Muscle Gain as a Lightweight

[p0rtsidesupreme]

Hello! I'm a Lightweight rower who weights 139 lb which means i have a decent amount of weight I could put on. I want to maximize the amount of muscle I can get. So I wanted to know if anybody has any suggestions as to what exercises I can do to have some impactful muscle gain to improve my rowing.

Thanks

[Sakly]

Hi,

that depends on the distances you want to perform better. 2k+ is mainly aerobic, not so much about strength. Lower distance performance will surely improve by gaining strength with weights. Suggest to incorporate deadlifts and squats, upper body pull exercises like rows. Accessory some sort of pullups, pushups, overhead press to not create imbalances. Core work will also help to stabalize, but deadlift/squat will already do much for this.

[winniewinser]

I would say as a LWT rower it's hard to retain a huge amount of muscle... depending on your height of course. I was LWT and 6'2" and was told I looked emaciated ....I since gained 5kg, do some weights and feel stronger. But if you keep piling on the metres you will find it hard to retain as rowing will only keep what it needs.

Personal experience of course and everyone is made differently.

[p0rtsidesupreme]

Hi,

that depends on the distances you want to perform better. 2k+ is mainly aerobic, not so much about strength. Lower distance performance will surely improve by gaining strength with weights. Suggest to incorporate deadlifts and squats, upper body pull exercises like rows. Accessory some sort of pullups, pushups, overhead press to not create imbalances. Core work will also help to stabalize, but deadlift/squat will already do much for this.

Thanks for the advice, I did mean a better 2k but I didnt know it wasnt very strength based. How come heavyweights are expected to have a better time than a lightweight for a 2k than? Thanks for the exercises I will try to incorporate them!

[Sakly]

Hi,

that depends on the distances you want to perform better. 2k+ is mainly aerobic, not so much about strength. Lower distance performance will surely improve by gaining strength with weights. Suggest to incorporate deadlifts and squats, upper body pull exercises like rows. Accessory some sort of pullups, pushups, overhead press to not create imbalances. Core work will also help to stabalize, but deadlift/squat will already do much for this.

Thanks for the advice, I did mean a better 2k but I didnt know it wasnt very strength based. How come heavyweights are expected to have a better time than a lightweight for a 2k than? Thanks for the exercises I will try to incorporate them!

It is not only aerobic based, so for sure heavier (means typically stronger) people will have an advantage as they can pull stronger. But they will only finish faster if they can maintain the strong pull for the whole race and this is based on aerobic performance - the much more important part.

[Ombrax]

Heavyweights tend to be significantly taller than lightweights, which gives them a longer pull which is a big advantage. And, has been stated above, they do tend to be stronger. Greater force over longer distance = more work = lower 2k times

Edit: if you're really going for hypertrophy (bigger muscles) there's really only one way to do it - you need to lift weights.

[Dutch]

You don't really need any fancy long routine. If just wanting to put on muscle, just keep it very simple as sakly says above. If you have not trained before, try something like 1to3 sets x 8-12 reps, even 15s if you feel it. Don't get caught in the trap of tens of sets, that is for bodybuilding.
Also try and pick a routine that wont leave you feeling tired and unable to perform your rowing well.
Either do the whole body in one go or split the body into 2 parts and do weights twice a week.
You can even just pick one body part each session and just do different exercises each session that way you keep your training interesting and not get too obsessed about the next session etc.

Look at the link for ideas or google " weights for rowing"
https://rowingstronger.com/2016/12/19/t ... or-rowing/

Just don't get to hooked on too many sets, start with very few and build up over time. Keep a diary of your workouts and rep ranges and you will start to see what your strengths and weaknesses are.
Also write down how you feel the next day. Its always a good indicator of over training.
It is a very fine art to get the balance right.
And dont forget to eat more if you want to put on muscle. If you don't eat enough, then you will gain a little muscle, but become very ripped probably . Bit like a body from doing bodyweight exercises.

[Sakly]

Bit like a body from doing bodyweight exercises.

Agreed to all except this one ^^
I train with ~90% bodyweight since 2014 now. Only incorporating squats and deadlifts once a week as strength base for lower body over the last year again.
I would not call my body very ripped. Even if it would be I would know that this is depending on nutrition and not on type of training. The muscle is not knowing if the load is creates by weights or by body itself, so it will act and grow the same way (if stimulated with same intensity).

[matthew92]

Also, I'd love to add here the importance of progressive overload. Long story short, when weightlifting for hypertrophy, just always try to use a weight that gets you to complete failure within the 8-12 rep range. Once you hopefully see some progress and find yourself able to surpass that range without reaching failure, then it's probably time to increase the weight you're using. Progressive overload is essential for hypertrophy as your muscles needs to be constantly challenged for proper adaptation.

Good luck!

[matthew92]

Oh and I also couldn't agree more about eating as much as you can. And that doesn't mean just loading up on calories. It means to load up on good calories, especially from protein-rich foods. As a good rule of thumb, about 0.8g of protein per pound of your body weight daily is ideal!

[ukaserex]

I'd like to chime in and offer what I think is a more accurate information with regards to progressive overload. Pushing to absolute failure needs to be defined as "Absolute failure is reached when proper form is no longer maintained".
So, when lifting, you stop lifting when you can't maintain proper form.

