Does Rowing Work Legs – Infographic, Assessments And Case Study

Your legs in rowing are like the pistons in an engine; each stroke powers your drive, building strength and endurance.

Over the month long indoor rowing challenge, my legs became much more conditioned to the rowing movement. I tracked many biometric markers, including fat and lean muscle assessments that had data points on my legs.

I have broken this article into four main areas:

Lets get into it.

Leg Anatomy – Your Pillars Of Power in Rowing

Think rowing is all upper body? Think again! While it engages your arms, back, and shoulders, your legs are the true heroes of a powerful stroke.

Your legs make up 60% of the rowing stroke and act as the engine, propelling you backward with explosive force.

The infographic below shows you all the different muscles in your legs that activate during the rowing stroke.

Lets see what each of the leg muscles do in the rowing stroke.

The numbers correspond to their respective muscles on the infographic above.

Quadriceps

You rely on these muscles during the drive phase as you extend your knees while pushing back on the foot stretcher.

Quadriceps muscles Involved:

Hamstrings

Used to bend your knees during the catch and they continue to assist during the finish and recovery phases, helping you pull the seat forward as you slide forward.

Hamstrings muscles Involved:

Calf Muscles

You activate these muscles during the drive phase, working to extend your ankles and provide additional push and stability through the balls of your feet.

Calf muscles Involved:

Gluteal Muscles

Active during the drive phase, crucial for extending your hips as you push away from the catch position.

Gluteal muscles Involved:

Next we will look at the role your legs play in the rowing stroke.

Your Leg Muscles During The Rowing Stroke

Lets break it down further.

How Your Legs Power the Rowing Stroke

The Catch: Here, your legs are flexed, primarily working your quadriceps for knee flexion and your calves to keep everything stable.

The Drive: During this powerful phase, you extend your legs forcefully, activating your quadriceps, hamstrings, and gluteus muscles to push your body back, with your calves giving that extra boost.

The Finish: Your legs stay extended, keeping a strong hold in your quadriceps, hamstrings, and gluteus muscles, while your calves pitch in slightly for added stability.

The Recovery: As you glide back to the catch position, your hamstrings work to flex your knees, and your hip flexors assist in sliding the seat forward, all while maintaining control.

Rowing Case Study: Leg Assessment Results

I rowed 10,000m every day for a month. It was a great experience where I tracked quite a few data points and biometric markers. You can read to full analysis in this 10k Rowing Challenge post.

What is of real interest here are the before and after assessments, and body photos that I took. This gives some valuable insight into indoor rowing’s impact on our legs.

Lets start with the before and after InBody assessments.

InBody Assessment (Before)

The InBody scale measures how much fat, muscle, and water is in your body.

Here is the one I stood on.

Segmental Fat Analysis (Before)

Lets start by reviewing the amount of fat in each of my legs from the infographic results below.

The good news was that my legs were very well balanced. 5.3 lbs / 2.4 kg of fat spread evenly. These results put me in the normal range.

Segmental Lean Muscle Analysis (Before)

Alright, we are about to find out if I was skipping leg day.. The infographic below shows the amount of lean muscle mass in my legs.

Again, well balanced muscle in each leg. Around 26 lbs / 12kg in each. This is pivotal as your legs are the main drivers of force during the rowing stroke.

Go read my article on how rowing works arms if you are interested in a further analysis of these results.

Let’s see where my legs were at after the 30 days of rowing challenge.

InBody Assessment (After)

Here are the Fat Analysis and Lean Muscle results for my legs.

Segmental Fat Analysis (After)

	Left Leg % (Fat)	Right Leg % (Fat)	Left Leg Fat	Right Leg Fat
Day 1	119.4%	119.6%	5.3 lbs / 2.4 kg	5.3 lbs / 2.4 kg
Day 30	109.7%	109.6%	4.9 lbs / 2.2 kg	4.9 lbs / 2.2 kg

After a month of rowing, I’ve made some impressive progress with my legs! On Day 1, the fat percentage was around 119% in each leg.

By Day 30, I’ve reduced these numbers to 109%. That is around a 10% reduction in fat!

In terms of actual fat weight, I started with 5.3 lbs (2.4 kg) in each leg. After 30 days, I’ve managed to reduce this to 4.9 lbs (2.2 kg) per leg.

Segmental Lean Muscle Analysis (After)

	Left Leg % (Lean Muscle)	Right Leg % (Lean Muscle)	Left Leg Lean Muscle	Right Leg Fat Muscle
Day 1	108.3%	108.4%	26.15 lbs / 2.4 kg	26.17 lbs / 2.4 kg
Day 30	107.1%	106.7%	25.27 lbs / 11.86 kg	25.16 lbs / 11.87 kg

I mostly maintained my lean muscle in my legs. There was only a very slight decrease of around 1% across both legs.

This was most probably due to the lack of weighted training. Something that I was doing every day before. This insight shows that your level of fitness and conditioning matters. If you are coming from a low base, you will see greater results and vice versa.

Body Photos

All these stats are great. But were there any visible differences in my legs.

Here are the before and after photos.

After the challenge I was clearly much leaner overall. But these changes did not necessarily into visible changes in my legs. I will let you be the judge.

Tips to engage your Legs on the rowing machine

Your legs are the foundation of your rowing stroke. Here are some tips to get the most out of them while on the indoor rowing machine:

Tip	Description
Focus on Leg Power	Legs provide the majority of power in the stroke.
Check Your Sequence	Follow the sequence: legs, body swing, pull with arms.
Handle Movement with Seat	Ensure the handle moves with the seat to use legs correctly.
Engage Your Lats	Feel the connection in your lats by thinking about bending the handlebar as you drive back.
Use a Tension Drill	Use a sturdy rope/belt to practice tension. Wrap it around the monitor base and push through footplates.
Simulate the Drill with a Partner	Have a partner hold the handle steady while you push without moving the seat backward.
Emphasize Tension	Focus on maintaining leg tension without moving the seat backward.
Reinforce Muscle Memory	Practice the drill to reinforce tension and power in your legs.

Final Thoughts

We have gone through quite a bit here. Your legs are the pillars of your rowing stroke. We have looked over the many muscles within your legs that power you through the various rowing stroke positions.

My rowing case study gave great data points and insights into how rowing affects legs. You also now also have a few tips to use your legs better while rowing.

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check out if rowing works your abs.