Is Rowing Good for Muscle Loss During Perimenopause?
Find out how rowing helps prevent and reverse muscle loss during perimenopause with its unique combination of cardio and resistance.
Why Muscle Disappears Faster in Perimenopause
Sarcopenia, the gradual loss of skeletal muscle mass, begins in earnest during the perimenopause years. Women can lose between three and eight percent of their muscle mass per decade after their mid-30s, and that rate often accelerates once oestrogen levels start falling. Oestrogen plays an underappreciated role in muscle maintenance. It supports the signalling pathways that tell the body to repair and rebuild muscle fibre after exercise. As it declines, muscle breakdown outpaces muscle repair even when activity levels stay the same. The visible signs include reduced strength, softer arms and legs, increased difficulty with everyday physical tasks, and a slowing metabolism since muscle tissue burns calories at rest. Addressing muscle loss proactively during perimenopause has consequences that extend well beyond appearance, including bone density, joint stability, balance, and metabolic health.
Rowing as a Hybrid Exercise for Muscle Preservation
Most cardio exercises do very little to preserve muscle mass. Running, cycling, and walking are excellent for cardiovascular health but provide minimal resistance stimulus to the muscles. Rowing is different. Because the drive phase requires you to push against a resistance load with your legs and then pull with your arms and back, it functions as both cardiovascular exercise and a form of resistance training. The legs produce the majority of the power output, which means the quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, and calves are repeatedly loaded under a meaningful challenge. The back, shoulders, and biceps handle the pull. The core stabilises throughout. This full-body loading, sustained for 20 to 40 minutes, provides a consistent stimulus for muscle maintenance that pure cardio simply cannot match.
Building a Base With Progressive Overload
The principle of progressive overload applies to rowing just as it does to weight training. To maintain and build muscle, you need to gradually increase the demand placed on the body over time. On a rowing machine this can be done by increasing resistance, increasing stroke rate, lengthening sessions, or incorporating interval training where short bursts of higher effort alternate with easier recovery periods. Interval rowing is particularly effective for muscle preservation because the high-effort phases demand more from the fast-twitch muscle fibres that decline most rapidly with age. A simple approach is two or three minutes at moderate pace, followed by 30 to 60 seconds of vigorous effort, repeated for the duration of the session.
Protein: The Muscle-Building Partner to Rowing
Exercise provides the stimulus for muscle repair, but protein provides the raw material. During perimenopause, the muscle protein synthesis response to both exercise and dietary protein becomes less efficient, which means you need more of both to achieve the same result. Aiming for 1.6 to 2.0 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day supports muscle maintenance in this life stage. Consuming a portion of that protein, around 25 to 40 grams, within two hours of a rowing session is particularly effective because muscle cells are most receptive to amino acids in the post-exercise window. Practical sources include eggs, Greek yoghurt, cottage cheese, chicken, fish, legumes, and protein shakes if whole food intake is consistently low.
How Rowing Supports Bone and Joint Health Alongside Muscle
Muscle loss during perimenopause is closely linked to declining bone density. Stronger muscles pull more forcefully on bones, which stimulates bone remodelling and maintains density. As muscles weaken, this stimulus is lost, and bones become more fragile. Rowing contributes to bone health indirectly by maintaining the muscles that support the skeleton. It is not a weight-bearing exercise in the traditional sense, so it should ideally be paired with some walking, running, or strength work to provide direct bone loading. However, the muscle-building component of rowing still provides a meaningful contribution to the overall bone health picture, particularly for the spine and upper body.
Rowing Versus Weights for Muscle Preservation
The most direct way to preserve muscle mass is progressive resistance training with weights. Rowing is not a replacement for that, but it is a highly valuable complement, and for women who dislike or cannot access weight training, it provides a meaningful alternative. The key difference is that rowing primarily develops muscular endurance and cardiovascular fitness with a secondary resistance benefit, while weight training directly targets maximal strength and hypertrophy. If time or preference allows only one, dedicated strength training wins for pure muscle preservation. If you enjoy rowing and want cardiovascular benefits alongside muscle maintenance, rowing three times per week combined with two strength sessions produces excellent results for managing perimenopause muscle loss.
Signs Rowing Is Working for Your Muscle Health
After six to twelve weeks of consistent rowing, you should notice increased grip strength and arm definition, firmer legs and glutes, improved posture from stronger back muscles, and more ease with everyday physical tasks like carrying bags or climbing stairs. Your resting metabolic rate may improve slightly as muscle mass increases, which can show up as easier weight maintenance even without dietary changes. Energy levels often improve because muscle tissue is more metabolically active. If you are not noticing these changes after three months, consider increasing session frequency, adding resistance or intervals, reviewing protein intake, or speaking with a GP to rule out thyroid issues or other causes of persistent fatigue and muscle weakness.
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