Saturday, December 17, 2011

What You Should Know About Treadmills and Ellipticals

By Tady Stompson


Treadmills and elliptical trainers are two of the most famous components of home gym equipment and are excellent tools in order to get an aerobic exercise indoors. When comparing treadmills vs. elliptical trainers, you will quickly recognize that ellipticals simply have reached the party recently, whereas treadmills have been in existence much longer. Consequently, treadmills are definitely more well-known and more commonplace. However, before you go and buying that treadmill, you may want to give elliptical trainers another glance.

A useful comparison: Whilst comparing treadmills to elliptical machines, you can't help but observe that the best elliptical trainer provides an impact-free workout. Using the elliptical, there is no effect on the floor, which might tempt folks who need a gentler workout resulting from joint problems or pain. The treadmill offers more impact, which helps strengthen the bones. One obvious point that's in favour of treadmills is that it provides for a better exercise experience for one dedicated runner/jogger than an elliptical trainer. If you are training for a marathon or maybe a 10,000 kilometer run, and you do not wish to go outdoors too frequently through the colder months, then you will easily be more satisfied by using a high quality treadmill.

With that being said, if you are looking to enjoy a quality cardiovascular workout using the maximum amount of efficiency, the elliptical is really an excellent choice. Most elliptical exercise machines present a total elliptical trainer workout when you have dual action handlebars for your arms and foot pedals for your legs, whereas treadmills focus much more on your lower body as they simulate the jogging experience. What is more interesting, as reported by recent studies, would be that the insufficient influence on the joints allows the person to lose roughly a similar amount of calories as treadmills with the idea of putting less effort?

Therefore, it's no surprise that elliptical have been the equipment chosen for seniors' exercisers with knee problems, and physical trainers that happen to be involved in rehabilitating their clients.

This is what Thomas Altena, an exercise physiologist from the University of Missouri-Columbia, had to say: "The physiological responses connected with elliptical exercises were nearly identical to treadmill exercises." He went on to summarize that "both exercise equipment are competent for increasing the amount of calories expended and for producing cardio respiratory health and training benefits..." Finally, an item which is often overlooked about elliptical fitness machines is the ability to add variety to your aerobic workout. Whenever anyone is on an exercise program, one of the biggest challenges he faces is usually to stay motivated and keen on his workouts. Using the treadmill, the ability to change the incline, together with the intensity is big pluses, that's led to its popularity over the last decade. The elliptical trainer matches these characteristics and has a couple of additional ones of its own.

Along with changing the cross ramp incline (which is found in Precor models) and varying the intensity, you also have an opportunity to not take advantage of the handlebar and concentrate on the lower body. Even though this option is not used often, it does add variety to the workout. However, quite possibly the most critical feature, and what separates the elliptical trainer from a number of other machines in relation to variety, is the forward and backwards feature on the foot pedals. While you're moving forward, you feel like a cross country skier hitting the long slopes. However, whenever you reverse your pedal motion, you can target your lower body in a completely different way. Without a doubt, you are targeting your quadriceps muscles and definately will soon feel them burn after a number of minutes.




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