Hugh Jackman is proof that you can row, row, row your boat to a shredded physique—provided you introduce variation to your sessions. The 51-year-old actor just posted a training photo from CITYROW, a U.S.-based gym that combines the fat-burning cardio of rowing with lightweight strength training intervals, for a high intensity, low-impact, full body workout.
“Mixing up my training,” Jackman wrote. “Great cardio and awesome cardio burn.” He’s not kidding; the second photo in the post shows that Jackman burned 727 calories in 51 minutes. These aren’t the 400-pound deadlifts we’ve seen from him in the past, but the actor is still clearly making his fitness a priority.
“It’s a total-body workout that uses most of the muscles in your body during every stroke with little to no impact,” CITYROW trainer Lisa Niren told Men’s Health Australia. “It burns fat while providing extreme cardiovascular fitness and ridiculous muscular endurance.”
In order to get maximum benefits out of your rowing session, you’ll need to focus on your technique and do more than just strap in and pull to the finish. The key to rowing if focusing on efficiency in your movements. This isn’t just an upper body or lower body exercise—you can’t just drive with your legs or pull with your back and arms and expect to perform to your fullest potential. Your whole body should be working in tandem. Check out this guide for some more tips on how to use the rower.
If you’re thinking of trying something similar to Jackman and incorporating strength-based moves into your rowing session, start with this 30-minute combined conditioning, upper body strength and core stability workout, which involves a stint on the rowing machine, a set of dumbbell reps, and a run.