Elliptical settings

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YouKnowWhoThisIs
YouKnowWhoThisIs Posts: 16
in Fitness and Exercise
I notice putting in elliptical on here gives a higher number than the machines give me at the gym. That said, at the gym I don't take the time to program out everything for age, sex, weight, or pick a program that tracks your heart rate, I just do quick start and manipulate the incline and resistance myself.

What do people tend to do for incline and resistance on the elliptical? I watch fit people around me, haha, and basically attempt to copy them. Lately I have been using an incline of 4 and resistance of 9. What do you do/recommend? Seems like the elliptical offers the best cardio/highest burn/most sweat on my non lifting days.

Replies

  • cjaharmon
    cjaharmon Posts: 46 Member
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    The trainer at my gym says to use Cardio or Fat burning and not worry about the rest all the time. Obviously if you are training for something specific then that would be important. But he said just general weight loss will be fine with those. That's actually what he says he does now that he's out of the army. Just hits cardio puts his stuff in (weight, age, etc) and goes on his way. It's worked well for me so far so that's what I do.

    I track my calories on the machine and use those not MFP calorie burned for that machine. I know a lot say heart rate monitoring is the way to go but I don't have extra for that right now. I Have lost 38 lbs which averages out to just over 3 lbs a week. I think the most important part to always remember is to get moving.
  • ChelleDJM
    ChelleDJM Posts: 161
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    I put the elliptical on, "Random," and it does ask about age and weight and I do level 15. It has an HRM on the handles and the calories are always lower on the machine than MFP says. MFP doesn't know how fast I was moving and what resistance I had, so I figure they must think I am working harder than I actually am! So I put in what the machine says I burned. But if your machine does not have any of that, I would just work as hard as you can and put in what mfp says.
  • kdfulgham
    kdfulgham Posts: 46 Member
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    I use cardio on the elliptical and put in age/weight. I usually work out about 75 min and according to my elliptical burn around 420-430 calories. I use the calories burned from my machine, MPF almost double the calories burned. Just what I do...I have lost 25 pounds in 12 weeks.
  • Akjenn89
    Akjenn89 Posts: 265 Member
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    Hmm. I usually put the program on interval, and put in my age, weight, etc. The numbers are usually fairly accurate for me between the machines and MFP. But, one program isn't a fit all for everyone. You have to do what challenges you the most and gets your heart rate up.
  • YouKnowWhoThisIs
    YouKnowWhoThisIs Posts: 16
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    OK, so what heart rate are we looking for?? I am 32 F, and I thought one chart said around 130-140 was weight loss zone. Today's workout summary of 40 minutes said I was an average of 138 with a high of 170. Is that good, or do I need to be pushing more/less?
  • dvisser1
    dvisser1 Posts: 788 Member
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    The "weight loss zone" and "cardio zone" are very ambiguous. Max heart rate is 220 - age. For you that is 188. For a good workout you want to be in 70-85% of that, but not going over the 85% very often. Basically if your average heart rate is in the 130-160 range, you've got a decent workout going on.

    As for calories burned, I have found both MFP and the machines to be inaccurate for elliptical. The machine is probably less inaccurate after putting in age and weight information, especially if it's reading a heart rate monitor during your workout too. I use a stand alone Garmin HRM & watch and feel that is most likely to be accurate compared to the elliptical machine and MFP. I typically log the lowest of the 3.

    For truly accurate calorie readings you need more information than standard gym equipment is going to give you.

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