A 2,000-Meter Row Is the Ultimate Fitness Test—Here’s How To Crush It

Rowing is perhaps the very best full-body workout, and that’s not hyperbole—rowing engages 86 percent of your muscles.

The 2,000-meter row (about 1.2 miles) is the gold standard test for rowing athletes as the official distance used in rowing championships. It’s an excellent fitness barometer for novice rowers, too.

Want to learn how to row 2,000 meters like a pro? Read on for tips, techniques, and more.

What is the significance of a 2,000-meter row?

“If you’re not familiar with rowing, or meters, it can seem like an arbitrary distance,” says CITYROW founding instructor Annie Mulgrew. “But 2,000 meters is just long enough to test someone’s cardiovascular, or aerobic, fitness levels, and also their anaerobic fitness levels.2,000 meters is just long enough to test someone’s cardiovascular, or aerobic, fitness levels, and also their anaerobic fitness levels.”

It’s actually an anaerobic threshold workout, adds Laura Simon, assistant coach for the women’s rowing team at Yale, which means it’s going to take you to your max heart rate and your max physical output.

“It’s a true test of one’s lung capacity as well,” Mulgrew says. “It requires that someone be not only in cardiovascular shape, so they can breathe and sustain high-intensity heartbeats, but also that they be able to push through lactic acid that’s going to start building up all over the body.”

Lactic acid buildup, Simon explains, is what causes muscular pain and its accompanying emotional discomfort.

Plus, because so many muscles in your body have to activate and coordinate together with each stroke, rowing is demanding on the muscular system, too, Mulgrew adds.

“All of your core strength muscles are activated in the sport of rowing,” Simon says. “There’s often a misconception that it’s just arms, but arms are sort of the least-used part, they’re used as a lever, but they’re not actually used to generate power. It’s the rest of the core muscles in the body that are used to generate power—the core, hips, legs, quads, all of those large muscles are what actually generate speed in the boat.” 

In fact, rowing is as much a power sport as it is a speed sport, Mulgrew says.

“You have to focus on exerting powerful leg drive,” she says. “You can think of it like deadlifting—if you’ve ever deadlifted, you know how taxing that an be on the body, and rowing is essentially like a seated deadlift. Rather than having weight added to a barbell, you’re having to produce that effort, that push into the platform to perform the work of the stroke, which is called the drive.”

In other words, a 2,000-meter row is one of the best ways to test your fitness.

What are the benefits of a rowing workout?

All of that is to say a 2,000-meter row is pretty much one of the most difficult and effective workouts you can engage in. However, it’s also non weight-bearing and low-impact, which means it’s a good option for those looking to put less pressure on their skeleton and joints.

“We rehab so many people with bad knees,” Mulgrew says. “It’s also great for pregnant people through all three trimesters because they’re sitting down. They’re strengthening their legs and their hips and their abdominals, but they’re not straining their bodies by having to stand up on their ankles.”

Rowing workouts also build full-body strength and help improve posture, core strength, and mobility, Crawford says. And it’s a great alternative to running, if you’re debating between rowing versus running.

“[Two thousand] meters is just long enough to test someone’s cardiovascular, or aerobic, fitness levels, and also their anaerobic fitness levels.” —Annie Mulgrew, CITYROW founding instructor

What is a good rowing pace?

What makes the 2,000-meter row particularly challenging is that there isn’t much pacing involved.

“It’s considered a sprint distance, so you’ve got to come out of the gate at 70 percent intensity and then be able to hold yourself at 80 percent until the final sprint or final 500, at which point you want to ramp up to like 90 or 100 percent,” Mulgrew says. “That’s just physically and mentally challenging for people.”

For the average person (those of us not competing on actual crew teams), maintaining a two-minute split time for men and a 2.5-minute split time for women is great, says Caley Crawford, an NASM-certified personal trainer and director of education for Row House.

An average rowing split time also depends on the distance. The split time will be different for a 500-meter row and a 2,000-meter row. For this reason, Crawford says consistency is a better measurement, meaning staying consistent with your split time regardless of length and time.

What is a good 2,000-meter row time?

Just how fast you should be able to complete a 2,000-meter rowing workout depends on your size (height and weight), but Mulgrew does provide rowers with benchmarks to work against. As a general rule, you want to complete each split—or 500 meters—in about two minutes.

“If you were going to hold a two-minute split time consistently for 2,000 meters, it would take you about eight minutes to row it,” Mulgrew says. “That’s pretty challenging because while eight minutes might not seem like a lot of time when you’re thinking about holding yourself accountable to an endurance effort, it’s so much more taxing on the body because 85 percent of your muscles are activated. So I would say anywhere between eight to 10 minutes would be pretty solid, and for men it might be closer to seven to nine minutes.”

A “good” finish time will be different for everyone, depending on age, gender, and experience. Among beginners, the average finish time for a 35-year-old man is about eight minutes; the average finish time for a 35-year-old woman is about 10 minutes. More advanced rowers should expect to finish under seven minutes and under eight minutes, respectively.

And, in case you were wondering, the current world record 2,000-meter row time is 5 minutes and 35.8 seconds. It was set in 2018 by Australian Josh Dunkley-Smith.

How to absolutely crush a 2,000-meter row

Interested in challenging yourself to a 2,000-meter row? Get training advice from the pros below.

1. Focus on pace and endurance

One of the biggest mistakes Simon sees novice athletes making is going out really fast and then getting slower and slower throughout the row when—as Mulgrew also pointed out—it should actually progress in the opposite direction.

