Yeah, you've bought fitness equipment before. There's the all-in-one home gym that's in several pieces in the garage, needing a spare part to fix it that you can't get. The mountain bike you swore to your spouse you were going to use, but that's in the garage gathering dust, too. And jogging makes your knees ache. But in spite of earlier bad fitness equipment buys, you long for a bit of fitness training.

It might seem like you would be throwing your money away, but wouldn't a rowing machine be a good idea? I don't mean those pneumatic piston things you buy through the mail or over the internet, that don't feel anything like actual rowing and that break in less than week, like the home gym machine that's gathering dust in your garage. I mean good equipment, similar to your mountain bike; the difference is you can use it every day for a few minutes indoors while looking at television instead of getting a sunburn outdoors.

Exercising on a quality rowing machine feels like you're actually rowing a boat on water. It is also so quiet that exercising while watching TV is no problem, though you may need to increase the volume a bit, as they are not completely quiet. No need to worry about disturbing your spouse in the next room, either. Another benefit is the low impact to joints.

The nice thing about a rowing machine is that it gives almost all the muscle sets a workout. If you include some push ups, then you are completely done. If you use this routine, you will regularly work out all of the major muscle groups in your chest, arms, legs and back.

Rowing works the entire body and a rower trains multiple areas of the body. Are you trying to increase your strength? To do this, you need to increase the resistance on the rowing machine and do short sprints. Do you want to increase your endurance? Decrease the resistance and go for a longer period of time and a greater distance. Do you like to compete? There are rowing machine competitions. You can sign up for one of these to maintain your motivation and have something to work towards.

If you are in the market for a rowing machine don't discount the possibility of a gently used rowing machine. While you can pay a lot of money for a new rowing machine you may be able to pick up a used one that is just as good. If you must purchase new, consider buying from a company that has a strong track record in providing rowing machines. Newer companies often don't carry the parts to fix your machine should it have a minor break down.