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The Best Exercises To Improve Your Rowing PB

The Best Exercises To Improve Your Rowing PB

Whether a seasoned gym addict, first-time fitness enthusiast, or avid water goer, there’s nothing quite like smashing your rowing PB. While it might look intimidating to begin, it’s much simpler, addictive, and most importantly, beneficial to your body than beginners might think. Like any workout PB however, there can reach a point where your best time seems to plateau. After all, there are only so many times you can improve right? Well not necessarily. In addition to a high protein diet and the use of fitness supplements like The Power Booster to aid performance, there are a wide range of exercises to try that can improve rowing endurance, power, and technique. By the end, getting a faster rowing PB should be a breeze. The Benefits Of Rowing Firstly, it’s important to ask; should you go for a PB in the first place? Short answer: absolutely! Rowing offers a complete high-intensity exercise all without skipping a beat; just a single session will train 9 of your muscle groups and around 85% of your body’s muscles. Compared to other workouts, this builds strength and endurance within key muscles in the upper and lower body. While achieving that rowing PB can be tough, being able to endure the challenge and feel the muscle growth is an unmatched workout joy. The versatility of rowing means everyone from cardio lovers to arm day enthusiasts can look forward to smashing their next PB. Rowing workouts are also low-impact and kind to your individual joints. This makes it the perfect PB challenge for those recovering from, and looking to avoid persistent injury - or perhaps even the dreaded shin splints. The exercise also provides mental benefits for the individual through the release of endorphins (the body’s feel-good hormones).   Exercises To Improve Your PB So how do you go about improving your PB? Well because rowing utilizes a complete range of muscles, getting a better time is all about targeting these individual parts of the body. This requires a mix of all types of workouts from cardio and core to strength training. Cardio Workouts To bring rowing performance to the next level, it’s almost essential to incorporate a strong aerobic focus into your exercise. Given the repetitive and continuous motions required with rowing, it’s easy to get stuck in the trap of pushing yourself too much – especially when it comes to striving for a PB. Cardio performance exercises are a fantastic method to build your rowing endurance, improve your heart health, and simply just lift your mood. For the best results, we’d recommend a mix of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and steady-state cardio (SSC) workouts. High-Intensity Interval Training HIIT exercises are all about raising the heart rate and building strength and stamina. They balance short but maximum-intensity workouts with rest intervals – think short sprints, fast cycling, and squat jumps. This makes HIIT an important tool to improve cardio capabilities and smash that rowing PB goal. Steady State Cardio SSC workouts on the other hand focus on continuous but long-term workouts. Instead of 2-minute short sprints of high intensity, you might take a light 30-minute jog for a consistent heart rate. These exercises have the benefit of improving your endurance levels and making it easier to continue rowing until hitting your distance target.     Strength Training While debates continue to rage about whether rowing is a cardio exercise – we’re firmly of the it is camp – strength plays just as vital a role as endurance. Regardless of whether you row 500, 1000, 2000 metres, or beyond, there will always be a mental balance required between the rowing strength you exert per rep and the overall distance remaining. By improving key muscles through strength training, you can reduce the effort and difficulty on each row to improve speed and overall performance. Given the full body sequence of actions used in rowing, we’d recommend you focus your workout on 3 key areas: legs, core, and arms.         Leg Exercises Your leg contains some of the strongest muscles in the body. Given its importance to strong rowing performance, it’s not exactly surprising that we’re recommending you incorporate leg exercises into your fitness routine. This is especially true at the rowing catch point - the end point of each row – where the greatest leg force is required. To improve leg muscle strength, we recommend simple but effective exercises like squats, lunges, and targeted deadlift sessions.     Core Exercises While it might not be completely obvious, your core muscles – the stomach and lower back muscles - play a pivotal part in maintaining your posture and improving your rowing PB. They are especially important in supporting rowing form toward the end of the workout when you begin to tire. A strong core also minimises the workload on other muscles that would otherwise have to work harder to compensate for a weak core. Core workouts are also simple to do whether at home or the gym. Just some ideas include plants, hip bridges, and Pilate ab crunches. Arm Exercises Arm strength also plays a significant role in maintaining rowing form, albeit slightly different depending on whether you’re at the gym or treading the waters. For water goers, the arms act as a messenger of sorts. They transfer the power generated from the leg and core muscles into the rowing oar and push the boat forward – a fairly important element to achieving any sort of distance. For the motivated gym goer, strong arms can provide well-defined concentric and eccentric muscle movements that benefit form. To focus on improving arm muscle strength, there are plenty of exercises you to try. Just some effective choices are bicep curl and triceps extension workouts, but you can even try something as simple as home push-ups (which will also help in improving core strength). The Importance Of Technique, Rest, And Recovery With all this said, a key and often overlooked part of improving a rowing PB is simply getting the basics - effective form and technique before, during, and after any exercise – down. Consider adding some simple and easy stretches before a session to effectively warm up your muscles and best prepare your body. Likewise, you could have all the endurance tools you need to succeed, but a poor rowing technique could see you waste unnecessary energy. Efficiency is key here. The other added benefit of good form is that it greatly reduces the chance of any injuries which let’s face it, is quite important to training and smashing the next PB. As someone who has gone for a personal best on many occasions, I can agree that this last part can be the most difficult, but achieving a PB is all about planning rest and recovery days into your training. Listening to your body here can be crucial. Pushing too hard increases the risk of overtraining, potentially leading to injury. To this end, it can make it easier to think of recovery as another stage of the workout process. Remember, rest days don’t necessarily mean you have to do nothing all day. Gentle exercises like walks and even yoga can work wonders for body recovery. Interested to discover more about Innermost Power Booster Supplements? Looking for the best ways to fuel your next workout? Perhaps you have some amazing and inspired ideas to share? Don’t hesitate to message us on our Instagram @liveinnermost.
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Is Vaping Healthier Than Smoking? Plus How To Quit For Good

