I agree, I love the

I agree, I love the elipticals machine I do about 20 minutes at the begining of a workout for basically a warm up before I go and lift. I find it better than riding a bike and well I never like running on a tread mill. The After my regular weight lifting I get back on the Eliptical 10 minutes more on leg days, the legs just can't do anymore they hurt to much. But 20 minutes on other days. The I hit the locker room.

Hey Michelle, Question for

Hey Michelle,

Question for you on this. So I started thinking end of last week that my elipticals were getting a little too easy and well today it wasn't a challenge at all. So Of course I want to do what I should do and up my elipticals. So my Question which is better to up Resistance or Time?

We have the real nice Precor Elipticals so typically what I do is 10 minutes level 3 before going to go lift. This is fine and I really do not plan on changing this. This is all part of my warm up stretching routine before lifting. Then after I am all done lifting I get back on the Eliptical for about 20 minutes to finish off a workout and get my heart going. So anyway that last 20 minutes, it is getting too easy. So should I go 25 minutes at level 3 or stick with 20 minutes and up it to level 5. Which one in your experience is going to burn more calories. I can always up it to level 5 and see if I can go 25 minutes as well. But I am just curious on your thoughts and opinions.

I always hated doing cardio and really tried to avoid it most of my life until elipticals came into play. I actually enjoy it it reminds me very much of Cross Coutry skiiing whihc I have always enjoyed.

Elipticals

I find elipticals as the best calorie burning exercise for my clients. Those that are obese like it as it has no impact on thier knees. I like it because it a challenge for me most of the time.

The more I go to the gym,

The more I go to the gym, the more I find the elipticals being used. I think they have become a staple in everyday cardio routines. I really enjoy the preset routines that are on them and use the calorie and fat burner ones all the time.
But what I dont do is uses the handle bars. I like to just keep my hands stationary on the posts in front... am I not effectivly working to my advantage?

I only use a Elliptical now

I only use a Elliptical now for warm up and cardio. I have really bad knees.

I avoided them for years since I thought they 'looked girly'. I kept using the treadmill and always ended up having to get off because of my knees or my shin splints.

Now I love them. I can do 45 minutes without even thinking about my knees. And, I find the non impact aspect of them very hypnotic and easy to 'forget about the time'.

J

Xyon Question

Hi Xyon,

Sorry for the late reply........ I must have missed your question.

It seems that your cardiovascular endurance has leveled off with the elliptical, adding time will not make it harder, what I can suggest is to increase your level, and or pedal backwards and forwards, you can do interval training on it, i.e I have clients do 30 secs as fast as they can and then 30 secs at a moderate pace; I will get them to repeat this for 5 minutes; you can also change the ramp level... some have this option.

You may also want to start cross training, start adding bike, treadmill, stepmill, skipping, and plyometrics. You may also want to take some time away from the elliptical, it is important to always shock your body otherwise it will get use to performing in the same plan and your body will plateau.

Good luck and let me know how these suggestions work for you. ]

Michelle
Certified Fitness Trainer and Nutritionist
www.bodyevolutionvancouver.com

Thanks for getting back to

Thanks for getting back to me Michelle. That helps a lot, What I did in the mean time is upped the resistance, unfortunately level 5 didn't last long. I am now at level 7, only 2 more levels to go and I maxed the machine, that isn;t the first time I have maxed a machine though. Anyway, I do tend to switch forward and backward, like 5 min forward, 5 min backward, 5 min forward and 5 min backward. I even tried a lot of the canned programs in the machine that vary it all over. However I didn't like that too much. You have to pay attention to it.

I have two problems with cardio. Problem one is I still get affected by planter fasciitis. This has been a problem for about 6 months the next treatment the doc recomends is either surgery or just time to let it heal. So I am taking the time to let it heal. But it is one slow healing injury. Its really not that bad anymore I only aggrivate it occasionally, but I would rather let it just heal up. So things like running and skipping are out, running is what caused the problem in the first place, well running in bad shoes. The other problem with cardio is I really hate it ;-) I hate lunges too but I do them anyway and make them part of my weight training. But cardio I really dislike. I really never liked cardio until elipticals came along. So I really really like Elipticals.

I fully agree with you in shocking your body I do it all the time in Weight training usually every 3 months maybe 4 if I am still making gains, I completely redo my weight training routine. I never knew you needed to shock cardio either. I still work up a good sweat on the eliptical but it is begining to get easy.

I do like bike, but outside only and since we are supposed to get 8 inches of snow tomorrow my biking days are over for a while. Indoor biking kind of sucks, i think it is because I do not know what to do with the top of my body. I tried a spin class but I am not much of a class type person. I like getting on the eliptical plug in the headphones in and letting my mind go. I like roller blading and cross country skiing. However, I am not sure how well cross country skiing will be this year with the planter fasciitis. Any kind of cardio you can suggest, I think really it needs to be fully body because I hate most that work only one half, non class type, and the hard part won't make my foot worse.