Rowing vs Running: How Calories, Fitness, Joints and Bone Compare

If you're weighing a rowing machine vs running, you probably have a reason. Maybe your knees grumble after a few runs, or the weather keeps you inside, or you've heard rowing works "the whole body" and wonder if it beats pounding the pavement. Maybe you run already and want to know if a rowing machine for runners is worth the floor space.

The honest answer is that both are excellent cardio, and the gap between them is smaller than the marketing on either side suggests. What separates them is what they cost your body and your schedule. This guide compares rowing and running on calories, heart and lungs, muscles, injuries and bone, and then shows how to combine them.

Rowing vs Running at a Glance

Is Indoor Rowing Better Than Running?

Indoor rowing isn't better than running for fitness, but it's better for anyone whose joints can't handle impact. At the same perceived effort, running actually pushes most people a little harder. Edwards and Lander (2012) had 10 recreationally active men exercise for 20 minutes at a rating of "hard" on a treadmill and on a rowing machine. On the treadmill they worked at 86.1 percent of their peak oxygen uptake, with an average heart rate of 175 beats per minute. On the rower they worked at 83.7 percent, with a heart rate of 166. Blood lactate rose more on the treadmill too.

That fits what coaches see. In people who aren't trained rowers, the arms, grip and lower back tire before the heart and lungs are fully loaded. So a row that feels hard puts less load on your heart than a run that feels just as hard. The gap is small, and it narrows as your technique improves and your legs learn to drive the stroke. For a beginner, though, it means a 30-minute run and a 30-minute row at the same effort aren't quite the same workout.

Rowing vs Running Calories per Hour

The fairest comparison uses METs from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities by Herrmann and colleagues. One MET is roughly one calorie per kilogram of body weight per hour, so a 70 kg (154 lb) adult burns about 70 calories an hour for each MET. Rowing is listed by power output in watts, which most rowing machine monitors display.

Matched for effort, the two land in the same range. A steady row at 100 to 149 watts costs the same as a general jog, and a strong row at 150 to 199 watts matches an 8.5-minute mile. The catch is that holding 150 watts or more for long takes fitness and technique most beginners don't have yet. So at the same perceived effort, running usually burns a little more, as the Edwards and Lander data above suggest.

Forget distance as a yardstick. A mile rowed and a mile run aren't the same session, because the rower's distance comes from a flywheel model, not your body moving over ground. Compare minutes and effort instead. Our review of rowing machine benefits explains why the calorie readout on the monitor is an estimate, and how to read it.

What Each Does for Your Heart and Lungs

Both raise aerobic fitness when you train hard enough, and both shape the heart in the way endurance training does. The question Reddit keeps asking is whether rowing builds a bigger heart than running. Pluim and colleagues (2000) pooled 59 echocardiography studies of 1,451 male athletes in Circulation. They grouped rowers and cyclists as combined endurance-and-strength athletes, because each stroke or pedal adds a strength element to the endurance work.

Those combined athletes had slightly thicker heart walls relative to the size of the chamber than runners did, at 0.40 against 0.39, with untrained men at 0.36. Heart function was normal in every group. So rowers' hearts do adapt a little differently, but the difference between rowers and runners is tiny next to the difference between either one and someone who doesn't train. It isn't a reason to pick one over the other.

Muscles: Whole-Body Stroke vs Leg-Driven Stride

A rowing stroke starts with the legs pressing the footplates, then the hips open and the back swings, and the arms finish the pull. The legs do most of the work, but the back, arms and grip all get a real dose. Running puts nearly all the work through the lower body: the calves and Achilles store and release energy, and the quads and hamstrings absorb each landing. Our guide to what muscles rowing works breaks the stroke down phase by phase, including the muscles it skips.

Neither builds much muscle once you're past the beginner stage. Rowing gives more endurance to the upper back and grip, and running gives more springiness to the calves and tendons. If you want visible muscle, two strength sessions a week sit on top of whichever you choose.

Impact, Injuries and Bone

This is where the two genuinely split. Nilsson and Thorstensson (1989) measured 12 men on a force plate and found the peak vertical force of each running stride rose from about 2.0 to 2.9 times body weight as speed increased. A rowing stroke has no landing at all. Your feet stay strapped to the footplates and your legs push at a force you control.