Is Vaping Healthier Than Smoking? Plus How To Quit For Good

Nightclub smoking areas smell like a fruit salad, and the high streets are full of people puffing on a vape. It begs one to wonder if vaping is bad for you, is it better than smoking or is it just as bad?
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What Is CrossFit And How Do I Get Started?

What Is CrossFit And How Do I Get Started?

There’s plenty of discussion around CrossFit exercise at the moment and for good reason. We at Innermost have put together our complete guide on CrossFit.
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How Does Ashwagandha Help You To Relax?

How Does Ashwagandha Help You To Relax?

Ashwagandha, also known as Withania somnifera, is an adaptogenic herb commonly used in Ayurvedic medicine. It has been used for centuries as a natural remedy for a variety of conditions. Today, it is widely recognised for its ability to promote relaxation and reduce those pesky stress levels.
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Endometriosis 101 – Innermost Investigates

Endometriosis 101 – Innermost Investigates

It’s endometriosis awareness month. For all the gals out there, especially those who suffer from endometriosis we hear you! We are here to deep dive into your endometriosis and what you can do to help treat it.
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The Best Supplements You Can Take To Reduce Tiredness

The Best Supplements You Can Take To Reduce Tiredness

Your alarm is ringing, and you are yawning. Let’s be honest, no one enjoys getting out of bed in the morning, right? Feeling energised in the morning seems like such a foreign concept.
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Yoga And Cardiovascular Health - Is There A Link?

Yoga And Cardiovascular Health - Is There A Link?

