Right now, like I said, I am doing cardio three days a week. This involves dancing, or biking, or swimming, sometimes walking, but I don’t like walking, it’s so boring.
Two days a week I have added this strength training in. Now like I said, I do incorporate some of the things my trainer told me - the things that can be done without special equipment. I have a band pull, so I work my shoulders and arms and back. I do squats, the way he taught me, back straight, butt out, all the work in the thighs. I lift free weights the way he showed me, both in a standing position and in a laying-down position, going from my back, to the weight in the air, to fully sitting up. I don’t know what they are called. I do girlie pushups. And I do thrusts, I think they are called, but I have some balance issues, which is caused by NO MUSCLE TONE.
I just wanted this thread to get MORE ideas, to keep switching it up. Seriously, even though I’ve only added this stuff for about two months, it’s made a difference already. But I need to get to that level of high intensity that he had me at, which is why I asked for all of this stuff.
Some of the questions I didn’t even know until I read all of the responses. Now I have answers to the questions.
I don’t have a smartphone, and no intention to get one, so I’m afraid all of those lovely little apps are lost on me. (But I do intend to get a tablet this year, so maybe that will subsitute.) I do all of my food entry on the computer.
Thank you all for your helpful advice, I really appreciate it. I will keep working on it!
I admit that I often look forward to your input on many topics but I’m calling bullshit on this one. :dubious:
Elliptical trainers, like so much other gym equipment, are not one size fits all and the reason most gyms have a variety of elliptical trainers is so that you can find one that works best for you. So let’s not consign them all to the scrap heap in one fell opinion. Also, sport specific training is one thing, general fitness training is another. I would not look to specific training from an elliptical machine. But maintaining/improving cardio fitness and lower body strength - absolutely. Especially for people who are not fitness dorks.
Ellipticals are better for me than treadmills and I don’t have access to an exercise bike. Treadmills (or any high impact exercise, like running outside) hurt my back. All I know is that I can get on an elliptical and do my intervals and my heart rate gets into the training zone, I sweat and I burn calories. And I can be upright the rest of the day.
I use the fitness room at my place of employment. It is free which fits in with my budget. It’s also working - dropped 20 pounds already. I’m good with it.
More on topic, I forgot to mention on my strength days (Tuesday and Thursday) I do planks before I start my circuits. 15 seconds each side x 3. Gotta have a strong core.
Elliptical trainers force your body to move in a motion that is completely unnatural (in fact, you could not physically reproduce unassisted), limits the intensity that you can work at, and is highly repetitive without really developing any kind of muscle or joint tone. They are not good for either general fitness–which requires agility and coordination in addition to aerobic stress and muscle development–nor do they develop significant lower body strength even compared to basic bodyweight exercises. They are promoted as being good because they are “low impact”, which is true as far as it goes, but such a statement misses the point that an exercise regime should include some amount of impact exercises specifically to develop joint strength and resilience. (Jump rope is actually great for this because you can control the degree of impact by technique and selection of surface, and some techniques also worth the wrists, elbows, shoulders, and even the core.) You will notice that professional trainers in gyms rarely if ever use the elliptical trainers when they have their clients do cardio or sprints, instead preferring either the treadmill or a rowing machine (or if there is room, just sprinting or running up and down stairs). Ask any fitness trainer or performance development coach what they think of an elliptical trainer and you will uniformly get a negative response.
The value of pure sub-100% VO[SUB]2[/SUB] max cardio has been vastly overstated in terms of both conditioning and cardiac health. There is really very little benefit to light jogging, elliptical training, or other light cardio compared to just walking for the same duration, and walking is less likely to result in repetitive stress injuries. High intensity ‘cardio’ which pushes the subject beyond 100% VO[SUB]2[/SUB] max produces much greater fitness benefit with a much shorter exercise duration and takes much longer for the subject to plateau (after which he or she needs to do some more intensive strength training in order to increase basic capability for strength and endurance). Long slow distance exercise is really only of benefit in training for long slow distance activities like marathoning or competitive bicycle riding, and specifically for conditioning muscle capability to store glycogen. General fitness is better served by intense, short duration anaerobic exercise.
If your back is hurting after exercise, you need to work on your core. I cannot stress strongly enough that if you do not have a strong core and allowing the erector spinae (the muscles that are typically strained when people complain of backache) to take any degree of load that no useful exercise is going to be comfortable. Straight planks will strengthen the rectus adbominis but are not by themselves sufficient for developing good core strength. Pilates (actually developed by boxer and professional strongman Joseph Pilates to strengthen the auxiliary musculature and only later adopted by suburban housewives for toning) is a great set of exercises to help strengthen the core and pelvic floor, protecting the back muscles from overuse or overextension, and they also develop the necessary flexibility and agility to get the most out of other primary exercises.
