Elliptical, Miles, and Heartrate

flrancho

My primary means of cardio is walking and running on the elliptical, and I’m a little perturbed about what I’m seeing on the elliptical.

Most days I’ll hop on the elliptical at the gym for 30 minutes, and generally get in an estimated 2.25 miles (by the machine’s calculations), giving me an embarrassingly slow 13 minute mile at zero resistance even though I top out at 165-172 bpm as measured on my FitBit - no cardiac symptoms, heart rate returns to normal after, and my resting heart rate is in the 50s (I’m 36).

I’ve heard many say that running on the elliptical is easier and/or they’ll get in a faster mile on it than they would if they were actually running. I love running, but my knees are shot (cartilage tear), so I can’t run anymore and haven’t been able to since my teens, so I can’t run to compare heart rate/mileage differences, but a thirteen minute mile at peak heart rate for my age seems off.

I do use a Precor AMT Open Stride (which is more of a combination elliptical-stepper, than a pure elliptical - it has a different motion, hard to explain) as opposed to a typical elliptical. I find the open stride machine to be more comfortable on my knees, but am wondering if this variant of machine may account for what seems to be some off base numbers. Or maybe it’s just the two open stride machines at my gym need to be calibrated or something. Just curious if others have had use of one of these machines and found that it reads different than a more conventional elliptical?

AnnPT77

How do you feel subjectively at that heart rate? Are you breathing hard, panting, or anything like that?

Look at any standard RPE (rate of perceived exertion) chart. Do you feel like you're near the most intense levels? (I'd paste one in here, but it's not easy to do on this device - sorry.)

Reason I'm asking: It's statistically pretty common to have a HRmax quite different from the age-based estimating formulas. (Fitness trackers often use those estimates, under the covers, if you haven't told them a sports-tested HRmax.) Having a higher HRmax is not necessarily a health problem, can just be genetic variability.

How new to exercise are you, or are you returning after a long break? How new to elliptical? Conditioning matters, and it can be surprisingly activity specific.