If you’re trying to get faster in your splits or in your 2,000-meter as a whole, Simon recommends doing 80 percent of your work in your steady state zone, where your heart rate is between 145 and 160.

“The more fit you become at your base, the better you’re able to maintain your fitness in the third and fourth 500,” she says.

And Mulgrew recommends knowing what your split times are before you set out to complete a 2,000-meter rowing workout.

“The worst thing you can do is sit down and just row arbitrarily for those eight to 10 minutes,” she says. “It’s not only going to take you longer, but it’s also going to feel horrible mentally and physically.”

If you go in with a game plan, on the other hand—knowing what your split times are/should be—then you’ll be better engaged mentally.

“In order to be efficient physically, you have to have focus and the ability to get your brain and body working together so that when the body gets tired, the brain can override it and be like, ‘No, we’ve got to keep going,'” Mulgrew says.

Simon notes that everyone hits this wall in a 2,000-meter row, but at different points.

“As you become a more experienced athlete, you know exactly when you’re going to hit the wall and you know how to manage yourself through it,” she says. “And once you get to the other side of it, you’re home free, so to speak.”

2. Practice proper technique

The biggest error Mulgrew sees novice rowers make is not working on technique prior to attempting a 2,000-meter row. “Good technique means your stroke is efficient,” she says. “If your stroke isn’t efficient, then your split times will reflect that—you’ll have consistently slower split times because the body is not moving in an efficient manner.”

Practice makes perfect, but watch this video to get a better idea of proper form:

3. Put in the hard work and perseverance

As you may have surmised, a 2,000-meter row isn’t really a “straight-off-the-couch” workout, Simon says, but rather feats you need to work toward over time.

“You wouldn’t have someone who’s never run before go out and run a half marathon without any information—they would need to have trained,” Mulgrew adds. “You really do have to know what your split times need to be at the 500-, 1,000-, 1,500-, and then 2,000-meter mark, and a lot of that comes from having ridden before.”

The appeal of rowing, Mulgrew says, is that it looks easy when it’s anything but.

“It’s this beautiful, flowing movement, but if you’re never done it before, you’ll realize very quickly that in order to make it look effortless, you’re actually working really hard at it,” she says.

Mulgrew advises people to train, practice, and use their first time attempting a 2,000-meter row as inspiration toward future work.

“It’s not a one and done challenge,” she says. “Maybe do it every quarter or something like that just to check in and see how you’re doing. Remind yourself that anytime you’re doing a challenge like this, it’s really just to see what the body can do—and there should be mad respect for the body even attempting this.”

The key to improving, as with all things, is consistency. To achieve this, Crawford recommends regular rowing workouts. And what is considered a “good rowing workout,” will differ depending on the person, their goals, and the workout.

“You can get a lot out of an anaerobic intervals workout where you’re not rowing a ton of meters but the intensity is short bursts of strong effort,” she says. “You can also go for more endurance/aerobic training and get more meters at a more sustainable effort. In our classes at Row House, which range from recovery, to HIIT, to endurance, our members typically get anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 [meters] in a 45-minute class.”

“In order to be efficient physically, you have to have focus and the ability to get your brain and body working together so that when the body gets tired, the brain can override it and be like, ‘No, we’ve got to keep going.” —Annie Mulgrew, CITYROW founding instructor

4. Invest in a rowing machine

If you’re really serious about stepping up your rowing skills, perhaps you’d be interested in investing in your very own rowing machine for at-home use. If so, Crawford recommends the Concept2 model D rower ($990), which is the machine that Olympic-level athletes use to train, but works for folks of all fitness levels.

“It is super easy to maintain and will last so long,” she says. “The Concept2 help support is also fantastic. We outfit all of our studios with them and they’ve been amazing.”

For a gamified experience on an absolutely beautiful rowing machine, you’ll want to check out the Ergatta rower ($2,299), which allows you to compete against other rowers. And if you’re looking for a more budget-friendly option, there are some great rowing machines under $500. Don’t have a lot of space at home? Get yourself a foldable rowing machines.

5. Make it fun

Last, Crawford says rowing requires lots of self-motivation. And one way to get you pumped to row is to make it as fun and enjoyable as possible. She suggests checking out on-demand and live virtual rowing classes via Xponential Plus or Row House. If you’re an owner of the aforementioned Concept2, Crawford suggests checking out the Concept2 logbook online community, which hosts challenges that keep everyone engaged and motivated.

For in-person motivation, Crawford suggests attending a rowing-based fitness studio. Bonus points if they play lively music and mix it up with resistance training. And, if you get tired or bored of rowing and want to shake things up, there are other ways to use your rowing machine to get in a good workout such as single-leg Bulgarian split squats and lateral lunges.

FAQ

How long should a 2,000-meter row take?

There’s no “set” time a 2,000-row should take. Your finish time will depend on your age, gender, height, weight, and fitness level. However, the average time is about seven to 10 minutes, according to the experts. There’s nothing wrong with a time above 10 minutes though! The more you train, the faster you’ll get.

How fast do Olympic rowers row 2,000 meters?

Elite rowers can finish 2,000 meters in as little as 5.5 minutes, according 2021 research in the German Journal of Sports Medicine¹. Times can range all the way up to 7.5 minutes.

How do you pace a 2,000-meter row?

Your best bet is to start slow and get faster as the 2,000 meters progresses. One of the biggest mistakes the experts see is going out too fast—if you do that, you’ll have a hard time keeping that pace up, so you’ll get slower as time goes on. Additionally, it’s important to go in with a game plan: Know your splits ahead of time, rather than rowing arbitrarily for the entire duration.