Seriously, there is so much bad information about nutrition and exercise that anyone entering into an useful exercise and weight loss program should talk to an experienced personal trainer as the o.p. did. The cost of a few sessions is well served by learning how to do exercises with good form and effect. I’ll again point to the Eat. Move. Improve site as a great resource, but it is only words and anyone starting new exercises will benefit from coaching and professional advice.
As a long-distance runner, elliptical machines have been an essential part of training for me. At 47, I simply can’t pound the pavement like I used to and remain injury free. A couple years ago, I did the majority of my marathon training on an elliptical because I was injured and ran a personal best in the marathon. Unless you are Superman, I don’t get the part about it limiting the intensity of exercise. I have a set workout and it kicks my ass. If there comes a day when it doesn’t kick my ass, I can make it harder. Honestly, I’m totally baffled at the notion that they are useless and everyone knows this. That has not been my experience with personal trainers, orthopedists and other peops who exercise (and are very fit).
Fat loss (not weight loss) is a bonus while long term health and feeling good is the key target. It is amazing how many people lose sight of that! (Or confuse weight loss as being the measure of health.) If you want to be healthier and feel better you need to exercise (and if you want to be bored with all the ways in which it does that I can certainly oblige.) As far as weight loss goes what is well established is that exercise helps keep weight lost off. And it helps make more of the weight loss come from fat rather than muscle. And it helps make the fat lost come more from the most harmful fat, the central, visceral fat.
It sounds like you have a great start.
One approach to take is to organize the variety of exercises into groups: all over body; upper body; lower body; core. Then each work out day do a warm up phase then at least one set from each group (picking somewhat randomly) repeating the whole circuit however many times you can allowing 5 minutes for a cool down cardio or stretch. Minimal rest between exercises and sets.
Another technique to throw in your mix is the go-to core of high intensity interval training (HIIT): the Tabata interval. The classic variation of this is 5 minutes of warm up then 8 sets of 20 second all-out intensity followed by 10 second rests and then 2 minute cool down. The original one used stationary bikes but people do them with burpees, rowers, sprinting, so on … any cardio. (Even elliptical! :)) The key is to keep up the same level of all-out intensity all 8 sets. Lots of variations with varying interval and rest period lengths but the landmark research was that 8X 20s-10s and it is amazingly effective.
Since balance is an issue for you I will also again encourage you to consider splurging on a balance board (Sometimes called “wobble boards.” Gets the core and all the long muscles with functional training.
Elliptical trainers allow exactly two movements; a forward extension and rearward contraction of the leg (four if you reverse the motion). This means that it is extremely limited in the range of muscles it can recruit and is prone to repetitive stress injury (overworking a joint by exercising it in only one way without strengthening it in other motions). Given the range of motion, only a fraction of body weight can be exerted throughout most of the cycle, so the actual amount of stress that can be developed is very limited compared to static or dynamic unassisted bodyweight exercises such as pistol and standing squats, burpees, lunges, et cetera. Even stairstepping machines are more versatile as at least you can change position and sidestep or double step, but with an elliptical trainer you can only do the single set of motions. The lack of upper body stresses and often terrible posture of users makes it marginal to negative for full body exercise. (The rowing arms on some units are a complete joke that provide exactly zero benefit.) You can get a much greater fitness benefit in ten minutes of intense exercise with plyometrics using kettlebells, sandbags, dumbbells, manila line, weight sleds, et cetera than you can get in an hour of using an elliptical trainer.
Fundamentally, elliptical trainers are suitable only to long slow distance (LSD) conditioning, which explains why it was suitable to your application (marathoning). However–and this may be the fundamental point of misunderstanding or perhaps disagreement–LSD type exercises provide the least benefit to overall fitness (which comprises strength, endurance, agility, and flexibility). You note that “I simply can’t pound the pavement like I used to and remain injury free,” which should be an indicator that “pound[ing] the pavement” isn’t actually a very good way to exercise, even if the goal is to achieve an ability for marathoning. Honestly most of the dedicated marathoners I have known have very low states of practical fitness compared to other athletes and even some couch potatoes. Sure, they can run for miles and miles, but they also suffer from a lot of joint injuries, respiratory infections, low lean muscle mass (even though they have low body fat), and often have shockingly terrible nutritional habits. If you are spending an hour a day exercising and don’t look like Dolph Lundgren, you are not getting your value from exercise. And if exercise is causing you more injury rather than protecting you from injury and degradation, it is by definition not improving your level of overall fitness.
