Resistance bands are a versatile tool to take in your forcefulness training for rowing toolbox. Resistance bands are fairly cheap compared to other strength training equipment, crave little storage space, are portable, and are adaptable for employ with a wide range of athletes. If y'all railroad train out of a boathouse or a dwelling gym, resistance bands tin simulate dozens of exercises that you might need dumbbells or a cablevision automobile for otherwise. Rowers can larn to how to maintain tension at different ranges and directions of motion, making resistance bands an effective strength training tool to provide a different stimulus than traditional complimentary weight exercises alone. We'll practice resistance band rowing specific exercises, equally well equally exercises to develop non-rowing movements and muscles. Programmed and instructed thoughtfully, resistance bands tin can add another layer of challenge, flexibility, and stimulus to your rowing strength preparation.

resistance band rowing strength training graphic bands and text

Benefits of Resistance Ring Rowing Strength Training

Resistance bands offering a few major benefits for rowers.

Start, they are portable and easily storable. Dissimilar dumbbells, kettlebells, or other heavy strength preparation equipment, you lot can throw a few resistance bands in a pocketbook whether y'all're training at a commercial gym, training while traveling, or at a regatta, and be set for a pretty expert workout. They tin can exist stored hands in a boathouse, and attached to a variety of structures for utilise. Many rowing programs don't have admission to a full force training facility, and are making do with express equipment. Resistance bands are a cost-and-space-saving substitute for an entire cable machine, too every bit a lot of dumbbell movements.

Second, they are adaptable and tin be used past athletes with a wide range of force. Having to do a bunch of fix-up and weight changes takes time when preparation a team of rowers, in a fashion that just picking upwardly a band and finding the right resistance bespeak does not. This can improve efficiency of training, and likewise the ability for each athlete to find the correct resistance, rather than using whatever weight was left by the previous lifter.

Third, the increasing resistance of the bands tin can do a peachy job teaching lifters to maintain torso tightness while lifting, in a way that another free-weight exercise might not. Resistance bands require more force the more you stretch them, so most movements get more difficult equally the athlete completes the concentric phase of the lift. For example, if a rower is struggling with losing torso tightness and sagging at the finish of the stroke, some 10-ring rows from a kneeling or seated position can be a corking assist in pedagogy the skill of squeezing with the dorsum and arm muscles while maintaining a tight, upright trunk, as well every bit developing the rowing-specific muscles through a similar movement to the stroke.

Finally, resistance bands offer a layer of additional challenge to many bodyweight exercises. For instance, athletes who can hands do a prepare of 20 pushups can add a resistance band beyond their back to increment the claiming for sets of 8-12 reps. You tin can also use bands to make bodyweight exercises easier. For example, athletes who struggle with bodyweight chin-ups can attach a band to the bar, put their foot or knee through the bar, and the band will give them assist, instead of resistance, at the bottom, hardest office of the lift.

Check out my video beneath demonstrating resistance band rowing forcefulness training exercises, then let's get into how to ready, programme, and practice some resistance band rowing strength training!

Setting Up Resistance Bands for Strength Training

You tin can do a lot with resistance band rowing force grooming just with bands and the space to use them. Stand on 1 end of the band, and hold the other in your hand to perform the elevator. Adjust the resistance by shortening or lengthening the band equally necessary.

The ability to wrap the ring around or attach the band to something volition open up up another level of exercises. If your boathouse racks are sturdy enough, and accept plenty space effectually them for safe usage, you tin loop 1 or both ends around the rack to do x-band rows, face pulls, lat pulldowns, 1-arm rows, hip pull-throughs, and more. Or, if you have thick wooden beams in your boathouse, consider having a qualified professional drill some eye bolts into the beams. If you lot are in a weight-room, you can also loop or wrap the band around the upright of a squat rack, as I demonstrate in the video.

Continue rubber in mind when you are setting up resistance bands. Don't take a gamble with a boat, a piece of equipment, or the well-being of an athlete.

Resistance Band Programming, Techniques, Sample Circuits

I employ resistance bands near in my strength training for rowing plans as assistance work, in superset or excursion-style training. 1 major downside of bands is that they don't offer a challenging way to load the lower body, so dumbbells, kettlebells, and/or barbells are still necessary to do heavier lower body lifts like squat and deadlift variations. Notwithstanding, bands can make for great assist piece of work.

If you follow the block periodization system of force training for rowing , around which I base near of my programs and writing here, you probably guessed correctly that resistance ring piece of work best fits in the Preparation Blocks of preparation. Resistance bands are great for higher volume, lower intensity, higher variety forcefulness training that characterizes these blocks of training. The General Prep Block is really the just time of the year that I include minor assistance work like biceps and triceps isolation work. The goal is building a foundation of forcefulness, musculus, and muscular residue, and the lower intensity of grooming leaves room for these exercises in a mode that in-season training definitely does not.

