Rowing Machines vs Indoor Climbing

Choose a rowing machine if you want heart and lung fitness you can train at home, and choose indoor climbing if you want grip strength, body control and a skill to learn. Most people who enjoy both get more from doing some of each than from trying to pick a winner, because the two barely overlap.

The exception is someone with sore fingers, elbows or shoulders. Climbing loads all three heavily, so a rowing machine is the safer place to keep training while you get them looked at.

Side by side

	Rowing machine	Indoor climbing
Effort pattern	Continuous, or set intervals	Short efforts with long rests
Aerobic load	High, and easy to control	Moderate, and varies by session
Grip demand	Low	Very high
Leg demand	High, the legs start every stroke	Moderate, mostly pushing and balance
Skill	One movement, refined over years	Many moves, plus route reading
Main injury concern	Lower back, from poor technique	Fingers and elbows, plus falls
Progress measure	Time, distance, pace per 500 m	Grades and problems completed
Where	Home or gym	Climbing centre
Time needed	20 to 30 minutes is a useful session	Usually an hour or more, with travel

What a rowing machine trains

The rower is a repetition machine. At 20 strokes per minute, a 30-minute session is 600 strokes, each a leg drive followed by a body swing and an arm pull. That volume builds aerobic fitness and muscular endurance in the legs and back. The load per stroke is small, so strength gains level off once you are past the beginner stage. To see how that compares with heavy leg work, read rowing machines vs leg press.

The numbers are the other strength of the rower. If your pace for a steady 30 minutes falls by a few seconds per 500 m over a couple of months, you know you are fitter. Our guide to how to use a rowing machine gets you set up, and the first thing to learn is the drive order: legs, then body, then arms.

What indoor climbing trains

Climbing loads the fingers, forearms, shoulders and lats far harder than rowing does. You hold your body weight on small holds, so strength relative to your size matters. The legs push from footholds and the trunk keeps you close to the wall. Reading a route is a puzzle, and technique often beats strength.

There are two main formats:

• Bouldering. Short, powerful problems without ropes, close to the ground, above thick mats.
• Roped climbing. Top-rope or lead on taller walls, using a harness and a partner or an auto-belay. The British Mountaineering Council describes lead climbing as more exciting and riskier than top-roping.

The rests are the catch for fitness. A beginner’s session is mostly watching, resting and chalking up, so your heart rate rises and falls instead of staying up.

Which should you pick

Your goal	Better choice	Why
Improve heart and lung fitness	Rowing machine	Steady effort for 30 minutes or more
Train at home, any time	Rowing machine	No booking, partner or travel
Stronger grip and forearms	Climbing	On the wall, your hands carry your body weight
Something social and playful	Climbing	Problems are solved in groups, with rests to chat
Measure progress exactly	Rowing machine	The monitor gives you pace, time and distance
Stay interested	Whichever you will keep doing	A session you skip trains nothing

If you have only 2 hours a week and fitness is the priority, rowing gets more done: 4 sessions of 30 minutes is 120 minutes of actual work. A 2-hour climbing trip might include far less time on the wall. If you like the idea of climbing but want a machine, our comparison of rowing machine vs VersaClimber looks at a climbing-style cardio option.

Injury risks are different

Rowing’s usual problems come from the back and from doing too much too soon. Climbing’s come from the hands. The British Mountaineering Council warns that pulling your body weight on your fingertips strains tendons and ligaments, and that over the years this can lead to chronic finger and elbow injuries. It also says most injuries happen when you are tired, having just one last go on a problem.

That gives you three clear rules at the wall:

1. Warm up first. The BMC’s indoor climbing basics suggest a short jog, light movement, gentle stretching and finger stretches.
2. Stop before you are exhausted, not after the failed attempt.
3. Use open-hand grips where you can, as the BMC describes crimping as the finger position most likely to cause injury.

Finger pain that lingers for more than a week or two is worth showing to a physio before you go back to hard climbing.

A week that combines both

This is an example for someone with a base of fitness. The hard days are kept apart so tired forearms do not spoil the interval session.

Day	Session	Time
Mon	Steady row	30 minutes
Tue	Climbing	60 to 90 minutes
Wed	Rest
Thu	Row intervals, 4 x 4 minutes with 2 minutes easy	30 minutes with warm-up
Fri	Rest or a walk
Sat	Climbing	60 to 90 minutes
Sun	Steady row	40 minutes

Rowers who want more on the training side can read climbing for rowers, and cross-training for rowers shows how to fit other sports around the erg. If CrossFit is the other sport, read adding a rowing machine to your CrossFit routine. If getting to the session is the hard part, our page on regular rowing machine workouts has practical ways to build the habit.