Rowing is one of the oldest and most physically challenging sports still in existence today. Like swimming, rowing uses every major muscle group in the body: legs, abdomen, chest, back, and arms. Rowing originated not as a sport, but as a means of warfare and transportation where rowers were typically prisoners or slaves. It is sometimes jokingly said that rowing is the only sport to come from a form of capital punishment.
The sport of rowing unofficially began in the 1700s when watermen would race in long barges on the river Thames in England. The sport began its modem incarnation when “gentlemen’ created the Oxford-Cambridge race in 1829. The Henley Royal Regatta was started in 1839. Continue reading from Traverse City Tritons Rowing
