Can You Work Out Hard on the ElliptiGO?
Longtime runners and those who are training for key races hate missing workouts or taking time off from running when an injury, illness or symptoms of overtraining (consistent fatigue, heavy legs, getting sick often, persistent muscle soreness, etc.) pop up.
More: 5 Signs of Overtraining
Most runners don't have access to anti-gravity and underwater treadmills so they can't use this equipment to reap the physiological benefits of running without the pounding, and there are only so many indoor elliptical sessions sidelined runners can stomach. In these cases, the ElliptiGO can be a useful training tool for benched runners with cabin fever who want to stay fit. And for those competitive runners who want to train more but whose bodies aren't ready or able to absorb the wear and tear of running extra miles, the ElliptiGO can be used for workouts that are more challenging than a leisurely ride.
It takes a little ingenuity to create your own ElliptiGO workouts, but it's not hard to do if you use a heart rate monitor to gauge your effort, or if you're experienced enough to know what running at certain paces feels like—and you can mimic that effort on the ElliptiGO.
More: Active Gear Scout: Heart Rate Monitors and GPS Watches
"I know it would take me about two-and-a-half minutes to run 800 meters on foot, so if my running workout was 8 x 800 meters, I would do eight sets of two-and-a-half minutes hard on the ElliptiGO and use my heart rate as a guide," says Lauren Fleshman, pro runner, co-founder of Picky Bars and ElliptiGO Project athlete.
If you've completed enough running workouts to average how much time it takes to complete intervals at a certain distance, then all you need to mimic that effort on an ElliptiGO is a GPS watch, ideally one that's also a heart rate monitor, to gauge your effort and distance covered.
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