usually a posture problem rather than an ankle flexibility one, and what the chain height on your machine tells you about your handle path. Two viewer videos this week showed the same fault from opposite ends of the world: dropping the handle going forward, then pulling early to lift it back up. If any of that sounds familiar, this one's worth paying attention to.The backstory jumps forward. After the 100km world record in France, 2018 brings a hideous winter flu that wipes out a trip to the World Championships in Virginia — sweating through an edit suite, money lost on a flight, and a race that never happened. What followed is the story of how RowAlong actually came to exist: a knife sharpening incident, tendon surgery under local anaesthetic with a heart rate of 34, eight weeks of wiggling one finger on the train, a conversation with Shane from Dark Horse, that led to RowAlong.📋 To watch the videos: find them in the playlist and bookmark it: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8ookhrQKwvKEfSfOxp73vX02j8LrtUilPlease consult your doctor or healthcare professional before beginning any new exercise programme, particularly if you have any existing health conditions or injuries. Listen to your body and work at a pace that's right for you.