Thanks, Stranger. Very interesting. At the moment,I am training for a marathon in December. This time, In addition to my road work, I am doing yoga (about 4-5 x per week, 60-120 min classes - I have been going regularly for a year which is probably why I feel I can attempt another marathon). I feel that I am getting a lot of strength training from yoga and so far have felt great running. In your opinion, is that a good combination?
If you look in the Weight-Loss thread, you’ll see that **Spice Weasel **has been really successful in building a gym-free exercise program that she has stuck with religiously, and IIRC, she had similar experiences as yours with formal exercise ‘programs’ prior to this. She’s lost weight, too.
I hope it’s OK to bring that into this thread and suggest that you get her advice. Really, I’m impressed as heck by what she’s accomplished and I think she’s totally got this down.
All well and good and I’m inclined (pun intended) to agree with you if all a person ever does is use the elliptical machine in the hopes of achieving overall fitness. No single piece of equipment or form of exercise can accomplish such a goal. That is why gyms are filled with various types of machines and weights and benches - to provide the user with a well rounded fitness experience. Granted, you may not need 80% of that stuff and much of it can be done at home with minimal equipment. However, they have to give you something to do for the rates they charge and in this one case “doing something” is far better than doing nothing especially for most non-enthusiasts. Let’s be honest, few folks are fitness minded. They know they have to eat their spinach and get some exercise and the gym is a good place to do that because of the variety of equipment to keep the boredom down.
As for me, I’ve been in the gym most of my adult life. When I stopped for a few years out of laziness I gained a lot of weight. Short of those few “lost” years, I’ve been exercising regularly and there are pieces of equipment in the gym I avoid because they don’t suit me or provide me with any kind of benefit (eg. the inner/outer thigh machine; it seems like an inside joke of the exercise equipment industry), because I’m a dude. There is equipment, like the elliptical trainer, that I really like because in 30-45 minutes it provides me with the kind of cardio workout that is ideal for me to maintain my desired level of cadio fitness and a thorough warm-up for the rest of my strength training routine.
To your points, yes, the range is limited, but no more so than the range on a bicycle. Yes, the arm thing is pointless and some machines don’t have it and those that do can be ignored - I personally don’t bother with them at all. Yes, you can go backwards and forwards but you can also change the resistance and angle for variety and more/less focus on glutes and quads. Finally, if you maintain a good posture/technique/form - something that is required regardless of what exercise you’re doing - you will get a good core workout as well. My obliques and abs are tighter and very warmed up for my core work after my elliptical workout.
So is the elliptical trainer the best piece of equipment in a gym? Not really. The worst? Not even close.
Stranger, while the elliptical discussion is a hijack given that the request is for exercises that can be done in the living room, I must disagree strongly with your blanket condemnation of the machine.
As pointed out above, cycling is of course no more “natural” of a movement than is the motion on an elliptical - which is somewhere between a running stride and a cycling motion. The range of motion and the muscles recruited in the elliptical is no more limited. I have no idea why you’d think it would be.
While many use the elliptical for low to moderate intensity aerobic exercise only, there is no reason that it cannot be used for interval training: the intensity on the elliptical is limitted by the person using it. If anything, for a given level of perceived exertion the elliptical results in greater VO2 and heart rate than 20 other recreational exercises, and with similar results in a recent head to head with the treadmill. And for a given level of perceived exertion the elliptical gives similar physiologic results after 12 weeks to the stairclimber and the treadmill.
Different people have different fitness goals; some enjoy some sorts of fitness more than others. For some looking like Dolph Lundgren is not a desired target. Sure interval training is usually part of a marathon runner’s toolkit too, but if your goal is a personal best in a marathon then some LSD is required. And while it is fair to have a vigorous debate about the relative value of steady state cardio vs HIIT vs points in between (as if it had to be one or the other exclusivley), some prefer one to the other and each can significantly improve cardiometabolic fitness. Your anecdotes about individual marathoners with joint issues aside the actual data (covered on these boards before) is that long time distance runners tend to have healthier joints.
Of course the ellliptical is not a complete body work out. Neither is cycling or running or a host of other cardio. It is part of a mix. There is good reason that current health expert recommendations include all of aerobic (any of longer less intense to shorter higher intensity or combinations of each), resistance (strength training) exercise, and functional balance exercise.
Although professional equipment can provide a better experience, you can do pretty much everything you need exercise-wise with household implements such as a broomhandle (inverted rows), towels or rope (stretches, suspension training, grip pulls), milk jugs (poor man’s kettle bells), and a big bag of sand or gravel. If you want to go with strictly bodyweight exercises you can get away without even that much, and the only real sacrifice is grip strength exercises, although this does take more work to learn form and balance. There is absolutely no reason to spend hundreds of dollars on elaborate machines which are just going to take up room and end up being used as a clothes rack.
