Elliptical benefits include boosting stamina and cardiorespiratory capacity, burning calories, less stress on joints, improving balance, maintaining fitness after injury, and many more.
Based on my experience as a certified personal trainer and more than 25 hours of research, I compiled a list of the most important elliptical benefits that change your quality of life and improve your overall longevity.
After reading the article, you will know all the important benefits of elliptical machine workouts, how long you should train, elliptical compared to other kinds of cardio exercises, and the best way to start experiencing these benefits today.
Quick Summary
- The most important elliptical benefits include improved stamina and cardio capacity, burning more calories, putting less stress on joints, activating lower and upper body muscles, burning fat, targeting specific leg muscles, balance improvement, post-injury benefits, low maintenance, variety of option, and ease of use.
- The duration and frequency of elliptical training depends on your fitness experience; for beginners, at least 4 weekly sessions between 10-30 minutes; for intermediate, at least 4-6 weekly sessions between 10-30 minutes; and for advanced more than 6 weekly sessions between 10-30 minutes.
- To burn the most significant amount of calories with an elliptical machine, you must stay in the aerobic zone according to your fitness experience, and those are 35-50% of VO2 max (maximum rate of oxygen consumption) for beginners, 50-60% of VO2 max for intermediate trainees, and 60-70% of VO2 max for advanced gym goers.
11 Benefits of an Elliptical Machine
The 11 benefits of elliptical machine workouts are listed below:
- Boosts Your Stamina and Cardio Capacity
- Burns a Lot of Calories
- Puts Less Stress on Your Joints
- Serves as Both an Upper and Lower Body Workout
- Burns Body Fat
- Targets Specific Leg Muscles
- Improves Your Balance
- Maintains Fitness After Injury
- Provides a Variety of Options
- Straightforward to Use
- Low Maintenance
To get the most out of every benefit, you must follow guidelines and recommendations based on a large corpus of research in the past few decades.
The most important principle is proper rest and recovery [1].
This means never entering the overtraining state or overtraining syndrome, which happens when you fail to recover between two cardio sessions [2].
To avoid such negative effects, ensure at least 7-8 hours of quality sleep daily, consume enough carbohydrates and proteins to fuel you for workouts and prevent muscle loss, and implement proper supplementation in protein and electrolytes [3].
"Aside from the benefits of having healthy joints that aren’t worn down daily from the impact forces of running, you can also reap the potential benefits of improved cardiovascular health and increased fat burn from vigorous exercise on an elliptical."
- Michael Shafer, Certified Personal Trainer
1. Boosts Your Stamina and Cardio Capacity
Elliptical training greatly boosts your stamina and cardio capacity by improving your cardiovascular and respiratory fitness.
Increasing the maximum oxygen consumption or popularly called VO2 max, boosts your resistance against prolonged physical activity by raising your aerobic threshold.
When you increase the VO2 max and improve your muscular and joint system, you also increase the ability to resist fatigue and tiredness during physical activity.
VO2 max is closely tied to or is the best predictor of cardio capacity, meaning you will increase your maximum oxygen consumption and improve your cardiorespiratory functions.
2. Burns a Lot of Calories
Burning many calories is the second benefit of a prolonged and intense elliptical workout.
Our bodies burn calories to release energy by synthesizing adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to fuel our muscles and allow for movement or, more precisely, contraction to occur.
Our body has four primary energy sources: oxidative, glycolytic (slow and fast), CP or creatine-phosphate, and adenosine triphosphate ATP (located in our blood and muscles).
Elliptical workout done in aerobic zones mainly uses oxygen molecules to synthesize ATP (more on aerobic zones for different levels of fitness experience will be tackled below the list of benefits).
To increase calories burned during the elliptical workout, the percentage of maximum oxygen consumption must be increased. This means performing prolonged elliptical workouts on higher percentages of VO2 max.
