Elliptical or treadmill at high incline?

Stair stepper beats them both. You'll want to gouge out your eyeballs before you make it 20 minutes, but your *kitten* will look like it's carved out of marble after a few months!

Stair stepper beats them both. You'll want to gouge out your eyeballs before you make it 20 minutes, but your *kitten* will look like it's carved out of marble after a few months!

Hell yes.

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Stair stepper beats them both. You'll want to gouge out your eyeballs before you make it 20 minutes, but your *kitten* will look like it's carved out of marble after a few months!

Maybe so, but it's also harder on the knees. The elliptical is def my choice for cardio.

Stair stepper beats them both. You'll want to gouge out your eyeballs before you make it 20 minutes, but your *kitten* will look like it's carved out of marble after a few months!

Maybe so, but it's also harder on the knees. The elliptical is def my choice for cardio.

Agree! I also like the ARC TRAINER, specially the Glute workout. Better on my knees and works da butt very good.

Statistically speaking, the treadmill supposedly burns more calories per hour than the elliptical, according to the research I've seen. I've always found the elliptical to be harder work, but it also feels less controlled to me than the treadmill. Given that I have had both knee and lower back injuries, I find the treadmill to be much gentler on my joints as well. I can't really jog because the high impact is too painful, but I can walk at 4 MPH for 35 to 45 minutes, and based on my heart-rate, am definitely burning a lot of calories. According to my HRM, I burn almost 400 calories in 30 minutes, so I suppose if a person worked hard enough they could approach the 1,000 calories per hour range.

Calories burned is based on absolute intensity of workload and body weight, not exercise modality. A 100 kg individual working at 8 METs will burn approximately 800 calories per hour. It doesn't make a difference whether one is on a treadmill, elliptical, stair master, etc.

A couple of studies have been done in which subjects self-selected the workload based on an assigned level of perceived exertion. In the one study I am most familiar with, at the assigned rate of perceived exertion, those on the treadmill (running not walking BTW) burned the highest number of calories. However, that was not due to any inherent quality of the treadmill-- people chose higher workloads running on the treadmill. The only real conclusion was that, for moderately experienced exercisers, treadmill running felt less difficult that other modalities, so, without any other feedback, people tended to work harder. A lot of that is due to feelings of localized muscle fatigue with more "quad-centric" exercises like cycling or stair climbing.

If one trains at a particular modality and builds up the appropriate muscle endurance, there is no reason why one cannot achieve equal calorie burns on different pieces of equipment. If the oxygen-uptake is the same, it is physiologically impossible for one cardio machine to burn more calories than another.

If you are walking on level, and walking at 4.0 mph, you would need to weigh well over 400 lbs to burn 400 calories in 30 min. If you are walking at the appropriate incline, then it is quite possible to burn that much at half the weight.

I just read an article about his last week. If I can find it, I'll post the link. If I remember correctly, the treadmill and the elliptical burn about the same number of calories. The treadmill works the calves more. The elliptical gets the gluts and hamstrings. The elliptical may be harder on people with bad backs. But if the purpose is mainly cardio, it's mostly personal preference.