I have to admit having essentially no experience with yoga, but what I have seen of it many of the forms are similar to Pilates and bodyweight exercises, so I kind of assume those to be equivalent. On that basis, yoga is an excellent complement to any exercise program, especially if you can get to the point of doing some of the more advanced forms. However, I would personally include some plyometrics using kettlebells, sandbags, medicine balls, or some other weights in order to develop the explosive power to recruit more muscle fibers. Relatively little of this type of exercise (2-3 times a week for 15-20 minutes) should provide significant gains especially if you have plateaued out in endurance.
You are absolutely correct that most of the equipment you see in a “fitness club” (which is not a gym…see discussion below) is unnecessary and just exists to justify the perception of value for the cost of the membership. The problem with this is much of it provides little benefit (agreed on your comments on adductor machines and the line) and may actually do significant harm. Much is made of “isolation” exercises, as if there is some benefit to this, but quite to the contrary, isolation is unnecessary and undesirable except in the limited case of maintaining strength while avoiding a pre-existing injury during physical therapy, which is what these machines were originally designed for. “Doing something” when that something is harmful or non-productive may well be worse than doing nothing, and the most important thing when starting a new routine is to keep it as simple and straightforward as possible so that you can learn the proper form and get the most out of the time spent working out. Doing a dozen different exercises or spending hours on an elliptical trainer is counterproductive to that goal.
Regarding the difference between fitness clubs and gyms, the distinction is easy to observe once you know what to look for: fitness clubs (e.g. 24 Hour Fitness, LA Fitness, et cetera) devote the majority of their floorspace to treadmills, stairsteppers, elliptical machines, and other semi-useless fitness devices. They’ll have a jungle of isolation weight machines, often with color coding to tell you which ones you should use together in order to “target a muscle group”. People will come in and do a circuit of 10 or 12 different machines three times around to make it seem like they’ve accomplished a lot. They may also have a couple of token freeweight stations with a modest number of plates and dumbells going up to 50 or 60 lbm or maybe a few kettlebells. If they’re really fancy, they’ll have a simplistic rock climbing wall which is only open at lunchtime. They’ll hawk spinning and Zumba classes every time you walk in the door, and a smoothie bar on the way out. It is designed primarily around a marketing concept that looks like fitness but is really designed to make you spend as much money as they can get out of you.
A gym, on the other hand, is designed around actual fitness. That means they’ll have several freeweight stations and lift cages with lots of plates suitable for all ranges of strength training. They should have kettlebells or sandbags for plyometric training. There should be a minimum of weight machines (maybe one or two integrated Nautilus stations for show that people will use only for abdominal pulls). They absolutely should have gymnastic rings, suspension trainers, and/or climbing rope for suspension and bodyweight training. Hopefully they’ll have a few training bags and speedbag stations, and large open rubber padded area for doing lunges, stretches, plyometrics, jump rope, et cetera, and maybe a 20-30 meter sprint track.
Mind you, I don’t claim to be a fitness expert, and am certainly not a certified trainer or coach. However, I’ve read extensively on fitness including professional handbooks and textbooks on exercise physiology, nutrition, et cetera (versus just reading Men’s Health and whatever Paleo Diet book is currently in vogue). When I started working with a trainer a few years ago I was pretty much clueless about effective training despite having been previously active in backcountry hiking, rock climbing, competitive running, swimming, et cetera. With just a little guidance and some research I found that just about all of the conventional wisdom about exercise and fitness–such as running being a good conditioning exercise–is almost completely wrong, and found that once I adapted to using effective training techniques I blew past my previous plateaus and started doing things I didn’t every think I could do without spending ten hours a week in the gym, such a standing full press at my body weight. Unfortunately, I also fell out of training due to work demands and am now slowly building back up to some genuine level of fitness, so I can appreciate the struggles that the o.p. is going through in trying to make an effective program. Although I keep pushing this (I swear I’m not affiliated with them) the Eat. Move. Improve. site has great info on fitness and nutrition at all levels and is my first go-to resource on any kind of bodyweight training techniques.
Stranger while I object to your dogmaticism, your insistence that the way you do it or believe is the best, is the only effective exercise approach and that all else is just wasting time, there is no doubt that the program you endorse is an extremely effective approach.
