You bought a rowing machine hoping it would help you lose weight and tone muscles, but you don’t seem to be getting the results you were hoping for? Even worse, you were thinking of giving up rowing altogether, it was boring and without results after all, no?

Then you found VR rowing, and it made your workouts fun. Your weight loss and muscle toning were not there yet though, and you still feel lost. That’s where I can help you.

I’m going to teach you how to use your rowing machine more effectively and reach those weight loss and muscle toning goals you are hoping for.

To begin with, let’s learn more about rowing machines and VR fitness. 

Rowing machines can help you lose weight by providing an efficient, full-body workout in less time than other exercise machines. They can also help you tone your muscles, especially if you know how to combine different workout programs with rowing resistance settings.

Rowing is a full-body workout 

Rowing is a full-body exercise, as it stimulates most of the major muscle groups — including your lats (the widest muscles on your back), upper back, quads (the front of your thigh), hamstrings, core, biceps, and forearms.

This puts rowing ahead of other common workouts, like running, cycling, and cardio on the elliptical machine, in terms of the extent of muscles worked.

Contrary to what most people believe, rowing power is developed approximately 60% through your legs, with the other 40% coming from your upper body.

Rowing for weight loss

The weight loss formula is simple: burn more calories than you take. 

Now, you can take all kinds of magic pills and supplements that can help you lose weight and burn calories, but the only thing that really works is finding the right, healthy way of eating that fits your body, your mind, and your lifestyle, and making sure that you get enough activities to burn more than you eat.

Luckily, VR rowing can be super helpful in the burning calories part, but only if you do it the right way. The trick is to turn the calorie-burning machine that is already in your body to the maximum, by introducing VR rowing workouts that are made exactly for this purpose.

Finding rowing motivation

You’ve probably tried this before, losing weight that is. Maybe you’ve done it through dieting, maybe you’ve done it through exercise. And since you are reading this article you were probably not happy with the results or were simply unable to maintain them.

One of the reasons for this is that both dieting and exercising are hard work. We, humans, are focused on pleasures, and on trying to avoid pain, any type of pain. 

It’s far nicer to sit and watch a good movie, eat a great meal, and enjoy a good glass of wine and ice cream on a sunny day. And you should never give up these, they are pleasures that make life better!

But if you feel like you need to lose weight, then you have to also add the hard work! 

Indoor rowing is a boring activity, there’s no denying it. The best you can do is to look at your rowing machine monitor and count down the time needed to finish the workout you’ve set yourself up to do. 

Yes, you can also distract yourself by watching something on a screen, but believe me, that is not contributing to your workout efficiency and to your goal of losing weight and toning muscles.

So what is VR rowing?

What can contribute to your goals and to your motivation is distracting yourself with virtual workout programs developed precisely for weight loss and muscle toning.

VR fitness has been proven to improve performance, minimize perceived pain, and prolong workout duration.

For example, a study done by the University of Kent, England, showed a 10% decrease in experience of pain and effort in VR fitness compared to traditional fitness, and a prolongation in time to exhaustion for the VR group was around two minutes longer than those doing conventional exercise. The VR group also showed a lower heart rate of three beats per minute than the non-VR group.

How do you decide which VR rowing workouts to do?

HOLOFIT VR rowing, for which you need a rowing machine, Meta Quest VR headset, and a HOLOFIT subscription, offers over 100 workout options in different virtual worlds. 

Some of those workouts are designed to improve your cardiovascular condition, others are designed to help your endurance. 

There are also workouts that can raise your heart rate, like races or multiplayer events, where your competitive nature can have fun exercising. You can also join daily and monthly challenges to keep your motivation high.

Finally, HOLOFIT gives specific workout options for those looking to lose weight and tone muscles, and they are all a part of the HOLOFIT Cardiogoals training programs. HIIT (High-intensity interval training), Fat burn, and Cardio are specifically developed programs that use health and fitness science to bring results to their users.

VR rowing workout plan for weight loss and muscle toning: 90 days to sustained results

If you have your HOLOFIT VR rowing setup in place, now is the time to create your weight loss and muscle toning workout plan. Yes, you read it correctly, it will take 90 days to achieve sustainable results. You will see changes in your body weight and muscle tone faster than that, but for you to create a habit that you can maintain it will take some time.

First of all, let’s see how often you need to work out. 

Body muscle recovery is just as important as exercising: it is the period during which your muscles take all the valuables of the challenge you’ve put them through and turn them into benefits. 

How long do your muscles need to recover? 

This depends on two factors: your age and the intensity of your workout. The younger you are, the easier your workout intensity is, and the less recovery time you need. 

It should not, in any case, be less than 24h, no matter what your physical condition is.

For the majority of people, 48-72h of recovery time is optimal. I would recommend that you start your plan with 72h recovery time, and bring it down to 48h in 60 to 90 days of training.

This translates to working out every 3rd day, or if it’s easier for you to manage, 2 times per week.

Again, depending on your age and overall fitness, you should start your weight loss and muscle toning plan with more endurance-building, longer but easier intensity sessions, and then move towards replacing them with shorter, high-intensity sessions.

In HOLOFIT VR rowing you would focus on two workouts: Journey and Cardiogoals. 

During your first 30 days, set your rowing machine at a lower resistance damper setting to anywhere between 1 and 4. 

In your first week start with HOLOFIT Journey for 30 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of Cardiogoals Interval workout on the Very Easy or Easy level.

Your second week should consist of a HOLOFIT Journey for 30 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of Cardiogoals Fat Burn workout on the Very Easy or Easy level.

In your third and fourth week, you repeat HOLOFIT Journey for 30 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of Cardiogoals HIIT workout on the Very Easy or Easy level.

During the next 30 days, you are stepping up the intensity.

In your first week start with HOLOFIT Journey for 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of Cardiogoals Interval workout on the Medium level.

Your second week should consist of a HOLOFIT Journey for 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of Cardiogoals Fat Burn workout on the Medium level.

In your third and fourth week, you repeat HOLOFIT Journey, this time for 30 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of Cardiogoals HIIT workout on the Medium level. 

The final phase is where you use the gains of the previous 60 days to make that fat-burning machine pay off!

In your first week start with HOLOFIT Journey for 10 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of Cardiogoals Interval workout on the High level. Finish your workout off by doing a 5 minute Race.

Your second week should consist of a HOLOFIT Journey for 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of Cardiogoals Fat Burn workout on the High level, and then the 10-minute Race.

In your third and fourth week, you repeat the HOLOFIT Journey, this time for 30 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of Cardiogoals HIIT workout on the High level, and again the Race, again for 10 minutes.

Your results are looking at you in the mirror!

At the end of the 90-day workout program, I guarantee you’ll see the results you have been hoping for. You’ll be lighter, and more toned, but also a lot healthier and happier with yourself and your surroundings.

That’s not where the fun stops, because being fit is a lifelong journey. You can choose to continue your workout in the same way or join the HOLOFIT challenges to keep you motivated.

You can also follow our blog and read some of our other posts on how to achieve long-lasting fitness results with your VR fitness.

Finally, I want to congratulate you on making this first step. Reading, educating yourself, and motivating yourself can sometimes be just as hard as starting your workouts. If you need more help with any of this, join our HOLOFIT community and see how others managed to achieve their weight loss and muscle toning goals with HOLOFIT!