Treadmill vs. elliptical

miaelissa

Question I am confused about. Treadmill vs. elliptical
On the treadmill I sweat ALOT but my heart rate gets about 20 bpm higher on the elliptical machine; however, I hardly sweat at all on the elliptical. On which am I getting the better workout? Why no sweating on the elliptical? Very confused!

Yi5hedr3

Sweating is not a great thing....usually just your body eliminating toxins. Less toxins, less sweating. Elipticle gives better wotkout.

steph2strong

Your calorie expenditure for either machine depends on the intensity and effort you put in. The calories you burn on the treadmill for a given amount of time is dependent on the speed and incline you are running at. For the elliptical it is going to be the resistance, speed and incline. If you set the resistance high on the elliptical and maintain a fast speed you will burn much more calories than having no resistance. However if you set the resistance high but don't put in the effort to maintain speed you won't. There are many variables. For me, I am a conditioned runner so it is very hard for me to raise my heart rate on the treadmill, speed only minimally raises it, the way I push myself is with incline. On the elliptical I can actually raise my heart rate much quicker and become breathless just by uping the resistance and maintaining a good speed. It takes more strength from my legs and I really feel the burn. Anyway, without actually viewing you on both machines and seeing the effort you put forth on both and the different variables it is difficult to tell you what machine is "better". As a general rule of thumb I usually go by level of perceived exertion for my workouts. If I can talk easily and feel quite comfortable it's not burning as much calories than if I can't get a word out and feel uncomfortable. And sweating isn't an indication of calorie burn, I sweat more lifting weights than I do running.

cwolfman13

the machine is irrelevant...the machine doesn't burn calories or otherwise do anything in and of itself for your fitness, your level of effort does. sweating or not sweating is also irrelevant.

as far as what is a better workout, that really depends on your fitness goals (independent of weight loss, calories, etc).

eugenia94102

As it has been state above the answer is it depends - both on what one is trying to achieve, and the intensity of the exercise. The most common situation in which one machine vs the other makes a difference relates to impact on joints, not on aerobic fitness. Speaking for myself, I judge my own aerobic fitness not by trying to get as high a BPM as possible, but by how fast it goes down to normal after exertion.

sheermomentum

I'm wondering: how are you getting your heart rate on these machines? Since you'd mostly expect that sweating and heart rate would both increase with the intensity of the exercise, I'm wondering if both heart rates are accurate. BUT sweating isn't necessarily an indication of the intensity of the workout, by itself. Its an indication of how hot your body is getting. So, if the heart rates are accurate, the question would be why is your body getting hotter on the treadmill. Could the environment be warmer? Are you wearing different clothes?

mylittlerainbow

My personal trainer told me NOT to use the treadmill (which had always been my machine of choice previously), just the elliptical. I have read that the treadmill is more jarring because your feet are pounding the surface with each step, while the elliptical is more gentle on your body because the pedals move right along with your feet. Since you can set resistance and incline with either one, I'd go for the elliptical.

gato012002

I tend to avoid the elliptical because I don't get the same workout as the treadmill. I agree with the other comments about the amount of effort you put into the workout. My approach is a set standard: incline 15, speed 3.6 - 4, and duration 60 minutes. The results is 700-800 calories burned.

Francl27

It depends on what you do definitely. I walk at an incline on the treadmill (13% for now) and it burns more calories than when I ran or than anything I did with the elliptical (but you won't burn as much if you hold the bar, which a lot of people do).

ZeXea

mylittlerainbow wrote: »

My personal trainer told me NOT to use the treadmill (which had always been my machine of choice previously), just the elliptical. I have read that the treadmill is more jarring because your feet are pounding the surface with each step, while the elliptical is more gentle on your body because the pedals move right along with your feet. Since you can set resistance and incline with either one, I'd go for the elliptical.

You're right, the elliptical is much more gentle on your body and the knees.


I think the tredmill might be accurate in terms of calories burned, but in general for myself I learned that the elliptical is about 10-15% over in terms of calories burned. Just a food for thought for you OP. And when I work elliptical, i sweat quite a lot. I put resistance to about 8-13.

sandsofarabia

Well I had a knee injury and can only use the elliptical now so I don't really have a choice. I'm no expert but the treadmill and elliptical are both great ways although both give a different workout for different muscles. Overall they both work out most of your body evenly because of the running motions they both provide.

I like the elliptical also because you can go backwards really fast (without tripping) and I feel totally different muscles working out. It's also easier to multitask because your head stays more in place and your feet are the ones that change levels so reading a book or something is easier for me. I'm biased though because I only use the elliptical now. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the treadmill but even on my good days with my knees I put myself at risk of shin splits as well on the treadmill.

jcow84

There are a lot of variables between both as ppl have said, and I'd also throw in that it's a lot harder to keep an intense pace on the elliptical because it's so easy to slow down, whereas with the treadmill you can't slow down unless you actually change your pace. I'd probably stick to a treadmill for overall calorie burn for this reason, but I'd actually rather run outside!

ElJefeChief

I find the elliptical a completely annoying and unnatural body movement. I love the treadmill or, even better, running outside. Unless you have preexisting medical issues that preclude you from running (knee surgery, etc.), there's really no better exercise from an efficient-calorie-burning perspective than running, short of cross-country skiing.

robertw486

Heart rate should be a fairly good indication of which one you are working harder on. As for sweating.... I really don't use it for any comparisons. Some days I hardly sweat doing a hard workout, some days I feel like a water hose is on when I'm not working out all that hard.

Either exercise has potential to burn a lot of calories if you put the effort in. I personally find treadmills boring, but switching up ramps/resistance on the elliptical keeps me more engaged in working hard.

SLLRunner

miaelissa wrote: »

Question I am confused about. Treadmill vs. elliptical
On the treadmill I sweat ALOT but my heart rate gets about 20 bpm higher on the elliptical machine; however, I hardly sweat at all on the elliptical. On which am I getting the better workout? Why no sweating on the elliptical? Very confused!

I run on the treadmill and do the elliptical, and I get great workouts on both.

You might have to step up your game on the elliptical by increasing the incline.