Benefits of Elliptical Training

Go into almost any gym these days and you will row after row of shiny new ellipticals, but the big question is: What are the benefits of elliptical training over traditional cardio trainings? One of the oldest and most tried and true methods of cardio training is the treadmill.  Elliptical training has many obvious benefits over training on a treadmill.  The first is that elliptical training is truly a full body workout, while treadmill training is primarily focused on your lower body. 

The arm workout on an elliptical significantly increased the calories burned per hour on the machine, so you can spend less time working out and more time doing other things if you train on an elliptical.  In addition to that, elliptical training is easier on your joints.  When running on a treadmill, each step exerts many times you body weight in force upon your knees, legs, hips, and feet. 

As you get older and older this continued damage ads up.  An elliptical has virtually no impact on you joints.  You are not stepping down so you are not exerting the same downward force on your lower body.  Instead because of the swinging motion of an elliptical, the energy and stress is handled by your muscles and tendons, which is

the goal of every workout.

Elliptical Training Versus Stationary Bike

Another tried and true method of cardio training is the stationary bike.  Bikes offer a very good way to get a strong lower body workout with very little impact.  Unfortunately, bike training does even less than a treadmill for you upper body.  The less muscles you use when doing cardio work, the less calories you burn. 

The fewer calories you burn, the longer you will be on the machine.  Although riding a stationary bike has very little impact on you joints, it is not any less than an elliptical.  With far less return on the number of calories burned, it should be obvious what the benefits of elliptical training over stationary bike training are.

Elliptical Training Versus Stair Master

Very similar, the stair master offers the same full body workout as an elliptical but with a much harder impact on your body.  Both offer extreme calorie burning, but where the elliptical has very little stress on you body a stair master creates quite a pounding on you muscles and joints.  If you already use a stair master and are trying to get the same workout without the all the pain, try an elliptical.