What you have to remember however is that fitness is not defined as all out blowing past previous plateaus. The greatest benefit is gained by just being not inactive. Even 15 minutes a day of moderate intensity activity substantially reduces mortality. Yes more intense delivers more benefit (and to a lesser degree more duration) but something is much better than nothing and there really is some degree of diminishing returns. In terms of mortality risks 30 to 40 minutes a day of vigorous activty captures pretty much all the benefit there is to be had. Yes strength and balance are important too.
The problem with your approach is what you experienced: by defining “fitness” as this all-out training to beat previous standards thing you reduce the probablitlity of maintaining still significantly health impactful fitness activity of lesser duration and intensity when life gets busy. You believe that if the activity is not all-out it is worthless, so when you only had time and/or energy to make a lesser investment you did not do it at all.
I’m not trying at all to be dogmatic or say that there is only one set of exercises which is useful for fitness. What I am saying is that it is demonstrated that LSD-type exercise is of minimal benefit over just normal daily activity, and real gains in endurance are made by stressing activities, in particular those that develop strength. How much strength one needs to gain depends on the activity, but jogging/constant speed cycling/elliptical trainers do not develop strength. This isn’t me pulling some random horseshit out of the air; you will find the same thing in textbooks such as NSCA’s Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning - 3rd Edition and widely respected handbooks such as Kilgore, Hartman, Lascek’s Fit, all backed up with references and exercise physiology studies.
With exercises such as elliptical trainers, people tend to either quit because they see diminishing benefits after an initial improvement (and it is boring as hell), or suffer injury due to lack of strengthening and conditioning of lateral and supporting muscles. I have lost count of the number of marathoners and competitive runners who complain that they can no longer train because their knees are sore or their back hurts when running, and it is everything I can do to keep from wanting to shake them and say, “That’s because you are not doing all of the exercises to protect and strengthen the supporting core and joints.”
Yes, being active is better than not, but you are better off being actually active and waking briskly up and down inclines, stairs, et cetera with all of the benefits of variability rather than faking being active by jumping on an elliptical trainer and repeating the exact same motion for thousands of cycles and pretending like you’re in great condition when the reality is that you’ve done nothing to improve crucial aspects of overall fitness such as agility and flexibility.
Again, your beef is with people doing something like the elliptical only, and at exclusively low to moderate intensity at that, but you come off as extrapolating to using it at all, at any intensity, and even to all low to moderate intensity activity cardio as any part of a diverse fitness plan.
I have not read your cited textbooks and handbooks but I have linked you to the expert statements that advise moderate intensity as perfectly fine and research that shows that ellipticals indeed can and do provide target VO2 and heart rates and can give meaningful physiologic results. The American College of Sports Medicine, the American Heart Association, and the CDC all disagree strongly with your statement that LSD-type exercise is “of minimal benefit over just normal daily activity.” No offense to your claims, but if those textbooks do say that I personally will defer to the assessments of these organizations to those handbooks.
Don’t get me wrong. I am a big supporter of interval training and HIIT, of strength training, of functional exercise, of balance work, and of mixing it up. Vigorous intensity brings benefits than moderate intensity does not. My personal gym includes a decent weight set up including dumbbells up to 75 pounds, a good barbell rack, a dip set-up, pull-up bar, rings in the garage, a Concept2, a very old elliptical (which I can get my heart rate up quite high on thank you very much), a good jump rope, a balance board, and enough space for me to work on trying to someday get to a true unsupported handstand pushup and to hold a planche for more than a few seconds (I fantasize … if I haven’t got there by 54 I am not ever going to. :(), and my bikes. Sometimes I swim. Variety is key IMHO. And an elliptical as part of the variety, some LSD as part of the variety, is just fine.
The most important thing is that individuals find some things that they will actually do, that get their heart rates up. If that is an elliptical part of the time, fine.
I doubt I can tell you anything new, but was curious if you have tried running alongside the road, where there is loose gravel or grass? That’s what I do, but only have ran a bit over 1,000 miles doing so. I imagine you have documented thousands and thousands of miles. I only do 5k and 10k’s, and I guess 80-90% of my running on that surface instead of the pavement itself. It seems to absorb a great deal of the pounding. I’m 55 now, and thus far haven’t a problem with knees, or any injuries other than two slight calf pulls, but a few days later, I was good. I have had other slight pains in various places, but they were always temporary and went away rather quickly. I also use extra sole inserts by Dr. Scholl’s or something equivalent to also help absorb more of pounding.
What’s your heart rate? My brother sets off heart alarms when they have hooked him up at the hospital. He had some other unrelated problem, but when the heart machine was registering his heart rate somewhere in the forties, it kept sounding off. After he told them he was a long distance runner, they understood, and realized it was normal for him.