Yoga is a fantastically accessible exercise, as you don’t need any equipment to take part. There have been recent studies that have shown yoga is not just for mental wellness, but actually benefits your cardiovascular health and wellbeing too.
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How To Deal With Brain Fog

How To Deal With Brain Fog

Do you find yourself struggling to get the right words?  You might be struggling with a busy schedule and need to think quickly and on the spot. Instead of thinking clearly, it feels like you’ve stuck your head in a cloud.
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The Innermost Guide To Psychobiotics

The Innermost Guide To Psychobiotics

There’s a lot of talk at the moment about our gut health and for good reason. If you’ve been scrolling through any form of social media – maybe you’ve even caught a few of those adverts about bacteria friendly yogurts – then you’ve probably heard of the benefits that a healthy gut can have on the body’s physical health. New evidence however suggests you have an extra reason to value the bacteria living in your microbiome: if they’re happy, so are you! This is what scientists term as the gut-brain axis. Studies show that a healthy gut microbiome is fundamental in linking the emotional centres of the brain with peripheral intestinal functions - think of a moment when you’ve had butterflies and felt excited or nervous, that’s the gut-brain axis in action.  With these new discoveries, scientists have developed an equally apt term for these mentally beneficial gut bacteria called psychobiotics. Psychobiotics refer to bacteria that positively influence the gut-brain axis by balancing out the microorganisms within the gut-microbiome. But just what are psychobiotics? How do psychobiotics work? Could they be used in the future to treat mental health conditions like depression and anxiety by targeting gut health? What are psychobiotics? The term ‘psychobiotics’ doesn’t refer to any specific bacterial discovery or naturalistic fallacy. Instead, it is an all-encompassing term relating to any probiotic or prebiotic microorganism that reacts with the bodies existing gut bacteria to confer mental health benefits through the gut-brain axis. When ingested in an optimal and individually tailored quantity, psychobiotics improve the body’s ability to communicate between the gut and the brain and subsequently offer a wide range of benefits relating to psychological wellbeing. While the idea of using these psychobiotics to impact the gut microbiome and improve mental health might seem silly, the gut is actually responsible for a lot of brain chemical processes. It houses an estimated 70% of our brains eventual immune cells, in addition to around 95% of our total serotonin – the feel-good chemical in the brain. As shown in controlled studies, a healthy gut actually increases the amount of this chemical being communicated to the brain. Not every pre and probiotic has the same impact on the gut microbiome however, meaning that not all are classed as a psychobiotics. It’s entirely dependent on the bacterial benefits towards an individual’s mental health. Psychobiotic bacteria also come in all shapes and sizes and studies have shown that they confer different benefits relative to individual mental illnesses.  What can they treat? While scientific research into the benefits of psychobiotics on the brain-gut axis is still very much in its infancy – at least when compared to more established mental wellness treatments – we already know so much about the microorganisms. This makes psychobiotics one of the most exciting and interesting medical wellness fields. While not a fully comprehensive list, here are a few key benefits of psychobiotics backed up by scientific studies:  Depression is one of the most common mental health disorders with an estimated 1 in 6 impacted by the condition. Again, while the general understanding of depression is limited, researchers have begun to identify different neurotransmitters potentially responsible for the condition that are also produced by the gut microbe through different psychobiotics. Our Innermost Digest Capsules for instance contain both probiotic macrospores and prebiotic acacia fibre. While the former improves absorption of nutrients and reduces inflammation, the latter builds a stronger and diverse microbiome. Essentially, they strengthen the gut-brain axis. Both of these psychobiotic examples have also been evidenced to reverse depression symptoms from those suffering from IBS. Schizophrenia is also a complex and long-term mental health with surprisingly minimal comprehensive research. Like gut-based afflictions such as IBS, one consistent factor of schizophrenia is the influence of genetics upon the disease. This has led to further studies into role of the gut microbiome in schizophrenia, with it suggested that gastrointestinal inflammation plays a key role in the development of the disease due to the microbiome imbalance. This is something that psychobiotic examples like Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli have been suggested to benefit through the production of GABA – this generates dopamine, the brains feel good chemical. Anxiety disorders are complex and can be caused by numerous factors – both genetic and environmental. This has led to many studies attempting to determine the benefits that psychobiotics can have for anxiety. While much research is still emerging, current evidence suggests that the vague nerve, one of the key communication processes between the brain and intestines can offer relief from the flight or fight struggles of an anxiety attack when triggered.    How to implement psychobiotics into your daily life It’s true that the prospect of adding another caveat to your dietary intake can seem daunting, we have prepared a few simple and easy tricks below to make going about it a breeze. Psychobiotic Diet One tried and true method is to get the mental wealth good stuff into your day is to slowly add psychobiotic foods into your daily diet until it becomes second nature routine. Foods like Yogurt and drinks like Kefir are a particularly good choice as they’re perfect for any time of day. For anyone feeling like something a little different, international dishes like Sauerkraut in Germany and Tempeh in Japan are full to the brim with the healthy gut-brain bacterium. Consuming these psychobiotic foods also has the benefit of providing a whole host of other beneficial nutrients as well as just being delicious to boot. Psychobiotic Supplements If you’re finding that you don’t have time to search for the more nuanced probiotic foods, you might find it beneficial to try probiotic supplements like the Innermost digest capsules (wink wink) as these provide a much greater concentration of the good stuff when compared to food intake. Like anything, we would always recommend that individuals get a mix of both into daily life to create the perfect balance of convenience, nutrient uptake, and psychobiotic benefit. Psychobiotics going forward While our understanding of the gut-brain axis and psychobiotics is still very much in its infancy, our scientific understanding of gut health has come along way. From what was before seen as a taboo talking point, many people – us included – now feel confident to add to the discussion and begin to make changes to diet, lifestyle, and sleep, with the aim of improving wellbeing by improving gut health. Thanks to an increasing number of scientific studies, we can take away that the gut and mind are deeply connected and can be optimised through psychobiotics to improve mental wellbeing. With all this said however mental health conditions are highly complex with a wide range of medications and therapies used as treatments. As such, it’s important to take psychobiotic supplements in conjunction with these other therapies to get the best outcome possible. Here at Innermost, we are at the forefront of science led solutions to individual wellness. That’s why we offer only the best and means evaluated pro and prebiotic supplements to help improve gut-brain health and communication. Not sure where to start? Contact our team at Innermost today for individually tailored from our expert consultation.
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How To Make Sure You're Getting Enough Vitamin B12

