Hotel Gym Workout Video Part 3: Elliptical

The elliptical trainer, that mysterious contraption full of joints, hinges and moving parts that allows you to somehow step onto it and burn actually a fairly high number of calories, even though it's a non weight bearing machine. So when does something like this come in handy? First of all, if you have to choose between a treadmill and an elliptical trainer, when it comes to calorie burning, the treadmill is always going to win out. However, let's put a couple situations in here. Let's say that, that you're at a gym and like the gym that we're at today, you don't have access to dumbbells or barbells or weightlifting equipment. Well, when you're running on a treadmill or you're exercising on a bicycle, you really can't do much for your upper body. But when you're on an elliptical, you can. So an elliptical is a good way to kind of kill two birds with one stone. Get a little bit of resistance training done for the upper body and get some cardiovascular work in as well. I also like the elliptical trainer if it has the arm movement as a substitute for swimming. If you're a swimmer, you want to get something that somewhat resembles a swim in and you're stuck at a gym. The elliptical trainer with the arms can be a good answer because as you push and pull these arms, you're working many of the same pushing and pulling muscles that you're going to use as you're swimming. So what is a good elliptical trainer workout? Well, one that I recommend is an arm leg alternating work workout because it works the whole body. And the way that you do this is it's a little bit similar to the recumbent bicycle workout that you may have seen in this video series where you're going to do two minute repeats with either 30 seconds minute or two minutes of rest, depending on your state of fitness. But these are high force repeats. So let's say, for example, that an easy resistance for you on the elliptical trainer is a 10. Then what you're going to do is warm up at a 10 and then you're going to do two minutes with the elliptical trainer at a 15 where you're focusing on just your legs. Okay? You're just using your legs, you're not using your arms, you're holding on to the handrails, or not the handrails, but the moving hand parts of the elliptical. But you're not really using your arms, you're kind of soft holding. Now you do those two minutes and you recover for 30 minutes, 30 seconds or 60 seconds or two minutes at that rate of 10 again, and then you move on. You do the same two minute effort, but this time you use primarily your arms and not your legs as much. Then you take another 30, 60, or 2 minute recovery period. And then finally you do 2 minutes of full body where you're using both your arms and your legs as hard as possible. And for that, your resistance may be higher than a 15, it may be a 17, it may be a 20. It just kind of depends on your level of fitness. Now, after you do those three two minute efforts, two for the legs, two for the arms, two for the upper body, each one with a rest period in between, then you can go back to the beginning and go through that entire series. I prefer to go through it three times. So you're getting a workout that's a little over a half hour when you do something like that. So try that out with the elliptical trainer, with the arms. And once again, if you're lucky, you'll have access to a tv, because once again, what this comes into is that hotel room workouts can be a little bit boring. But let's face it, sometimes you're stuck in one. You got to stay fit. And I hope the videos in this series have helped you.