This is easier said, then done, because many folks have no idea what proper form is! I look on YouTube and still, there's a controversy about how far the knees can extend over the toes when doing a squat to be considered "proper form". Who's right? Who's wrong? Thus far, the answer seems to be it depends on your specific body type.

As a rule, I believe weight training is the single best thing most of us can do to improve our rowing - aside from actually rowing. But, when I say weight training, recognize that the human body is incredibly adaptive. You WILL plateau (not increase your strength, not grow larger muscles) if you do not change up your routine every month or so. Some folks say 4 weeks, some say 6 weeks, some say 8 weeks. We're all different and will have stalled progress at a different time, probably due to varying degrees of intensity, sleep, diet and a host of other factors.

I encourage folks who want to put on muscle mass to lift 3-4 times a week, and row on days you don't lift. How you lift, and how you row will vary with what you're trying to achieve. But, if it's hypertrophy, you will want to do deadlifts on one workout, squats on another.
Bench press on one workout, overhead press or an incline bench on another. Upright rows, (with weights, not the rower) are an excellent complement to rowing. But these movements need not be done to "absolute muscle failure", unless you define that as when form breaks down. There is no extra hypertrophy for proceeding beyond that level of fatigue.

If you'd like to see the science behind this comment about this, https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=br ... i=scholart

Brad Schoenfeld is the de facto authority most would defer to in any discussion about hypertrophy.

All that being said, if you look at the best rowers in our world, none of them are particularly muscle bound. They are excellent rowers because of countless hours of practice rowing, and because of excellent ability to take in oxygen, use it, and flush out lactate a bit quicker than the rest of us.

However, if you can increase the power in your legs - there can be no question, this power will translate into a stroke that will generate more Watts, which will allow you to row faster, assuming you can develop the muscular endurance to maintain that increased power (or at least some of it) in each subsequent stroke.

Much easier said than done. Sleep, diet, intelligent training are the easiest things to focus on, but the hardest things to get right consistently. At least, they are for me.

[Tsnor]

...
I encourage folks who want to put on muscle mass to lift 3-4 times a week, and row on days you don't lift.

More common would be rowing hard 2-3 times/week and stacking 2 days of lifting on the same days as hard rowing. Then filling in one or two rest days and several long rows each week. This limits workouts with autonomic stress (like lifting/strength training and workouts done more than about 70-75% max heart rate) to a total of 2-3 per week and seems to be the pattern followed by most elite endurance athletes (rowing, cycling, running, skiing).

(The nutrition comments above also deserve emphasis. It is very hard to put on muscle mass when keeping to a zero weight gain diet.)

[mitchel674]

I'm a lightweight rower with a similar issue. At 6ft and 151lbs I look very thin. After rowing for 4 years, I've got strong looking quads, glutes and abs, but the rest of me looks thin. I've had colleagues, family members and even patients ask me if I've been sick or why I've lost weight. I like to eat healthy (mostly vegan), but putting 30-50km/week on the erg just keeps me very lean. My wife thinks I look great.

Pre-covid I was going to the gym twice weekly for some specific weight training focusing on my chest and upper body. This did produce modest muscle gains which were slowly lost once I stopped that program trained mostly on the erg.

It's tough being a lightweight!

[winniewinser]

I'm a lightweight rower with a similar issue. At 6ft and 151lbs I look very thin. After rowing for 4 years, I've got strong looking quads, glutes and abs, but the rest of me looks thin. I've had colleagues, family members and even patients ask me if I've been sick or why I've lost weight. I like to eat healthy (mostly vegan), but putting 30-50km/week on the erg just keeps me very lean. My wife thinks I look great.

Pre-covid I was going to the gym twice weekly for some specific weight training focusing on my chest and upper body. This did produce modest muscle gains which were slowly lost once I stopped that program trained mostly on the erg.

It's tough being a lightweight!

I felt that pain, had the same comments.....and I then fell out that LWT wagon in an attempt to gain muscle and weight.....but even that is tough.

Will probably just let my body be what it wants to be with the mixture of rowing, skierg and weights that I do. If that gets me to LWT again then I may race.

[Dutch]

I'm a lightweight rower with a similar issue. At 6ft and 151lbs I look very thin. After rowing for 4 years, I've got strong looking quads, glutes and abs, but the rest of me looks thin. I've had colleagues, family members and even patients ask me if I've been sick or why I've lost weight. I like to eat healthy (mostly vegan), but putting 30-50km/week on the erg just keeps me very lean. My wife thinks I look great.

Pre-covid I was going to the gym twice weekly for some specific weight training focusing on my chest and upper body. This did produce modest muscle gains which were slowly lost once I stopped that program trained mostly on the erg.

It's tough being a lightweight!

This is exactly what I meant by being ripped by not eating enough, in time your body adjusts and you look in fantastic shape. I was painfully thin in my childhood and teenage years. But I always did hundreds of press-ups and cycling so looked amazing in just shorts and vest . But it changed in winter when i just looked thin again in clothes lol
When I was 19 I started drinking lots of milk and put on a nice bit of weight, it was a lot of fat though. Trouble is being thin for so many years especially as a child it left me with quite a hang up through out my adult life and I probably only come to terms with it not that long ago.
People can say really bad things at times and it was normally my own relatives!! Who needs enemies when ones family will suffice