How To Make Sure You're Getting Enough Vitamin B12

B12 is a super important vitamin for your body, and B12 deficiency symptoms may be tough, so by doing everything you can to help get enough B12 whether that’s upping your daily consumption of meat, or adding in supplements such as The Energy Booster to give you that extra support and soon you may find that you don’t feel so blue!
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6 Dumbbell Exercises For Toned Arms

6 Dumbbell Exercises For Toned Arms

Dumbbell exercises for your arms are a great way to build you upper body strength. They are simple yet effective for anyone who wants to start in the gym, or even add to their regular routine.
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How Is Whey Protein Made?

How Is Whey Protein Made?

If you’re new to the world of protein powder, you may notice an ingredient called whey. You might be wondering what is whey protein made of? Well, today we’re here to talk about how our protein powder, such as the Lean Protein is made, more specifically how the whey product that’s in it is made.
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How To Get Rid Of Bloating

How To Get Rid Of Bloating

Bloating is the feeling of discomfort in your stomach, it’s a feeling of not being comfy and feeling overly full. You might be surprised to hear that it’s very common for people to get bloated...
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PLAYLISTS

Adam Husler Workout Playlist

Adam Husler Workout Playlist

 Adam is one of the leading yoga teachers in London. When we asked him to create a workout playlist, he came up with a deeply soulful mix of tracks that won't fail to get a smile...
Claire Fountain Workout Playlist

Claire Fountain Workout Playlist

 Claire knows yoga. Claire also knows music. Here's her selection of workout songs compiled just for Innermost.health
Bethany Duckworth Workout Playlist

Bethany Duckworth Workout Playlist

 Bethany knows a good track when she hears one. Buckle up and get this workout playlist into your ears pronto.
Dan Morgan Workout Playlist

Dan Morgan Workout Playlist

 Dan getting zen on the decks. Here's his playlist for your next yoga session or if you need to kick back and drift away.
Elisa Rossi Workout Playlist

Elisa Rossi Workout Playlist

 Elisa's most comfortable creating works of art in the kitchen. Here are the songs that help her do just that.