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For the indoor rower · Apple Music

Row to the beat.

Every workout is an album, and every track is on your stroke rate. Set the rate, pick the sound, and RowBeat builds it from Apple Music.

Download on the App Store How it works

A note from the developer

Why I built RowBeat

I fell in love with indoor rowing in 2021. I had rowed at the gym now and then for years, but that was when I started rowing almost every day. I was hooked. Rowing works nearly every muscle you have and gets your heart rate up at the same time, without pounding your knees like running. Strength and cardio in one session, and I can do it every day.

The hard part was staying motivated. I tried a lot of apps, with coaches, classes and scenery. What really kept me on the machine was music. Not background music, but real tracks, rowed to the beat, so the song sets the rhythm and every stroke lands on it.

The trouble is that almost no music is written at a rowing pace, and there was no way to find the songs that were. The fitness playlists I tried instead were generic gym music that did nothing for me. I wanted real songs, at my stroke rate.

So I built RowBeat. Tell it how fast you want to row, and it builds a playlist from Apple Music where every song lands on that stroke rate. I still row most days, and RowBeat is on for nearly every one. It brings back songs I have loved for years and turns up new ones I would never have found. It has made a rowing workout more fun than I thought it could ever be.

I hope it does the same for you.

Zak

Indoor Rower and RowBeat Developer

One stroke, one bar.

The beat lands at the finish, as the handle reaches your chest. Never rowed to music? The app teaches the count.

1Recovery2Recovery3Drive4Finish

How it works

Three taps to a workout

Every workout starts from a clean screen, unless you ask RowBeat to remember last time’s.

Build workout in dark mode: a stroke-rate range of 22 to 30, a 30-minute continuous row, the fifteen genres as color tiles with eleven chosen, and the Build playlist button.

Set the row, pick the sound

A stroke rate from 18 to 38 SPM and a length from 5 to 60 minutes, straight through or as intervals with a rest between tracks. Fifteen genres and seven eras, in any combination. Turn on Exclude explicit tracks once and it stays on.

Your playlist in light mode: a lavender album cover beside 22 to 30 SPM, 9 tracks, 30:57 of music and ten genres, the Pyramid shape chosen, and each track with the stroke rate it was matched to and the song's BPM.

See the album

Every track shows the stroke rate it was matched to. A 100 BPM song is a good 25 SPM row, one stroke every four beats. Choose the order the rates come in: Climb, Descend, Pyramid, Waves, Shuffle, or drag your own.

The player in dark mode with a PM5 connected: track 3 of 8 marked on the course line, actual and target stroke rate both 27, then 8:05 of time, 1,620 meters and both 500 m splits, with Whenever, Wherever by Shakira playing.

Row it

A ten-second count gets you on the machine before the first beat. Then one big stroke-rate number, controls you can reach mid-stroke, and the whole workout as a line with a boat where you are. Connect a Concept2 PM5 and your monitor's time, distance, stroke rate and splits join it.

Or skip the choosing. Tap Surprise Me and RowBeat picks two to four genres at random, opens the full stroke-rate range and every era, and builds.

Fifteen genres. Every track on your rate.

Try one you have never rowed to. Anything that does not row at your rate is gone before you hear it.

  • Afrobeats
  • Alternative
  • Country
  • Dance
  • Drum & Bass
  • Electronic
  • Hip-Hop
  • Indie Rock
  • K-Pop
  • Latin
  • Metal
  • Pop
  • R&B/Soul
  • Reggae
  • Rock

Plus seven eras, 60s to 2020s, in any combination.