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The most common excuse that most people give for not exercising regularly is lack of time. While that’s a common excuse, the real reason why adults really don’t exercise every day is the lack of the drive to exercise. Juggling between work, family, and rest, the time people slot for workouts is normally the spare time when they are worn out and just want to rest. Slotting in a workout can be challenging, but if you have an elliptical, at least 15 minutes every day on the elliptical machine will bring you great health benefits.
Cardio Workouts on The Ellipticals
Committing to a sustained workout program can be challenging at the beginning, more so if you’ve tried a lot of diet and fitness formulae that didn’t work for you and you are skeptical about the effectiveness of the workouts. But no matter the challenge, the elliptical gives you an opportunity to burn off calories using the most basic workout techniques, and it’s very effective.
Usually a second option to treadmills, ellipticals are perhaps the most underrated fitness equipment. If you’re a beginner, these machines are available in almost any commercial gyms or hotel gyms so you shouldn’t worry about striking a workout consistency in your neighborhood or where you’re visiting.
Ellipticals generally provide a low-impact cardiovascular workout for the whole body, which is vital to your overall well-being. Going by a report by the CDC, grown-ups should get at least two and a half hours of moderate to high-intensity workout on an elliptical every week. If you can achieve this goal consistently, you will prevent a host of lifestyle diseases like diabetes and cancer. What’s more? You’ll generally feel good after the workouts.
15 minutes on the elliptical
No matter how tight your schedule is, I guess you can afford 15 minutes for a cardiovascular workout, though more time would do you good. If 15 minutes is all you’ve got, it is advisable to make the most out it by being as efficient as you can be.
The best way to burn the most calories in a limited time on an elliptical is by doing High-Intensity Interval Trainings—HIIT. HIIT workouts involve rigorous steady cardio workouts that you can do by yourself and effectively work the targeted muscles fast. When you do these high-intensity exercises, even for as little as 15 minutes, you will efficiently burn a lot of calories.
To get a fulfilling HIIT exercise on an elliptical machine, try switching between bursts of intense workouts and resistance workouts. Move as fast as you can for short spans of time, followed by rather slow but active recovery reps. For starters, it’s okay if you can do 30 seconds on followed by 60 seconds rest—and repeat. If you can do this consistently over a sustained period of time, you’ll increase the amount of intense time and reduce the amount of rest/recovery time.
Is 15 minutes on the elliptical enough
Again, the CDC recommends a minimum of 150 minutes of intense activity every week for adults, so if you can do 10 sessions of 15 minutes each, per week, then 15 minutes on the elliptical is enough. According to the American Diabetes Association, beginners can start with as little as 10 minutes per day and gradually increase the time as you work up your core and resistance.
How to make the most out of a 15 minutes session on the elliptical
As effective as the elliptical is, many starters don’t know how to it in a manner that truly works out their bodies. So, if you’re going to use an elliptical for a long time and make the most out of it all the times, here are some surefire tips to help:
Be time conscious
Most beginners simply hop onto the elliptical machine and work out until they can’t go on anymore or until they hit a certain target number of minutes. While that’s okay and straightforward, it’s crucial that you have a more detailed plan on how to spend your time on the machine.
Break your time down into warmup, strength training, and resistance training. The warmup should involve short, low to moderate-intensity workouts, then graduate to hectic HIIT training to burn calories and build your core. The 15 minutes should exclude the recovery time, only then can you allege to have trained for 15 minutes.
Find a workout rhythm
As the case with indoor cycling training, you can make your elliptical training more interesting by finding a rhythm. The most common way to find a rhythm is using music—keep time with the elliptical strokes and adjust the speed of your workout to match the tone of the music. For best results, go for songs with 120 to 140 beats per minute.
Vary the resistance and incline of the elliptical
Another important tip is to play with the resistance and incline of the machine as you train. The most common mistake starters make on the elliptical is riding with low resistance all through their training sessions. If you can’t feel the resistance tension through your muscles as you push and pull, then you are not making the most out of the machine—you’ll be moving with the momentum instead of effort. As a rule of thumb, the higher the incline, the more work your muscles do and the more calories you’ll burn.
Focus on Posture
Your posture plays a huge role in how you effectively work your glutes. Ellipticals are very user-friendly, but you have to get the posture right to make the most out of them. Ensure that your shoulders are relaxed rather than stiff, keep the chest open, ride with your heels and keep your core engaged. Use the upper body handlebars and stretch your chest when pulling/pushing. Always ensure a light grip so that your heels do the most work—be sure to train the hamstrings.
Conclusion— Is 15 minutes on the elliptical enough?
15 minutes on the elliptical is enough if you train frequently and consistently. The recommended time on an elliptical is 15O minutes, so if you can train 1O times a week, you’re good. For the tips on this post and you’ll make the most of your workout sessions.