Elliptical advice needed!

mrsallenmoore
mrsallenmoore Posts: 42 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I haven’t been able to go to the gym so I’m focused on my fit bit and doing homeworkouts and I bought an elliptical. To lose weight do I go at a fast pace easy? Or do I do it with high resistance more slowly? Thank you for any advice you may have

Replies

  • mgalsf12
    mgalsf12 Posts: 350 Member
    Switch it up. Seriously after a couple of weeks on the elliptical you will be bored to death, just change up the routine from time to time.
  • elsie6hickman
    elsie6hickman Posts: 3,864 Member
    What kind of elliptical did you buy? I'm thinking of buying one and also a stationary bike. If anyone has any suggestions, I would love to hear them.
  • TrishSeren
    TrishSeren Posts: 587 Member
    Doesn't matter. Fat loss comes from a calorie deficit not from how you exercise. Exercise can be used to help increase a calorie deficit though.

    I do find that higher resistance burns more calories though. Like 20 minutes on the bike and slower speed but higher resistance burnt more than trying to go fast and light for the same amount of time.
  • tdecel
    tdecel Posts: 48 Member
    edited September 2018
    A lot of trainers and coaches want you to do HIIT sessions (High Intensity Interval Training) for weight loss. Go to Youtube or Google HIIT in case you have never done it before.

    The elliptical is very low in my priority list. I bike 120 +/- miles most weeks over 4 or 5 days and go to the gym on my "off bike" days to do weights. I use the elliptical every time I do go to the gym after the weights, because I believe in doing some form of cardio every day. My gym has the AMT (Adaptive Motion Trainer) machines.

    You didn't post your fitness level or conditioning, but since you are asking for advice from users, what I do, is start at a medium level (the AMT has 20 levels) like a 6 or 7 for 5 minutes. I will increase the resistance one or two notches for minutes 5 to 10. I will raise it again 2 or 3 more times until I get to 20 minutes. Then the fun begins for me. I will keep increasing the resistance every 2 or 3 minutes so that I am at level 20 for minutes 35 to 40. The time just flies by.

    Of course, if you are new to this, start out low and short, but try to challenge yourself every time you do this and your fitness level will increase dramatically over time.

    Good luck and congratulations on the new elliptical. Enjoy it.
  • joey288d
    joey288d Posts: 9 Member
    Hi my name is Joel I'm not a trainer but I have lots of yrs in fitness here is a quick tip for an elliptical workout 15 min very simple but very effective use a timer 1min at fast past then 30 sec at a slow pace example (sprint them walk) do this 10 times that accumulates to 15 min that's a Hiit workout very simple but very effective you can do this after a weight training exercise or bye itself this will help to burn more calories try this 3 times a week if you want to challenge your self you go longer instead of 15min make it 20min if you like more tips pls just add me as a friend I would do it myself but I don't know how to I'm a newbie here
  • robertw486
    robertw486 Posts: 2,399 Member
    mrsallenmoore wrote: »
    I haven’t been able to go to the gym so I’m focused on my fit bit and doing homeworkouts and I bought an elliptical. To lose weight do I go at a fast pace easy? Or do I do it with high resistance more slowly? Thank you for any advice you may have

    Weight loss is created through calorie deficit. If that is your primary concern, you might want to experiment with differing speeds and resistance levels until you find what you can sustain without it kicking your hunger into overdrive.

    As for calorie burn itself, like most exercise the more you put into it the more calories you burn per minute. But for many if not most of us, going for longer periods at an intensity we can sustain will overall result in higher calorie burns.
  • mrsallenmoore
    mrsallenmoore Posts: 42 Member
    Thank you all so very much I will definetely look into HIIT I know it’s a Nordic track but can’t remember which one it is I’m sorry ! I can see if I can figure it out though
  • pondee629
    pondee629 Posts: 2,469 Member
    elsie6hickman wrote: »
    What kind of elliptical did you buy? I'm thinking of buying one and also a stationary bike. If anyone has any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

    When I was looking for an Elliptical Trainer I found those under several thousand dollars to be less than acceptable. My response was to join the local gym at $22/month. The lowest acceptable Elliptical Trainer was about $2,000. $2000/$22= 91 months/12= 7.5 years before buying made sense. That was two plus years ago. I still have 5 years before my "mistake" takes hold. That and I don't need to dedicate a room for the trainer.
  • James_1954
    James_1954 Posts: 187 Member
    On buying an elliptical: I think that, if you're not made out of money, I'll echo pondee629 above and suggest that you're probably best off to take out a Y membership. Around here, the Y branches have lots of Precor machines that I like quite a lot. I don't know what those cost to buy, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to know.

    I do a 30-minute session, which the display on the machine breaks up into four-minute segments. After the first three segments, just to get warmed up and into it, I start doing the last minute of each segment as a sprint, and keep a "normal" pace for the next three minutes (I don't slow way down to rest). My version of interval training, I guess. It seems to work for me.

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