Last year, when I started hitting the gym regularly, I would finish my workouts with a short round on the rowing machine. My time to get to the gym is more limited these days, so I wanted to do my cardio at home; a bit of research led me to the Sunny Health and Fitness Rowers on Amazon.
Now, my gym has a Concept2 rower, the highest-end home rower you can find. They also cost upwards of $1,000, and I’m on a tight budget. So I started looking in the decidedly lower end of the range. There’s a huge selection of lower-end rowers on Amazon, but the Sunny RW1410 received decent reviews, and the outside reviews I saw indicated it was good for the price. So I ordered it, figuring it was worth a shot.
It arrived on Wednesday, and I managed to get it opened and assembled in under an hour; I had a pint-sized helper, so it took slightly longer than it would if, say, your assistant wasn’t constantly trying to install the seat so he could ride it when you weren’t looking. Fully assembled, it’s a little bit bulky but not hard to move. Amazon lists the weight as about 34 pounds, and I’d say that seems right. Moving it is pretty easy, and the rowing arms do fold inwards to collapse the overall footprint. It’s fairly barebones, and while it does have an LCD readout it just estimates calories, shows your stroke count, and tracks time. It doesn’t measure distance or strokes per minute. Again, this is a fairly basic rower.
At the same time, it only cost me $107. My intention is to use it on my non-gym days for 30-45 minutes, and based on my first few workouts it gets the job done of getting my heart rate up and my legs and arms moving. I see this as a starter machine — if I like it and find myself sticking with it for a long period of time, it will be time to invest in something more powerful. But it works well, it’s fun to use, and it allows me to squeeze in a workout when getting to the gym isn’t practical. I’ll revisit and update my review as I use it more, but based on my first impression, I am super excited to wake up and work out! You ca check them out on Amazon [affiliate link].
Source: Personal Purchase
