Hydrow Pro Rower Review: I Didn’t Expect to Love It This Much

I’m someone whose fitness preferences don’t align with my day-to-day reality. I love gyms, running outside and playing sports, but I don’t have great gym options near me, I live in Minnesota (so running isn’t the easiest year-round) and I’m a dad whose schedule doesn’t accommodate team athletics. So I’m often forced into an option I wouldn’t choose first: working out at home. Over the years, I’ve tested treadmills, fitness mirrors and other machines for this site, and found lots to love and lots to shrug my shoulders at (and not in a trap-building way). 

One piece of equipment I’ve never plunked down in my own home before is a rowing machine. Oh, I’ve sprayed sweat on all sorts of rowers in all kinds of gyms over the years, but it’s always seemed to me to be too niche for at-home use. Treadmills, bikes, ellipticals, free weights, fitness mirrors — these seem like the obvious choices for someone who wants to get a basic but effective workout at home. Don’t you need a stronger connection to the exercise to buy a rower? The closest I’ve ever come to the sport of crew is watching the local college team practice on the lake by my parents’ house. 

Recently, I’ve started to suspect I’ve been thinking about this all wrong. Last year, Tanner Garrity, our in-house wellness expert and editor behind The Charge, made a compelling argument for the rower: “It isn’t only full-body, it’s also low impact and highly accessible for trainees of all ages.” Later, rowing unexpectedly came up during my own interview with John Walker, the co-founder and COO of Athletic Brewing Company. He leads a busy life, and a home rower is surprisingly his daily exercise of choice.

“I like rowing because it’s very effective in a short period of time,” he told me. “Between the business and family and all the other things in life, just trying to have something that’s very accessible that doesn’t require a lot of gearing up, gearing down and then time spent.”

That sentiment hit home with me, so I decided to give rowing a try. Specifically, I decided to give the Hydrow Pro Rower a go. I’ve been testing out the larger of Hydrow’s two models for the last few weeks, following along with introductory videos, sweating along with full workouts and even testing out off-the-rower exercises available on the machine’s large, pivoting screen. Is it all it’s cracked up to be? Let’s dig in.

Why Choose the Hydrow Pro Rower?

There are plenty of rowers you can get shipped to your door. These machines, sometimes referred to as “ergs” (which is an abbreviation of “ergometer,” a device that measures the work done during exercise), come in three main designs: air-resistance rowers, like the longtime favorite Concept2 RowErg, which Walker told me he owns; water-wheel rowers, like those from WaterRower; and magnetic rowers, like those from Hydrow. 

Hydrow specifically uses a proprietary electromagnetic resistance system that is meant to simulate the experience of rowing on the water. But this type of engineering also offers a few other benefits over the other designs available on the market: At least in the case of the Hydrow Pro, the machine is super quiet compared to other brands — part of this due to the electromagnetic system, part due to the enclosed body of the machine; the cheaper Hydrow Wave features a louder open design. (This was a crucial element for me, so I’ll dive into it more below.) This rower also requires a minimal amount of regular maintenance, while the Concept2 requires chain lubrication and the WaterRower requires water-purification tablets. None of those protocols are too onerous, but if you are planning on owning any of these machines for years (which you should if you’re buying one), upkeep is an important factor to consider.

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One of the biggest selling points for me is that the Hydrow is designed not just for expert rowers, but for everyone, including total beginners. Apart from the basic rowing machine — handle, resistance mechanism, sliding seat, footbeds — the Hydrow Pro features a 22-inch screen with speakers as well as Bluetooth connectivity if you’d rather listen on headphones (which I do most of the time). Through this screen, if you pay the added $44 per month subscription fee, you get access to over 5,000 on-demand workouts, including tutorials on how to get started and refreshers on form. This was absolutely crucial for me, as focusing on form over brute strength allowed me to get closer to using the supposed 85% of muscles that are engaged during rowing.

Before we dive into the specific things I did and didn’t like after testing, here are some other important specs and details about the Hydrow Pro:

• Hydrow Pro Rower price: $2,195
• Membership price (essentially required, more on this below): $44/month
• Weight limit: Holds up to 375 pounds
• Height limit: Fits up to 36-inch inseam
• Dimensions: 80 inches L x 19 inches W x 43 inches H, weighs 102 pounds
• Necessary to use: Electrical outlet and wifi (ideally 10 mbps or more)

What I Like About the Hydrow Pro

Quiet Enough With a Two-Year-Old at Home

My workout windows typically fall into two times: when my two-year-old is napping or when she is sleeping. Even though I set up my Hydrow Pro in my basement, my house isn’t very big, so she almost certainly would hear an air-resistance flywheel rower if I were to get that spinning furiously at night or early in the morning. The Hydrow, however, was blessedly silent. Not totally silent, but quiet enough that, with a downstairs door closed, when I was done with my first workout my wife who was sitting upstairs said she hadn’t even realized I’d started. If you have young kids like me or generally want to workout without bothering family, or you live in an apartment and don’t want to be that person, this machine will keep noise to a minimum.  

Unexpectedly Engaging Full-Body Workout

My first Hydrow workout was a big mistake. I chose a long session (30 minutes) at a high intensity (in their Sweat category, which focuses on big efforts over longer periods of time; Drive classes are about maximum effort in a shorter time; Breathe workouts are lower intensity without rest). No warmup. No stretching after. At the end of the session, I felt wiped in a good way throughout my whole body; but the next day I was tender in a bad way, especially in my back.

