The BeWOW Breakdown: “I Foresee a Sore Morning Tomorrow”
Rebecca, killing it on the rower.
This Week’s Workout: Work the Rowing Machine
The Breakdown:
Total time commitment: 35 to 40 minutes
Difficulty (out of five): 3.5
Soreness factor: This hit a lot of body parts and, having not rowed in forever, I foresee a sore morning tomorrow.
Overall grade (out of 5): 4. This was a really fun workout that targets a lot of different body parts and you get to row, which is fun. I docked it one point because most gyms (mine included) won’t have everything you need in one place, so you (like me) might have to go from floor to floor to get it all done.
Initial Impressions:
I knew I would be doing this workout alone as my workout buddy, Alon, is tending to a hurt knee. I was bummed, but when I saw the workout included rowing, I knew at least I’d have a fun one to do alone. I was worried about trying to do it all on one floor of my gym because, due to not being able to do a single pull-up without assistance, I’d need the pull-up machine, free weights, and a rowing machine.
How I felt afterward:
This was a tough workout, but a good one. I really loved how the reps went down (especially when it came to the burpees!). I got to work my whole body and the workout seemed to fly. I did have to modify it, though, since I couldn’t find all of the things I needed in one place. I could do most of the workout (minus the hanging knee raises and rowing) in one place, so I just upped the assisted pull-ups instead of doing the hanging knee raises and ran up a flight of stairs in the gym to get to a rowing machine. This added some time (and tired legs!) to my workout, but it was worth it! All in all, I will for sure come back to this workout, even if it was a bit of a logistical puzzle at the gym.
About our fit testers:
Rebecca Barber is the founder of the Rocky 50K Fat Ass Run, a just-for-fun 50K run that follows Rocky Balboa’s footsteps in Rocky II. She’s a 16x marathoner and 14x ultra marathoner, having started running when she was a kid. She’s an active volunteer with Back on My Feet Philadelphia, where she works to help the homeless community use running as a means to better their lives and find stable employment and housing. When not running all the miles, she is the social media coordinator for The Wharton School.
Alon Abramson is the founder of the West Philly Runners, the creator of RunPhil.ly – a web resource for running in Philadelphia – and the organizer of a number of running events in Philly, including the annual 26×1 Mile Team Marathon Relay, Beat the Bus, and Beat the Commute. Running since high school, Alon is an on-again, off-again runner with ebbs and flows to his mileage and commitment. More recently however, he’s taken a new approach to training, emphasizing cross-training and speed work as much as building up mileage and this has dramatically improved his running performance. When he’s not organizing and running, Alon works as a research project manager at Penn’s Institute for Urban Research, studying energy efficiency best practices. He’s on a number of non-profit boards and works on his whole-home retrofit project whenever there’s free time.
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