Forums >Cross Training>Elliptical Question (not jayskydee-ish I promise)
This is going to sound ridiculous, but I have an elliptical machine question… the one I have access to is at our corporate gym, so there’s not much trainer help there.
Anyway, I’m on the thing as I recover from injury (with PDM still working on whether it’s stress fracture or morton’s neuroma). Off running for a week until we can get another x-ray and see if fracture is healing (and therefore visibile). So he said I could do elliptical if it didn’t hurt. It doesn’t. But, don’t really know if I’m doing it right.
I kind of kept my feet flat on the pedals. So it felt like I was working more quads than calves (even as I type this it sounds ridiculous). Anyway, is this right, or are the feet supposed to “roll” like heal to toe? Or is all midfoot forward? I don’t know if any of that made sense.
The crazy arm thingys were ridiculous too. I’m clearly not as coordinated as I thought, it was tough to keep cadence up above 160 with hands on the arm thingys. And my hands got all sweaty and couldn’t hold them after a while anyway. But I reckon I can just not use them and sort of just carry arms like in running?
Main question is the foot thing. Keeping my feet flat helps as that’s what makes this a pain-free deal. Any help appreciated.
Exercise bike was fine.
Come all you no-hopers, you jokers and roguesWe're on the road to nowhere, let's find out where it goes
Sorry, "DPM" and "heel"
I would do a mix.
Earlier this year, I spent a bunch of time on one of those arc trainers. Any session over an hour and I had to play around with foot position, just to keep feet from going numb.
Also, whatever doesn't mess with your foot injury (especially since it's uncertain what it is).
If you want to work the calves, ball of foot on the back end of the platform, with the rest of your foot hanging off.
"If you have the fire, run..." -John Climacus
Lazy idiot
When I did elliptical stuff with a personal trainer, we kept the feet flat throughout the stroke cycle and did not use the arm things. Concentrating on good posture and not "bouncing" up and down brought some workout to the core area, and you don't look like someone who's trying to wrangle an octopus toddler.
Tick tock
not bad for mile 25
It does seem as though it's designed for your feet to be flat on the pedals, but I'd say you should place your feet in a way that's comfortable, especially while you're dealing with injury. If that means some forefoot and lifting the heel, that's okay.
Forget the cadence thing - it's not the same as running. 180? I don't think so.
Heal.
Cool. Thanks guys. Much more helpful than my buddy who said "Hell if I know, have fun gossiping with the ladies, and I'll think of you when I hear the crunch of the crushed gravel on my 10 mile path tonight.....no I won't". He's not very nice.
Why is it sideways?
I think the elliptical was secretly designed to torture injured runners by seeming to be something that is like running and then turning out to be exactly like wrangling an octopus toddler, as Drew put it.
It's exactly like running with every element of freedom stripped from it.
sincerely silly
Have you ever met anyone who finds the elliptical to be a remotely natural motion? Sometimes I'll zone out and be really close to getting kicked off somehow if I lose the rhythm...(I could just be uncoordinated. Okay, I AM uncoordinated. Once my old officemate asked "did you just walk into the wall?" and I said "err...yeah...")
shin splints are my nemesis
Good Bad & The Monkey
Hm. Reminds me of a lil Rinky Dink Marathon I know.
I'm running somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait.
Poor baby
A Saucy Wench
I can use these machines we have at our gym that I think might be called Xtrainers but I can NOT use an elliptical. I end up with horrible knee pain. I think the stride is designed for someone 11 feet tall.
I have become Death, the destroyer of electronic gadgets
"When I got too tired to run anymore I just pretended I wasnt tired and kept running anyway" - dd, age 7
Suffering Benefiting from mature onset exercise addiction and low aerobic endorphin release threshold. Hoping there is no cure.
I used to do an hour or 2 or 3 of eliptical per day - I could just close my eyes and listen to music
I have a precor at home without arms and I tend to do 180 cadence just like running
Long dead ... But my stench lingers !
Yeah, I may have to break out some music, because just staring at myself in the mirror ain't cuttin it. Occassionaly someone will come over and ask "why aren't you out running?". I explain. They go run.
Follow up visit tomorrow. Hoping my elliptical days are numbered (and the number is small).
Wait. The elliptical isn't for going super slow while reading a magazine? That's what many people at my gym seem to think they're for. And my only advice for making it suck less is to use a program that tells you when to push/pull/forward/reverse. Then it breaks it up and gives you something to watch for and concentrate on.
I don't half-ass anything
"I have several close friends who have run marathons, a word that is actually derived from two Swahili words: mara, which means 'to die a horrible death' and thon, which means 'for a stupid T-shirt.' Look it up." - Celia Rivenbark, You Can't Drink All Day if You Don't Start in the Morning
Yeah, I may have to break out some music, because just staring at myself in the mirror ain't cuttin it. Occassionaly someone will come over and ask "why aren't you out running?". I explain. They go run. Follow up visit tomorrow. Hoping my elliptical days are numbered (and the number is small).
Oh yeah, without good music (or some interesting podcasts) I could not last more than 15 minutes on the elliptical when I was sidelined from impact sports. Sometimes I'd find a way to get a tv show I liked on my Zune. :-) The worst part was starting to run again and realizing how hard it was all over again. (I'm a newbie. =P)