I stumbled across this very interesting story on a new intriguing piece of fitness equipment that you can actually ride outside just like you can ride a bike, only with less friction on your knee joints, just like an elliptical machine. It’s basically a hybrid of a bicycle and an elliptical trainer.  You can ride it around on sidewalks and on the road, just like you would a normal bike, and you can also get up to quite a nice speed on it.

It’s called the Elliptigo, and if you want one, it currently runs you about $3k and as low as about $2200 to purchase one of these high tech bikes.  It looks really friggin fun I must admit!  Basically, you stand on it like you do a real elliptical machine that sits as a stationary bike does, and you start pedaling, and it starts moving, just like a bike.

If you’re thinking like I was, you were probably wondering how hard it would be to get on the thing, and also how hard it would be to balance, since you are standing up on it instead of sitting, but apparently it’s pretty easy to mount, and also just as easy to balance on when you’re riding on it as a bike is.

It is the brain child of a guy and his partner because the one partner wanted to find a way to still get outdoors and enjoy running, but without all the pressure on his joints after he was diagnosed with an injury that prevented him from running any more. Running is great exercise, but it does put a lot of pressure on your joints, and that is why ellipticals are so popular.

Elliptical machines tone you really well and they also don’t put pressure on your joints. Women especially love them because they are great at toning the legs and the butt.  Elliptigo is a very low to the ground design, I’d imagine that’s so that you can balance yourself well and maintain a centered gravity while riding the machine.

It’s reviewed as being a great workout, and gets rave reviews for ease of use and ease on the joints, so I’d say this is definitely worth a look into if you’re looking for a way to get an elliptical workout – outside. It sure would be nice to see the beautiful scenery of the outdoors while getting in a great workout, wouldn’t it?  Talk about a workout flying by!

In fitness cardio workout is an important key element. There is no sport or activity that does not require the need of a cardio workout. Most common of all cardio exercises is running which provides the body with improved blood circulation, trained breathing lungs and stronger muscle.

Now, not every small town or city has the terrain good running mileage. Running can be quite boring when you run in circles on a football court. Interesting form of running is from one place to another without the need to make circles.

To compensate on running when the weather is not on your side, there are fitness equipment that gives the same exercise results as running in the comfort of your own home; The Treadmill and an Elliptical fitness machine.

What is the difference? First of all, lets make a note that both of the machines are perfect for fitness exercising, They both are able to make the body sweat as if you are running in the park. Sweating means that body workout is ‘on the right track’; blood circulation speeds up, lungs are practiced for better breathing, normalizing heart rate, and etc.

The difference is obvious: Elliptical fitness machines lynch the pain in your joints and ankles that you probably get while running. When on a treadmill, and when running classical style, knees and joints are experiencing impact every time the foot touches the ground. These impacts are quite small in the beginning, but after 10 minutes of running they seriously affect the stamina of your body.

Elliptical machines don’t make this kind of problem. They are designed to rotate the legs in the same manner as when running, without a foot impact on the ground. The feet remain stationary positioned on the pedals and make elliptical rotations.

Balance on the elliptical machine is maintained with two handles for the hands that move forward and backwards along with the movement of the legs. This is the difference between the elliptical machine and the treadmill; the elliptical machine includes the hands in the workout, while in running hands have no role.

But a good thing about a treadmill is that there is an option on it allowing you to lift the treadmill a little higher; simulating running uphill. This type of running is advanced in character and puts more pressure on the thigh muscles giving it more power.

The choice on which machine is better varies from athlete to athlete. Treadmills gives more strength and is much more challenging with the cost of joint pains; the elliptical machine is more for cardio workout excluding any pain in the joints or knees.

So, I was on the elliptical machine that we have at our gym where I work the other day, and I discovered that there was a new way I could position my feet and legs on the machine so that I could really target one of my consistent problem areas – my saddle bags on the sides of my thighs. They are definitely partially genetic, because even when I lose a boatload of weight and am at my leanest, I still have those two stubborn, albeit smaller, pouches on the sides of my thighs, just clinging to them like some sort of extra appendage.

Can you tell I hate my saddle bag problem!? Well, I was working out as I said on the elliptical machine, and I positioned my feet so that it looked like I was sort of walking like a duck, with my toes pointing outward, and as I pumped the pedals on the machine, my knees were also sort of pointed out to the left and right sides of the room I was in.

This actually targets the outer thighs better, because you are turning the work inward from your quadriceps muscles, which get pretty big on me if I don’t watch it and work them too much anyways. This motion allows you to specifically target the thighs and the saddle bag area and tone it. I also make sure I turn the tension way up on the machine, maybe to about a ten or twelve tension setting, depending on what your fitness and muscular strength level is.

Turning up the resistance and simultaneously pointing your feet outward are key to get those outer thighs working and toned up more, so that you can begin to see a difference in their size shrink down a bit (diet always helps too on this stubborn part of a woman’s body), because you are pulling them in by working those outer thigh muscles.

I love this exercise now. I usually do it for about 3-5 minutes at the end of my elliptical workout so I can get the extra toning benefit at the end and that also serves as a cool down for my heart rate since I’m moving slower, but still toning the muscles, which is a great combo for fat reduction.

