Is an Elliptical Trainer right for you?
Elliptical trainers, along with treadmills,
exercise bikes and home
gyms, are one of the most popular pieces of fitness
equipment purchased for weight loss and improved fitness.
In this article
we discuss the top ten reasons people buy elliptical trainers for their home
so that you can assess whether an elliptical trainer is the right piece of
fitness equipment for you and your family.
The top 10 reasons to buy
elliptical trainers are:
1. Weight
loss and improved fitness.
Elliptical trainers (also called cross
trainers) have helped millions of
people to achieve their weight loss and fitness goals and they may be able
to help you too.
Exercising on an elliptical trainer can help you burn a lot of excess calories and can improve the strength
and health of your heart and lungs.
Exercising on an elliptical trainer is also
great for raising your heart rate into the zones most appropriate for weight
loss and fitness.
2. Elliptical Trainers
can help prevent you from training too hard.
One of the most common mistakes people make when they first start exercising
is to train too hard.
Training too hard in the beginning of your exercise
program can lead to injuries and may encourage you to quit because you feel
it’s too hard and not worth all the effort.
By giving you the ability
to regulate the speed at which you exercise, elliptical trainers can help you
avoid this common exercise mistake.
Some elliptical trainers are even sophisticated
enough to monitor your heart rate while you are exercising.
What a great
way to make sure you’re always training in the right heart rate zone!
3. You can make small adjustments as your fitness improves.
Because the speed
and resistance of most elliptical trainers can be adjusted in very small increments,
elliptical trainers are perfect for training at increasingly higher intensities
once you’ve built a base level of fitness.
Because exercising on an elliptical trainer can be made a little harder or a little easier with the touch
of a button, they are also great for including interval training into your
routine where you exercise at various speeds within the same workout.
4. An Elliptical Trainer can be used at
anytime.
One of the greatest benefits of owning an elliptical trainer is that you can exercise
when you want, day or night, hot or cold, sun or rain.
Many of us today lead
hectic lives and find it hard to fit exercise into our busy schedules.
What
we need is the ability to exercise when we want and for as long as we want.
Having an elliptical trainer at home can be better than joining a gym in this respect
because we don’t need to worry about gym opening and closing times
and having to share our elliptical trainer with a hundred other time-poor exercisers.
5. Make maximum use of your time.
Owning an elliptical trainer allows you to get your daily exercise done while you’re
doing other things, like watching your favourite TV show or listening to
your favourite music.
Watching TV while exercising on an elliptical trainer often
makes your workout seem a lot shorter and even a little easier.
6. The whole family can use
it to exercise.
One of the great things about having an elliptical trainer at home is that the
whole family can use it to lose weight and get fitter.
Research shows that
when the whole family has similar goals and is committed to losing weight
together, each family member is more likely to succeed.
7. You can
save money.
Buying your own elliptical trainer can be cheaper than paying gym fees, especially
if more than one person in the family wants to exercise.
Gym fees can be
expensive, and for some of us, that money may be better invested in a good
quality elliptical trainer that will serve us well for many years.
Most elliptical trainers today are very well built and come with good warrantees so we can
be sure to get many years of exercise out of them.
8. Elliptical Trainers
exercise the lower and upper body.
Elliptical trainers exercise the lower and upper body by providing resistance
to the muscles of the legs, chest, arms and shoulders.
Because our legs and
arms are moving in a kind of criss-cross fashion, elliptical trainers also work
our midsection as well.
As a result, elliptical trainers provide a great overall
toning workout while providing the aerobic exercise many of us need to burn
maximum calories and body fat.
9.
Exercising in private.
Many people who want to lose weight are very self conscious and don’t
necessarily want to exercise in public.
Having your own elliptical trainer allows
you to exercise in the privacy of your own home so you won’t need to
feel embarrassed working out at your own pace.
10. Elliptical trainers are low impact.
Elliptical trainers provide a similar workout to jogging and running, but without
the impact on our muscles and joints that these other exercises involve.
For those of us with existing injuries or soreness in these muscles and joints
(ankles, knee and hips), elliptical trainers are a godsend because they allow
us to get a similar workout without the associated pain.
For those of us
without existing injuries, training on an elliptical trainer may help prevent us
from experiencing them altogether and may prolong our ability to exercise
well into old age as a result.
Conclusion.
Elliptical trainers, along with treadmills,
exercise bikes and home
gyms, are one of the most popular pieces of fitness
equipment purchased by people who want to lose weight and improve their fitness.
In this article we discussed the top ten reasons many people buy an elliptical trainer so you can make an informed decision about whether they are right
for you.
Good luck with your weight loss and thanks for visiting weightloss.com.au.
© Copyright Ultimate Weightloss.
This article was written by Scott Haywood.
Scott is the editor of weightloss.com.au. Scott has developed an expertise in fitness and nutrition, and their roles in weight loss, which led him to launch weightloss.com.au in 2005. Today, weightloss.com.au provides weight loss and fitness information, including hundreds of healthy recipes, weight loss tools and tips, articles, and more, to millions of people around the world, helping them to lead happier, healthier, lives.
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