My next workout was a dream — before, during and afterwards. That’s because I took advantage of Hydrow’s full suite of content: I did a five-minute warmup video, followed by a 20-minute low-intensity row focused on form (but that also got me sweating), and finished with a 10-minute stretch off the rower. Three separate videos, all quickly available on Hydrow’s screen, which combined into a full, satisfying workout. 

If you are worried that rowing alone won’t be enough for you, Hydrow’s 5,000-plus workouts also include free-weight, Pilates, yoga and circuit-training classes that incorporate the rower as one element. They also offer occasional live classes that you can put on your calendar. 

Instructors and Classes That Rival Peloton

As I noted in my review of the Mirror (which then became the Lululemon Studio Mirror before the hardware was discontinued), if you’re going to pay for a subscription to virtual fitness classes, the trainers better be people you look forward to working out with. Thankfully, Hydrow nailed it in that department. I’m a big fan of Mac Evans (a cheerful former Rutgers rower) and Mike Dostal (a charismatic Liverpudlian). Hydrow lets you filter by instructor so you can stick with one and treat them like your own personal trainer. Also, something about the big — but not too big — screen on the Hydrow showing the coaches rowing in picturesque places around the world, from Lake George in the Adirondacks to the shadow of Japan’s Mount Fuji, makes my workouts feel like an escape.

Customizable Experience

Some online reviewers criticize Hydrow’s models because the drag resistance isn’t immediately accessible. Instead of a readily available adjustment, you must click on the screen and open a tab to toggle a heavier or lighter drag. This wasn’t a problem for me, probably because the default setting was fine for me as a beginner, but also because I have been most focused on form, split and strokes per minute instead of massively changing the drag.

More consequential for me was the sound customization available here. Hydrow defaults to a combination of music and the instructor’s voice when you’re watching a class, but you’re able to toggle both audio tracks up and down in percentage of sound. I found myself preferring to have more of the instructor’s voice in my earbuds and less music, and sometimes no music at all — just the trainer and the sound of their oars slicing through the water. You can also connect a heart-rate monitor so those stats show up on-screen during your workout; and you can pair Apple Health, so all your fitness data gets sent to one place.

Small Footprint That Can Get Even Smaller

A quick note about space: The Hydrow Pro is just over seven-feet long, so it may seem like a room-swallowing machine, but its slim width means the true footprint is surprisingly small. Importantly, the rower is incredibly easy to move. Wheels on the feet behind the screen allow you to tip the rower up and cart it around as needed — I easily moved it to a different room when I had a party recently. But also, you can buy a storage kit for $80 that allows you to store it upright. If you buy the Hydrow Pro, I highly recommend adding that to the Starter Bundle option (which also includes a mat that will be essential for those with wood floors).

What You May Not Like About the Hydrow Pro

Subscription Is Essential

If you buy this $2,195 machine, you’re also essentially signing up for a $528 annual membership. To access all the classes Hydrow offers and get the full functionality out of the attached screen, you have to pay $44 per month (which also gives you access to their app for on-the-go workouts). While the Hydrow Pro is usable without this subscription — in what they call the “Just Row” mode; more on that here — the company makes it clear that this is not a good option: “Membership is an integral part of the Hydrow experience and should not be considered an optional part of purchasing.” So if you don’t want to pay a monthly fee for your rower, this is probably not the best model for you.

Specificity of Exercise

While I was surprised how much of a full-body workout the Hydrow offers just when taking different rowing classes — working on both cardio and strength — you may feel limited by the specificity of this machine. Yes, their classes include strength training, yoga and other pursuits, and the pivoting screen allows you to turn it so you can do these exercises away from the rower while seeing the on-screen instruction, but that means you’ll also need to get free weights and a yoga mat to do those workouts to their fullest. But you could also buy some cheap weights and a cheap yoga mat and just watch free strength training and yoga classes on YouTube. If you’re considering the Hydrow, it’s important to be committed to rowing and not get caught up in the extra offerings included here, because that’s not the main purpose. 

Final Thoughts

Up at the top, I listed the workouts I’d prefer to do over exercising at home. But I left something out: The workouts that I’ve got the most out of in my lifetime have all been with instructors or coaches, whether it was team sports or gym HIIT classes. So while the subscription model here is a significant cost over the long run (with the potential for the monthly fee to increase at some point down the line), I also find that home workout equipment — for me — is most effective if it includes classes I can follow along with and instructors who can (virtually) push me to my limit. Hydrow’s coaches keep me coming back for more.

If you’re not sure if rowing is right for you, it might be worth taking a rowing class at a local gym to test it out. Hydrow also offers a 30-day home trial (they’ll pick it up and everything), but that does require some work on your end, and in-home assembly fees are not refunded, so it may not be 100% free depending on how you go about it. But all in all, that’s a good option too. 

So far, I’m a total rowing convert. It doesn’t mean I’m going to give up my other exercise pursuits when I can fit them in, but instead of thinking of in-home workouts as a chore, the Hydrow Pro has me actually looking for excuses to queue up classes with Mike and Mac.

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