Wanna give someone a gift that gives and gives for years to come? Buy them a high quality elliptical machine like a, or a treadmill such as a Horizon treadmill or a Proform treadmill, two of my all time favorite brands in home exercise equipment because they’re sturdy, they last forever, and they make it feel like you’re working out in a professional gym because they give the same workout feel and results. Not only that, but around the holidays, especially this holida and possibly next if the economy doesn’t pull itself together, you will be finding some of the best deals- deals of a lifetime on these awesome pieces of workout equipment.

I’ve had my Horizon elliptical for a few years now and couldn’t be happier with it. It’s required no maintenance whatsoever, and I feel like I get the exact same workout as I did when I was working out on a piece of gym equipment that probably costs thousands more. I can guarantee that, like last Chirstmas and the Christmas before, ellipticals will be big sellers.

People love them because they offer a great, intense workout, without any roughness on the joints like some other types of equipment can give, and they also have a reputation for giving ladies the longer, leaner muscles that they want instead of bulking them up because they don’t jolt the muscles and target just one area when they are working out the leg and thigh muscles.

It also strikes me that when I do go to the gym, there are eight elliptical machines, that’s right eight, and you ALWAYS have to fight to get on one, even if the rest of the machines in the gym are empty, this proves that people really like them once they use them and prefer them to add what they need to their workout without adding extra stress to the joints and working out all the wrong parts that they want to get smaller, not bigger.

My personal reason for liking the elliptical machine best out of all the cardio equipment I’ve used is that I have worked up to a point where a half hour is the perfect amount of exercise on one, and I’ve noticed that it’s helped to sculpt down my thighs – my biggest problem area – the quickest out of the treadmill, the recumbent bike and other similar contraptions.

I had an interesting experience today at the gym where I work (for new readers, yes I am lucky enough to have a job that thinks a lot of it’s employees and has an employee gym you can go to on your lunch breaks, before and after work etc.) just today actually. I went in after, I’m ashamed to say, a couple day respite from working out. I was in desperate need of blowing off some therapeutic steam in the gym, and felt as if I were going to explode with all the stress and anxiety that had built up from those previous days of not working out. Ah, the benefits of being a workout junkie, huh?

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing at all! It’s just that, you know what I’m talking about if you work out regularly, it’s almost like you crave it and feel like a giant crabapple if you don’t get it. Which is good! God knows that those who never really got into working out should feel like garbage when they don’t get exercise, but many people don’t even realize what they’re missing out on or why they feel bad, simply because they don’t correlate the two.

Enough with my soapbox folks. My point is, I went to the gym after a break, and found that there were new elliptical trainers, at least I had never noticed them before (disclaimer, I am the queen of oblivion sometimes). So, I decided to hop on one of the new elliptical machines and noticed that after only five minutes I was breathing harder than I normally do with my elliptical workouts, and that I had to actually turn down the resistence so that I could finish my normal 30 minute workout.

I was actually sweating very badly in a highly air conditioned gym that gave me goosebumps when I first walked in – a sign of worsening circulation, probably exacerbated by me not working out for several days. I noticed when I was done that my bangs had actually gotten soaked, something that doesn’t usually happen both because I have them secured and because on the older elliptical machines in the gym I normally did not exert myself so much. You see, the older they get, the less resistant they get, so you just have to start cranking up the resistance on them – no biggie.

I love the Horizon elliptical machine we have, no doubt about it. We’ve now had it for a little over a year, making it one of the first purchases we made when we finally moved into a home where we had room to put a little mini gym, and ever since then it is a staple in both mine and my boyfriend’s workout routine and also a pivotal part of our cardiovascular fitness routine and health.

There’s also another big reason I love our Horizon elliptical though, and that is that I can easily go backwards on it and help shape and tone by buttocks, which of course can always use all the help it can get since I’m a woman and the butt is the most frequent area of fat deposits, followed by the thighs and the upper arms, oh yeah and then the abs, but that is probably where I have the least problems so far at this point in my life (by the way I’m in my early thirties).

What I do it stop using the moving arms of the elliptical machine, and begin to instead go backwards, which tends to feel a little more like you are working the buttocks instead of the fronts of the legs and the quadricep muscles, which is a concern for most women that these muscles will get bigger, not something that many non body building women tend to want to happen.

The way I do it is in intervals, doing about eight minutes of forward movement with my arms moving on the moving arm extensions, and then I take a two minute backwards jaunt, really focusing on squeezing those buttocks muscles so that I can get the most out of it, and believe me, I’m watching the clock still too because although you stop using your arms and maybe the cardio intensity isn’t as high, the muscle work is still hard and requires concentration and focus, just a different kind.

I have found that differentiating my elliptical workout like this by going backwards has indeed helped to lift and shape my butt, so I continue to do it in intervals of eight minutes followed by the two going backwards, and I usually stay on the elliptical machine for a total of about thirty minutes, so it amounts to a total of about 6 minutes going backwards, but it changes it up often enough so you are not totally exhausting the muscles of the butt, however you are creating muscle confusion which is one of the best ways to tone and burn fat.