NordicTrack's Best Rowing Machines for the Holidays 2026: A Complete Gift Guide

Most gyms tuck the rowing machine off to the side, with less traffic than the treadmills and bikes lined up in front of it. Rowing isn't less effective than those machines. Most people were just never taught the stroke, so it looks intimidating before it's even turned on. This guide covers NordicTrack's two rowers, what the iFIT subscription solves for a machine most people have never learned to use, and how to make a new resolution to row more hold past January.

What Matters When Choosing a Rowing Machine

A rowing machine is a piece of furniture you'll see every day, so it's worth choosing on more than price alone.

Resistance Type and Levels

Silent magnetic resistance keeps a rower quiet enough for shared walls or early mornings, and a wide range of resistance levels lets one machine scale from a recovery row to a genuinely hard interval session.

Screen Size and Pivoting Design

A larger, pivoting touchscreen changes how a rowing session feels, less glancing down at a small display mid-stroke, more following a trainer through a full workout. It also matters for off-rower content, since a pivoting screen can face a mat instead of an empty rowing seat.

Full-Body Engagement

Rowing works the legs, core, back, and arms in sequence rather than isolating one area, which is part of why it's often recommended as an efficient full-body option. Our comparison of NordicTrack's two rowers breaks down training goals side by side.

Footprint and Where It Will Actually Live

Neither current NordicTrack rower folds flat, but both store upright on front-mounted transport wheels, which reclaims real floor space between sessions even without a true fold. Measure the footprint at full length before ordering, since a rower's usable length matters more than its footprint on a spec sheet suggests.

Two Rowers, Two Levels of Investment

Not every gift, or every purchase for yourself, needs to be the same size. Here's the range NordicTrack currently offers. Holiday pricing moves fast, so it's worth pulling up NordicTrack.com before you decide.

RW700 Rower

BEST FOR: A Compact Rower for Smaller Spaces

The RW700 Rower pairs a 10 inch tilting touchscreen with 26 levels of silent magnetic resistance, an inertia-enhanced flywheel, and the smallest footprint of NordicTrack's two rowers. It's built for someone who wants the full stroke experience without needing the largest screen in the room to get it.

RW900 Rower

BEST FOR: The Full Immersive Screen Experience

The RW900 Rower shares the same resistance system and core build as the RW700, but steps up to a 24 inch pivoting HD touchscreen, large enough to genuinely follow a trainer through a destination rather than just glance at stats. For someone who wants rowing to feel like the main event rather than a machine in the corner, the bigger screen is the difference that matters.

A Few Things Worth Adding

Rowing works the legs, back, and core hard. It doesn't do much for isolated upper-body strength, which is exactly where a couple of accessories fill the gap.

TheLarge Equipment Floor Mat protects flooring under a machine that, unlike the others in this lineup, moves the full length of its frame with every stroke.

A set ofSelect-A-Weight Dumbbells andstand round out the muscles a rowing stroke doesn't isolate on its own, and anAdjustable Bench gives that work more range than rowing alone provides.

What iFIT Adds

The rower is the hardware. Most people who avoid rowing aren't avoiding the workout, they're avoiding not knowing how to do it correctly. iFIT, available with a paid membership, is designed to solve that specific problem. A few features are worth understanding before deciding whether the subscription earns its place:

SmartAdjust adapts resistance automatically to match a trainer's cues, so the machine handles the intensity decisions while you focus on the stroke itself.

Global and Studio Workouts are designed to put a trainer in front of you for the stroke pattern itself, catch, drive, finish, recovery, so learning proper form doesn't have to rely on trial and error. The same membership unlocks off-rower content like strength, yoga, and HIIT for days you're not on the machine at all.

iFIT Personal Trainer is designed to handle the scheduling piece, building and adjusting a plan around your goals so showing up relies less on remembering to plan a session yourself.

If you want the fuller case for why the subscription is worth pairing with the hardware, Is NordicTrack Worth It makes that argument in more depth than a buying guide has room for.

Making the Resolution Outlast January

ACE Fitness reports that about 35% of people have already broken their New Year's resolution and returned to old habits by this point in the year. [1] The ones who make it past February usually aren't relying on willpower alone, they've built a couple of small habits around the goal.

One of the simplest, according to Mayo Clinic, is treating a workout like a scheduled appointment rather than something to fit in if time allows. [2] A rower at home removes the excuse of a gym commute, but the calendar habit still carries most of the weight.

The other two habits are just as small. ACE recommends a brief, nonfood reward after a session and a quick note on how it felt. [3] NIH's research on habit formation found a similar pattern: people who kept weight off long-term tended to track their own consistency closely. [4] None of this takes more than a minute, and all of it matters more than which rower ends up in the room.

Why iFIT and NordicTrack Work as One System

A treadmill and a bike both forgive bad form, you can walk or pedal badly and still get a workout. Rowing doesn't forgive that the same way, and that technical barrier, more than motivation, is the real reason the machine so often sits unused. A guided session that corrects the catch, the drive, the finish, and the recovery in real time is designed to close that gap faster than self-teaching from a diagram. The case for pairing this hardware with iFIT isn't really about accountability. It's about competence.

iFIT's National Parks Pass

For a resolution that needs something to outlast January, iFIT's National Parks Pass, included with a paid iFIT membership, is built for exactly that. It's a year-long library covering 21 national parks, in celebration of America's 250th birthday, and rowing is explicitly part of the mix, Glacier National Park's challenge, for one, is built for hiking, biking, or rowing depending on how you want to move through it. On a NordicTrack rower, iFIT guides the stroke and the pace together, so the destination on screen and the technique in your hands develop at the same time. Whichever rower ends up under the tree, a full year of national parks is what makes the resolution worth keeping.

Explore More

• The Top 5 Health Benefits of Rowing Machines, According to Research

• How to Use a Rowing Machine Correctly: A Step-by-Step Guide

• What Muscles Do Rowing Machines Work?

References

1. American Council on Exercise. 3 Strategies for Sticking to Your Health and Fitness Goals

2. Mayo Clinic Staff. Fitness Program: 5 Steps to Get Started

3. American Council on Exercise. How to Make Exercise a Regular Habit in 6 Steps

4. NIH News in Health. Creating Healthy Habits

The primary purpose of this blog post is to inform and entertain. Nothing on the post constitutes or is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, prevention, diagnosis, or treatment. Reliance on any information provided on the blog is solely at your own risk. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, and please consult your doctor or other health care provider before making any changes to your diet, sleep methods, daily activity, or fitness routine. Do not disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of information available on this blog. NordicTrack assumes no responsibility for any personal injury or damage sustained by any recommendations, opinions, or advice given in this article. Always follow the safety precautions included in the owner's manual of your fitness equipment.