most effective treatmill/ ellipitcal workout

iamkelskels

I have an elliptical at my house, but doesn't have any bells or whistles on it. anyone have recommendations for a good cardio workout? i can't adjust resistance, so i'm thinking like an interval training kind of thing?
i'm just trying to get back into working out after taking a hiatus for awhile, so beginner level please

lstnlondry

I was watching a couple tag team at our gym. They would do 90 seconds on a treadmilll then 90 seconds on a row machine. It was awesome!

dbower18

Interval training and you don't need whistles or bells, just a deep seated fear of failure. Get yourself a decent Heart Rate Monitor and a timer, do say, two minutes at your max HR (plus whatever time it takes to get there), then two minutes at a minimum HR,, maybe a range of 80% to 65%. Or if you like scale it back to 70-55 or whatever, just keep tabs on how many intervals you can do and try to get a handle on your recovery time. As you get stronger you can always pick up the pace.

Upside: Great cardio workout.

Downside: Very intense and most people can't stay on very long, hence fewer calories burned. You can offset somewhat by doing a 15 or 20 minute warmup before starting the intervals.

bonjour24

i have made up my own interval training for my elliptical. i figure it must be doing something! my elliptical is from about 1984! so it's not fancy either.
i tend to put on the prodigy when i'm on there (you need something to help keep pace), and have a digital clock where you can see seconds (i wrap my watch around the machine where i can see it clearly).

and then i press play on the prodigy! i started going slow for 30 secs then sprinting for 30. but really going as fast as i can and not slowing down. then i've slowly upped it to 45 sec sprints and 30 sec walks.

best i could do!

doing that takes about 3 mins to get my hr up, and keeps my hr at above 160bpm until i stop. it's a very do-able workout because you keep stopping to catch your breath!

dbower18

I was watching a couple tag team at our gym. They would do 90 seconds on a treadmilll then 90 seconds on a row machine. It was awesome!

That reminds me back in the day we did a lot of circuit training, running a lap, say an eighth of a mile, than doing some resistance work (sit-up, push-up, DB rows, whatever) and then another circuit. Do eight routines run one mile. Rinse and repeat.

Get a little creative and you can that with the elliptical as well.

__Jackie__

I also have a very basic Elliptical at home. What I do is:

Warmup 10mins at a pretty easy resistance (level 2 on my machine)

Intervals of 2 mins at the hardest I can go right now (level 5) one minute at Level 2...repeat for 25 mins

then a 5 min cool down at level 2

it's killer- but every machine is different as to the resistance. I just kinda played around with it until I found something was hard/easy enough for the intervals

tusher2011

I haven been doing my own version of interval on the treadmill and just recently started to do it on the stationary bike.

I warm up for 6 min. Then for 2 min, I put the incline up to 10%, then back down to 2% for 2 minutes. My mph is is 3.2 the whole time. I am slowly working to get my speed higher. I'm not ready to run yet, so for now this works for me. I keep repeating this until I'm about 5 min from the end of my workout, then I cool down. Some days I do this for 45 min, other times just 30.

I am going to be getting a HRM soon, so I guess we'll see where I am in terms of where I should be, regarding my max heart rate and what not!