Eliptical Machines

[Stan]

For the past five years I've mainly focused on weight lifting primarily in my workouts, and the cardio has always came and gone. But for the past year or so, I've been incorperating cardio into every workout. 30 to 40 minutes usually. I've always been a big fan of the treadmill, but I've found that I stopped getting results from it after awhile, so I switched things up 4 weeks ago. I started using an eliptical machine.

While using the machine, I am sweating like crazy and the machine indicates I am buring calories a lot faster then I ever did with a treadmill. The thing about it though, is I'm never really pushing it really hard while doing this. I mean I'm going at a moderate speed, usually 4.5 to 5.0mph, but I never really struggle on it, yet I'm sweating like crazy. Has anybody else experienced this with these machines? Am I burning a ton of calories with seemingly less effort?

 

[zeroth]

I've found that using music makes me go harder and faster and that makes me sweat a lot more. When I read while I'm using an elliptical, I get a different sort of workout. It's not a bad workout, but it's not as intense aerobically. My stride is longer when I use reading, but I work my heart much more so when I use music. So I try to shift it up and use music sometimes and reading at other times.

For music, I use podcasts and have a blend of a 20-minute song that's about 135 BPM; that's my ramping-up warmup. Then I move to about 30 minutes of 140 BPM and then 145 BPM for another 30 minutes. Depending on the resistance level, I'll be very sweaty at the end of those cycles.

By the way, don't gauge your workout by the calories burned. I use two different gyms and the calories-burned count varies really drastically on same-model machines--they must be calibrated differently.

I've never quite enjoyed myself on the treadmill. And I really dislike the treadclimber. I get a good workout on it, but I have to pay 100% attention while I'm on it or I'll trip up. So I can't read while I'm on it and I can't listen to music--it's a bit scary and boring to me.