It's difficult to train really heavy with resistance bands lone, considering the tension at the summit of the elevator will be and so much greater than the tension at the bottom of the lift. It just isn't what they're built for. Use bands for your assistance work, for sets of 8-20 reps, and relish the variety and different muscular stimulus and feedback that bands provide.

Bands are great for developing the "squeeze" feeling in muscles, and can be helpful for learning to activate sure muscles. For example, the x-band row is one of my top lifts for rowers for the way it teaches the position of scapular retraction and depression in a similar position to the finish of the stroke. Band-resisted y-raises or face pulls can light upwardly the mid back and depression trapezius muscles in a mode that bodyweight alone but might not provide. Cue athletes to really find that squeeze position as they are using bands, and run across if it makes a difference when going back to rowing and free-weight strength training.

During the Preparation Blocks, yous could do resistance bands for all of your help work and be in expert shape. For case:

Lower trunk, deadlift-focused session:

  • Full-Body Warmup
  • A. Romanaian Deadlift: iv x 8 @ 70%, 90s residuum
  • B. RFESS: 4 x ten @ 70%, 60s residual
  • C1. Band Good Morning: 3 ten 15
  • C2. X-Band Row: 3 10 15
  • C3. Ring Pull-through: 3 x 15, 60s rest
  • D. Pallof Press: 3 x 12 each side, 60s rest

Upper body session:

  • Full-Body Warmup
  • A. 1/2-Kneeling OHP: 4 10 8 @ 70%, 60s rest
  • B1. Pushup: 3 sets max (around 15 reps) with calorie-free band resistance
  • B2. 1-Arm Row: iii x 12 (each arm)
  • B3. Band Pullapart: iii 10 12, 60s remainder
  • C1. Biceps Curl: 3 x 15
  • C2. Triceps Extension: 3 x fifteen, 60s rest

You could also construct a circuit-mode workout entirely using resistance bands and bodyweight exercises. Cheque out my "Strength Grooming Circuits for Rowing" article for more information on the when, why, and how of circuit training.

I practise still practise some limited resistance ring preparation in later blocks of training. Resistance bands tin can be a dandy way to get in the hypertrophy maintenance work in the Pre-Competitive and Competitive Blocks. I also highly recommend bringing some on the route when traveling to regattas. I e'er encourage athletes to do a dynamic warmup from their hotel room to revive travel-weary muscles and joints for racing, and resistance bands offering a nice way to add a bit of challenge here without causing fatigue or soreness. If you lot utilise resistance bands in your routine practice warmup, bringing them on the road with you only makes sense so you lot can do the same warmup before racing. They are besides great for stretching, so long as y'all tin notice a friendly tree, trailer rack, or other stable zipper site! Hotel shower curtain rods not recommended.

Where to Purchase Resistance Bands

I've institute that EliteFTS and Rogue Fitness are the two almost reliable and durable brands of resistance bands. The bands that I accept and use in my videos are EliteFTS make, and we've used Rogue bands a lot at the university weight-room every bit well. I had an EliteFTS ring fray once from routine use, sent their customer service a picture of information technology, and they sent me a replacement promptly. I accept had my bands since 2022, and the rest have held upward under pretty rigorous use. Cheaper bands tend to non provide enough resistance to be difficult, or they fray or snap under use. Earlier you lot scrimp here, think about how much y'all want a piece of condom in your eye mid-way through a set of face pulls!

I have several unlike tensions of resistance bands that I use with rowers for different exercises.

  • The "Pro Short Minis" are useful for putting around the knees for glute activation piece of work.
  • The "Pro Micro" is the lightest tension long band. It is useful for weaker athletes, likewise as for exercises like Y-Raises that are very difficult to do with heavier resistance. If you work with HS-historic period athletes, peculiarly female athletes, I'd recommend a couple of these bands.
  • The "Pro Minis" are the next footstep up and are the band I utilise the most for pullaparts, confront pulls, pushups, Pallof press, 10-band rows, and biceps and triceps exercises.
  • The "Pro Monster" is some other level heavier. We utilise these for one-arm rows, lat pulldowns, pushups, x-band walks, pull-throughs, stronger athletes' x-band rows, shrugs, and skillful mornings.
  • The "Pro Calorie-free" is really the heaviest ring we use for strength grooming, for Romanian deadlifts and practiced mornings, pull-throughs, and 10-band walks for stronger athletes.
  • I do use the "Pro Average" for two hip stretches ( hip flexor and figure-4 ), but the Pro Light works for these also. Given that I don't apply the Pro Average for anything else, I'one thousand not sure it's worth the coin on its own.
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Go  Rowing Stronger!

"Rowing Stronger: Strength Preparation to Maximize Rowing Operation" is the comprehensive guide to strength training for rowing, from first practice of the off-season all the way to meridian championship race functioning, and for anybody from juniors to masters rowers. The 2nd edition is available now in print and e-book.