Even a few years ago, if you went to an gym or health club, you would have seen a row of treadmill and only 1 or 2 elliptical trainers. These days there is a possibility that there are more elliptical trainer than treadmill in that same health club. Today we are going to discuss why elliptical trainer has gain so much popularity over last 5-6 years.
1. Upper and Lowe Body Workout.
First, and elliptical trainer gives you both upper and lower body workout. Elliptical trainers are one of the few exercise machines where you can exercise both part of your body at once. It makes you work out more muscle group than you could have in a traditional treadmill or stationary bike.
In addition elliptical provides you a weight bearing workout. This is very beneficiary for muscle development. However, it is very important that you consciously apply pressure in your upper body workout; for getting optimum benefits. Many user only use the motion from flywheel of elliptical and do not use the upper body to push the elliptical. With the upper body workout, you are working out your – arms, chest, abs and your back.
2. Low Impact workout.
Number 2, your elliptical provides you a low impact workout. When working out in an elliptical, your feet never leave the pedal; as the result you are reducing the impact to your knees, ankles, hips and your back. Your lower body moves in an elliptical motion and there is no reverse impact. It is very natural motion that involves very minimum impact.
In comparison, while running on a treadmill, you can put on impact of 2.5 times of your body weight. Even when you walk on your treadmill, there is some degree of impact and shock to your body.
Elliptical trainer is perfect for people with stress and strain injury. Elliptical trainers originally gain popularity with baby boomer. It was designed to accommodate a person with stress injury.
3. Varied Motion.
Number 3, with an elliptical trainer you can do various motion exercise. For example, you can do typical forward motion. You can also do reverse motion. With this you can do targeted exercise to specific muscle groups – your hips, thigh , back etc. Many of the top class elliptical have incline with them. Incline is extremely good, as it kicks out your cardio exercise a lot. You can lose a lot of calorie in a very short amount of time.
4. Reduced rate of perceived Exertion
Number 4, with an elliptical trainer there is a reduced rate of perceived exertion. Although there are some controversy to this, study has shown that: Investigation of the physiological response on elliptical trainer shows that perceived exertion is lower on elliptical trainer based on the amount of energy used. In other term, you can work out more easily on an elliptical trainer than on a treadmill or stationary bike.
5. Low maintenance
Elliptical trainer needs very low maintenance, Compared with a treadmill. For example in an elliptical trainer: you do not have a motor, you do not have a belt that spins like the one in treadmill.
Another reason for its low maintenance is, they do not take the abuse the treadmill takes. Because in a treadmill, you can impact around 2.5 time of your body weight; but elliptical trainers are low impact. (Note: here we meant only the good quality elliptical trainers. Some of the budget elliptical are not well built and may break easily. They are made of light weight part and are not engineered to take a lot of abuse.)
When buying an elliptical trainer, look for the trainer that is good for your body and your budget. There are model that cost under $200 to more than $2000. We try never to recommend any elliptical under $500. Because they are ,made of light weight material and are not engineered in a way to last for a long time. When buying and elliptical trainer, you will need to remember few of the important factors: Your body weight, height, activity level and number of users.