Running injuries

Running's injury risk is real, and it's concentrated in beginners. Videbaek and colleagues (2015) pooled 13 prospective studies and found 17.8 injuries per 1,000 hours of running in novice runners, more than double the 7.7 in recreational runners. The lesson isn't that running is dangerous. It's that adding running faster than your tendons and bones can adapt is. Our article on whether running is bad for your knees covers what the arthritis research shows.

Rowing injuries

Rowing moves the risk to the lower back. Wilson and colleagues (2010) followed 20 international rowers for a year and recorded 3.67 injuries per 1,000 hours of training and competition. The lumbar spine accounted for 31.8 percent of injuries, and the spine as a whole for half. Time on the rowing machine was the training factor most strongly linked to injury. A review by Thornton and colleagues (2017) singles out back and rib injuries as key concerns in the sport.

Those were elite athletes training many hours a week, so the numbers don't transfer directly to 30 minutes in your living room. The pattern does. Rowing injuries come from repeating a loaded, rounded lower back thousands of times, which is why technique matters more on a rower than it does in your first weeks of running.

Bone

Each one builds bone in a different place. Cohen and colleagues (1995) tracked 17 novice college oarsmen through seven months of training, mostly rowing plus about an hour each of weights and running a week. Lumbar spine bone density rose 2.9 percent, while the hips showed no significant change, and neither did an untrained control group. The pull of the back muscles on the spine is the likely signal.

Running loads the legs and hips through impact, the stimulus weight-bearing bone responds to. It isn't a guarantee, though. Scofield and Hecht (2012) note that distance runners often have lower bone density than athletes in ball and power sports, and sometimes lower than inactive peers. For bone, strength training plus some impact beats either cardio alone.

Does Rowing Help With Running?

Yes, as a supplement, but it can't replace running. In a review of cross-training studies on cycling, running and swimming, Tanaka (1994) found that some aerobic fitness carries over from one mode to another, but cross-training effects never exceed those of training in the sport itself. For highly trained athletes, specificity matters most. For the general population, cross-training may be highly beneficial, and it may be a good supplement while recovering from an injury.

So for a runner, a rowing machine is useful in three ways:

• Extra aerobic volume without extra impact. Swap one easy run a week for 30 to 40 minutes of easy rowing when your legs feel beaten up.
• A bridge through injury. Many shin and foot injuries tolerate rowing, so you can keep your aerobic base while the tissue settles. Check with whoever is treating the injury first.
• Posture and back endurance. The upper back and trunk work helps you hold your form late in long runs.

It won't teach your calves and tendons to absorb landings, and only running does that. Keep at least two or three runs a week if running performance is the goal.

Is rowing or cycling better for runners?

Both remove the impact. Cycling is closer to running for the legs, especially the quads, and it's easier to do for long, easy sessions. Rowing adds back and arm work and asks for more technique. If you only want to protect your legs while keeping fitness, either works, and our cycling vs running guide covers the bike side, including what it does to bone.

Rowing vs Running for Weight Loss

For weight loss, the better choice is the one you'll do more hours of. At the same perceived effort, running usually burns a bit more. Rowing wins it back if impact keeps you from running often, or if extra body weight makes running uncomfortable, because the seat carries your weight.

Neither one targets belly fat. Vispute and colleagues (2011) had 24 sedentary adults do seven abdominal exercises five days a week for six weeks while eating the same as before. Their abdominal endurance improved, but belly fat, waist size and body fat didn't change. Rowing works the trunk, but it shrinks your waist the same way running does: through a weekly energy deficit that takes fat from everywhere.

If weight loss is your main goal, the plan around the cardio matters more than the machine. Our roundup of the best workout apps for weight loss compares the ones that pair cardio with strength training and help you stay consistent.

Which Should You Choose?

A week that uses both

That week lands within the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans summarized by Piercy and colleagues (2018), which ask adults for 150 to 300 moderate or 75 to 150 vigorous minutes a week, plus muscle-strengthening work on two or more days.

Strength days are the ones people drop first, and they do the most for your back, knees and bone. In FitCraft, a 3D AI coach demonstrates every bodyweight and dumbbell exercise, and your program adapts as you progress, so those two sessions are planned for you while you row or run on your own.

The Bottom Line

The workout that changes your fitness is the one you're still doing in six months. Pick the one you dread least, put it on the calendar, and start easier than you think you need to. As Matt put it: "The real win is I actually want to work out now. That's never happened before."