3. Puts Less Stress on Your Joints
Elliptical puts less stress on your joints than other cardio activities, such as walking, jogging, running, rope jumping, etc.
Injured athletes or trainees, benefit greatly from elliptical and similar machines since they aren’t allowed to perform cardio activities that require a significant impact on joints.
If you have ankle, knee, or hip problems, the elliptical or stationary bike workout is the best place to start your recovery.
4. Serves as Both an Upper and Lower Body Workout
Elliptical workouts serve as both upper and lower-body workouts since they activate large muscle complexes.
Lower body muscles active during elliptical training include the quadriceps, femoris, hamstrings, glutes, hip flexors, soleus, gastrocnemius, etc.
Upper body muscles active during elliptical workouts include triceps brachii, biceps brachii, pectoralis major, latissimus dorsi, deltoids, trapezius, and similar.
Although the muscle activation and requirements aren’t significant for all major muscle groups, activating all the groups mentioned above is an excellent starting point for cardio-based workouts.
5. Burns Body Fat
Elliptical training performed in the aerobic zone burns a significant amount of fat.
Our bodies burn mostly fat when exercising in the aerobic zone, meaning our system primarily uses oxygen to form adenosine triphosphate (ATP).
The more oxygen and less glycogen and creatine-phosphate you use during your activities, the more calories burned and energy created with the help of body fats.
However, this isn’t to be mistaken with VO2 max or consuming the most significant amount of oxygen during workouts.
This is because our body will use oxygen even in anaerobic zones where glycogen and creatine-phosphate are dominant energy sources.
Related Post: How Does The Body Burn Fat
6. Targets Specific Leg Muscles
Elliptical training targets specific leg muscles such as the quadriceps, femoris, glutes, hamstrings, soleus, gastrocnemius, hip flexors, adductors, and plantar and dorsal flexors [4].
These muscles are essential for properly functioning the lower body's anterior and posterior chains.
Related Post: The Best Leg Isolation Exercises
7. Improves Your Balance
Elliptical training improves balance by exercising abdominal/core muscles, adductors, and glutes.
Abdominal muscles and gluteus maximus are responsible for stability in the sagittal plane of motion.
Adductors and gluteus medius are responsible for stability in the frontal plane of motion.
8. Maintains Fitness After Injury
Elliptical maintains your cardiorespiratory fitness after injury by allowing for a less intense workout.
This is especially important for athletes and trainees experiencing ankle, knee, hip, and shoulder injuries.
9. Provides a Variety of Options
Elliptical training provides a variety of options for lower and upper-body cardio sessions.
Its versatility is useful for avoiding the monotony of cardio workouts, which increases motivation for future cardio sessions.
This feedback loop improves overall discipline in working out, closely tied to improved performance and all health-related metrics.
10. Straightforward to Use
The Elliptical machine is straightforward and perfect for beginners or older people looking to improve their cardiovascular and respiratory fitness.
Learning to use elliptical takes less than a couple of hours, making it the perfect place to start your cardio journey.
11. Low Maintenance
If you own an elliptical machine, you greatly benefit from not having to constantly maintain, clean, and repair the machine.
The elliptical machine is low maintenance and only requires occasional cle
Is Elliptical as Good as Running?
Elliptical is as good as running. Both activities share similar benefits, such as cardiovascular health improvement, developing muscular endurance, improving your balance, and many other things.
However, running is much better than elliptical if you want to maximize your cardiorespiratory health since it is considered a harder type of exercise.
Also, running might not be an option for you if you experience joint problems, so in that case, elliptical training is much better since it puts less stress on your ankle and knee joints.
Suppose your aim is to incorporate high-intensity interval training. In that case, running is a better option since it will yield better VO2 max benefits, meaning you will further increase your aerobic conditioning.
If you are an older person looking to maintain cardiorespiratory health and fitness, low-impact treadmill jogging or elliptical exercise is better for you.
