Training For Life

Unfortunately, the computers on most elliptical trainers overestimate the actual amount of calories burned, especially in individuals who lean against the railing for support.

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You can generally burn about 600 calories per hour on the ellipticals that don’t include arm movement, and slightly more on the ones that do. Using the elliptical burns fewer calories than running because once you get the parts on an elliptical moving, they’re pretty easy to keep moving, and so you expend less energy.

How to Burn the Most Calories on the Elliptical

When it comes to calorie burning, the two most common mistakes made on the elliptical trainer are:

1. excessive leaning against the rails on the trainer (on those ellipticals that don’t have arm movement);

2. inadequate resistance (similar to the same problem on the bike).

So to get the most benefit, try to use the rails as little as possible, and challenge yourself with the resistance settings. Shoot for a cadence or stride rate of 120-140.

Quick and dirty tip for the elliptical: Choose a resistance that is actually high enough so that the machine isn’t doing all the work for you. If you don’t feel your muscles contracting during the forward and back stroke of the elliptical, they probably aren’t!

Sorry, Jane Fonda, but I just don’t have much praise for the good, ol’ stairmaster. It incorporates tiny-teeny calf muscles, and just a little bit of your backside and butt, but really won’t give you more than about 400-500 calories per hour.

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In addition, anybody who has low back pain will almost surely find it aggravated during the straight up and down motion of the Stairmaster.

Now, for those stair-lovers out there, I do have good news. You know the “stairway to nowhere”, or, as I had one client describe it, “the stairway to heaven because you feel as if you’re about to die”? Yes, I’m talking about the moving belt of stairs that actually make you climb a stationary staircase. That will give you just as much calorie-burning benefit as running up an incline on a treadmill, but this is not for the faint of heart.

Quick and dirty tip for climbing stairs: Use the trick of holding a small set of 1-3 lb dumbbells in either hand as you climb for maximum calorie burning.

An incredible upper and lower body cardiovascular challenge, the rowing machine can burn over 1000 calories per hour. Just ask Ben Hur. But this quasi-torture device can also be nauseatingly boring when you try to go for long periods of time.

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To make time go by faster while still maintaining a high intensity, incorporate short periods or distances of very hard pulling combined with easy pulling. For instance, row for 250 meters as hard as possible, then 100 meters easy, and repeat 6-8 times. Be sure to use as many body parts as possible when rowing, including the torso and the legs–not just the arms.

Quick and dirty tip for the rowing machine: It’s actually pretty easy to throw out your low back if you don’t know what your doing, so look at the little diagram that appears on the instruction panel of most of the machines; see how it shows a little stick figure pulling with the whole body, including upper back and legs? Make sure you do that.

Since the pedaling motion incorporates the big and powerful muscles of the leg, bicycling is a great choice for calorie burning. Depending on your intensity, bicycling can burn 500-1000 calories per hour, which ranks it among the highest calorie burners, so long as you use it correctly.

How to Burn the Most Calories on the Bike

Many people don’t choose a resistance that is high enough to really stimulate those calorie burning leg muscles, and instead let the natural movement of a bicycle’s pedals do the work for them. To avoid this problem and get maximum benefit from a bike, choose a resistance that makes you breathe hard in order to achieve 90 RPM, or revolutions per minute; most indoor stationary bicycles show this number on the computer display.

Upright Versus Recumbent Bicycles

What about upright vs. recumbent bicycles (the type that you sit in)? Though the back rest on a recumbent bicycle can relieve stress on the lower back, neck, elbow and wrist, this type of bicycle should be used only if you have pain in these joints when you’re seated on an upright bicycle.

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That is because you don’t make any of those calorie-burning core muscles work when you’re on a recumbent bike.

Quick and dirty tip for getting the most bang for your buck on the bike: Do a few 2-3 minute sets in which you pedal at 90 revolutions per minute at the highest resistance at which you can sustain that pedaling speed. Make sure to fully recover between each set.

Fitness shoes go by many different names, including wellness shoes, toning shoes, and shaping shoes. A relatively new phenomenon over the past five years or so, fitness shoes are referred to in the shoe industry as rocker-style shoes, because they have a curved bottom and a heel that is lower than the toe, resulting in a rocking motion from the heel to the toe during the gait motion.

How Do Fitness Shoes Work?

The premise of fitness shoes is that because of the instability they cause, along with a shift of your weight from the back of your feet to the front of your feet, your body will be forced to use different muscles while walking–specifically the buttocks, thighs and calves. In addition, because your weight is shifted forward, you may be less likely to slouch and you might even learn better balance because of the instability of the shoe.

Let’s examine whether these claims are true.