"There are a few key things to consider before choosing the right elliptical. You need a machine that fits both your body and your living space, and it needs to be able to track your progress. Additionally, you may want some fun features on top of all that like entertainment apps or connectivity with a tablet or smartphone."
- Jesse Zucker, Certified Personal Trainer
Is Elliptical as Good as Cycling?
Elliptical is as good as cycling. The elliptical cardio machine will force you to maintain a standing position that will activate your stabilizer muscles, which isn’t the case for cycling.
The main difference between cardio machines such as the stationary bicycle and the elliptical machine is the joint impact and stabilizer muscle activation.
Stationary bike workouts are considered to have a lower impact on joints.
Therefore, they include less stabilizer muscle activation and connection between the lower and upper body due to the sitting position.
The elliptical workout routine is an excellent progressive exercise for stationary bikes if you are an older adult looking to improve cardiovascular health.
How Long Should I Use the Elliptical?
You should use the elliptical for between 10 and 60 minutes. For warm-up before a strength training workout, 20 minutes of electrical exercise raises your body temperature, prepares your facia, and lowers joint traction.
To maintain your cardiorespiratory fitness, 10 to 30 minutes of elliptical at 35-50% of your VO2 max is the perfect place to start.
For intermediate gym goers, 10 to 30 minutes of elliptical at 50-60% of your VO2 max is the optimal place to start.
For advanced trainees, 10 to 30 minutes of elliptical at 60-70% of your VO2 max is the best.
Can the Elliptical Help With Belly Fat?
Yes, an elliptical can help with belly fat. However, it is a myth that local fat-burning can occur due to specific cardio exercises or workouts.
Losing belly fat isn’t as simple as repeatedly performing one cardio machine exercise over a few weeks.
When you burn fat, you never burn fat locally, but you use the fat from all storage across your body.
Therefore, it is impossible to use a specific exercise and target belly fat as propagated by certain fitness professionals.
The best way to burn fat is to stay in the aerobic zone, and there are different aerobic zones according to your experience level:
- Beginners - at least 4 weekly cardio sessions in the aerobic zone of 35-50% of your VO2 max.
- Intermediate - 4 to 6 weekly cardio sessions in the aerobic zone of 50-60% of your VO2 max.
- Advanced - more than 6 weekly cardio sessions in the aerobic zone of 60-70% of your VO2 max.
FAQs
Is 30 Minutes of Elliptical Enough?
30 minutes of an elliptical is enough to achieve most benefits of elliptical workouts, such as improving your cardio capacity, burning fat and calories, and targeting specific lower body muscles.
The elliptical trainer is used for entire-body workouts and is considered less stressful than a cardio workout due to the added benefit of being low impact on your ankles and knees.
What Happens if I Use the Elliptical Everyday?
If you use an elliptical every day, what happens is you will improve your cardiorespiratory fitness, lose weight, and improve your overall cardiovascular health.
Elliptical machines are excellent for maintaining cardiorespiratory health, upper and lower body basic functionality, and improving the overall quality of life.
Is the Elliptical Better Than Walking?
The elliptical is better than walking. However, the intensity of the elliptical machine workout is crucial for determining overall benefits such as improved physique, fitness, cardiovascular health, joint function, and similar.
How Can I Experience All These Benefits From Elliptical Training?
You can experience all these benefits from elliptical training by purchasing the right elliptical machine and performing high-quality elliptical machine workouts.
Elliptical machines are a great investment in cardiovascular and muscular health, prolonging your life and lowering the chance of cardiac-related diseases.
Lowering the chance of cardiovascular diseases will improve your overall lifestyle, live longer, have less stress at work, experience less anxiety and depression, and many other things.
Read our guide on the best budget elliptical machines that are high-quality and affordable and start experiencing these benefits already today.
Let me know what is the primary reason you would like to start with an elliptical workout and if there is anything I can help you with.
References:
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5407206/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3435910/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6267703/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3299003/
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