Fitness Shoe Research

Although shoe companies have sponsored and conducted in-house research on their particular brand of fitness shoes, only one independent study exists that examines whether fitness shoes actually work.

This study, conducted by the American Council on Exercise, enlisted a group of female treadmill walkers, and measured the metabolic rate and muscle activity of the calves, quads, hamstrings, buttocks, back and abs while the walkers a variety of the fitness shoes out on the market. The researchers also measured muscle activity in these same individuals performing the same activity while wearing a regular pair of sneakers.

All the fitness shoes showed no significant increase in metabolism or muscle use, and no enhanced fitness benefit over the average running shoe.

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Other Uses of Fitness Shoes

But before you throw out your fitness shoes, it is important to realize that there may be benefits that go beyond muscle activity and metabolism. For example, because the heel is lower than the toes, fitness shoes may help to improve flexibility in heel tissues, which could theoretically help relieve pain from Achilles tendonitis or plantar fasciitis. These shoes might also strengthen weak muscles in the foot.

Fitness shoes may also help motivate you to exercise, based on the simple fact that if you have a pair of shoes devoted to walking, you may be more likely to walk when you put on that special pair.

So if wearing fitness shoes makes you feel more motivated to walk, helps reduce discomfort you may experience in your feet during physical activity, or simply fits into your fitness fashion, then by all means–wear fitness shoes!

Get the Benefits Promised by Fitness Shoes without Fitness Shoes

Think about the claims made about fitness shoes: nicer calves, a better butt, tight and toned thighs, and improved posture. Are there ways to achieve these benefits less expensively You bet! Here are some quick and dirty tips to help you with those specific goals:

Quick and dirty tip for nicer calves: Every morning when you take a shower, attempt to perform 50 to 100 calf raises. For added difficulty, do them on a stair, and try 4 sets of 25, with each set separated by 25 light hops on your toes.

Quick and dirty tip for a better butt: Be sure to check out my previous newsletter tip “What Are the Best Exercises to Tone My Butt?”, in which I tell you how to get a better butt and show you a video of a butt-toning workout that works.

Quick and dirty tip for tight and toned thighs: If you caught any of the Tour de France on TV, you may have noticed that cyclists have some of the most impressive legs in the business, particularly in their thighs. So if you’re going for that impressive, spandex-worthy upper leg musculature, include 2-3 bike rides or spin classes in your weekly fitness routine, with a focus on hill climbs and interval training.

Quick and dirty tip for improved posture: Right now, roll your shoulders back, suck in your stomach, raise your chin, and tighten your butt. You suddenly have perfect posture, don’t you? Now, try a Farmer’s Walk exercise, in which you do all those same postural modifications, but you walk with a relatively heavy set of dumbbells or weights in either hand. Try 3 sets of 25 yards of Farmer’s Walks.

Ultimately, long-term research may eventually find that fitness shoes do offer benefits that we don’t yet know about, or perhaps shoe manufacturers will invent a new way to make fitness shoes more beneficial. But for now, there’s no need to worry that you’re not getting the most out of your walk simply because you aren’t rocking a pair of rockers!

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Of course, there are many additional forms of cardio; but for maximum calorie burning benefit no matter which form you choose, be sure to incorporate a form of cardio that is inefficient or unfamiliar to your body.

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So if you always walk, try switching to cycling or using the elliptical; or if you always run, try the rowing machine. Keep throwing those cardio curveballs at the body, and you’ll burn more calories and lose that weight. Of course, most importantly, have fun when you’re exercising. And clean the sweat off that machine when you’re done, for goodness sake.

Running is a full body workout that burns 600-1200 calories per hour. As a matter of fact, running up an incline on the treadmill is the best way to boost your metabolism for hours after you’ve finished that workout.

Walking on the treadmill burns far less calories–about 300-400 per hour. The primary reason for that is that humans are very efficient at walking, as most of us have done so since an early age.

An exercise like walking, at which your body is very efficient, should be avoided as your primary cardio workout when you’re trying to burn calories. As a matter of fact, I have to frequently point this out to every desperate person who walks through the parking lot, walks up the stairs, walks into my personal training office and complains that they’re not losing any weight with their morning walk. They walk so much the rest of the time that their body just doesn’t get much a metabolic boost from walking for their cardio session.

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Quick and dirty tip for the treadmill: If you’re using a treadmill, then either jog or use an incline, but avoid the common mistake of choosing a ridiculously high incline, then holding on to the handrails to keep up. You may look like a champion Everest ascender, but the fact is, the rails should only be used if you have extreme balance difficulties, or must stabilize yourself to change a setting. Remember to vigorously pump your arms too, as long as you can pull that off without smacking any nearby exercisers in the face.