I'm a HSer who is injured. What are your favorite elliptical workouts?

First off, I’m very sorry you have to train on an elliptical. Due to injury I had to do all of my junior year winter conditioning on the bike/elliptical combo and I hated the elliptical.

My advice is to always keep the magnetic resistance up, and do fartlek type sessions to make the time go by quicker. I liked to do stuff like going hard for 30 seconds and then taking a minute 30 rest. Or push very hard 10-15 second surges every other minute.

Although I hated it and I don’t think it helped me very much aerobically, I did PR my 400m fresh off my injury, so it was obviously good for something.

I usually kept my sessions between 30 minutes and an hour.

Maybe Injured? wrote:

Hello all. I am in high school and have been feeling some pain in my achilles for the past week. Being cautious and not wanting to jeopardize my season before it starts, I decided to take time off from running until I no longer feel pain. I'll be cross training with elliptical instead, which should lower the impact (obviously) but still get some cardio in so that I'm not completely out of shape by the time that I get to the other side, healthy and ready to do track.

What are your favorite elliptical workouts? Thanks

LRC Note. We changed the title to help it get more responses. The original title of "Elliptical workouts and tips" wasn't very descriptive.

Well we have all been there and done that.... Here is a session that I came up with a few years ago that I put a few athletes through and they found it very difficult. This is a high intensity session so do a warm up and warm down before you start.

The session is simple and you repeat it for as long as you can. Most do it for 10-12 to start off with but you can progress to 20 minutes.

4x15 seconds easy/hard

30 seconds easy

4x30 seconds hard 30 seconds 30 seconds easy

2x40 seconds hard 20 seconds easy

Repeat

Good luck!

Unless you have been running way too many miles or way too hard, it's likely to be something that you can fix (and prevent from happening in the future!) through targeted mobility exercises. I recommend looking up Kelly Starrett's videos on youtube and elsewhere. Of course, taking a week or two away from running, icing, and compression will only accelerate your recovery. I wish I had realized much earlier how important consistent mobility work is to injury prevention and treatment. Indeed, some injuries (like plantar fasciitis) are unlikely to 'fix themselves' even if you stop running for a month. Good luck!

Personally, I've always preferred getting on a spin bike rather than an elliptical when I'm injured. I think it's easier to get in hard workouts on a spin bike. If you can get access to a power meter/power pedals, you can get on Zwift for a month-to-month membership (it's only like $14/month) and put in 10 to 20 hours of really good work on a bike while not getting too bored. Also you can hop in races, which is pretty fun.

Skip the elliptical, if you can. Waste of time, imo.

1-Stairmaster, 2-Spin Bike, or 3-Rowing machine.

And I agree with posters to do fartlek and maybe longer intervals (2-5 min) to keep you mentally engaged.

Also, consider doing strength training especially lower body and core. You'll come out of this stronger and fitter.

I always liked the following:

10-20 minute warmup;

1:30 minute hard then 1:30 easy (twice);

1:00 minute hard then 1:00 easy (four times);

30 seconds hard then 30 seconds easy (four times);

15 seconds all-out then 15 seconds easy (four times); and

10-20 minute cooldown

I really like to play with cadence and heartrate. Probably because they are things I don't measure in real running, but on the elliptical they are right in front of you and it is something new to play with.

I'll do reps of "race" cadence targeting 172. Sometimes I play with the resistance to see how long I can hold cadence at different resistence and not have my heartrate go out of target zone.

Changing the incline is fun too. Can really feel the workout in different muscle group.

I ran a year best off an injury and mostly elliptical cadence workouts. Play with the machine, and you can keep it from being boring.

Also, ditch the handrails. Pump your arms like normal. People look at you weird, but it always felt better to me.

I just had my fourth baby last week. On both my third and fourth children the doctor told me that it would be risky to go too far after my due date due to my age and so they wanted to schedule an induction to avoid a still birth. I didn’t like the idea of being induced and so with both children the day before I was suppose to be induced I did an elliptical workout that started my contractions naturally.

30 min workout on level 7.

2.9 miles in the 30 min.

No pitocin needed. ?

Put on some music and go hard for 1 song and recover for the next 1. Do this for however long you feel like it. I usually aimed for 60-75 mins. W/u and c/d, obviously

Maybe Injured? wrote:

Hello all. I am in high school and have been feeling some pain in my achilles for the past week. Being cautious and not wanting to jeopardize my season before it starts, I decided to take time off from running until I no longer feel pain. I'll be cross training with elliptical instead, which should lower the impact (obviously) but still get some cardio in so that I'm not completely out of shape by the time that I get to the other side, healthy and ready to do track.

What are your favorite elliptical workouts? Thanks

LRC Note. We changed the title to help it get more responses. The original title of "Elliptical workouts and tips" wasn't very descriptive.

As far as elliptical goes, just convert time of running workouts to time on the elliptical.

Just some Achilles advice...

If this came on super suddenly, don’t worry. Tendons and muscles heal in part by actively using them. I’m not saying you shouldn’t take time off, but if you can run without changing your form to accommodate the Achilles and/or a sharp pain, go for it.

You want to decrease mileage and not do any workouts but in my experience it goes away very quickly without taking much of any time off.

Do calf raises in the morning and at night, 3x10 sets single leg. You want to do this on a step so that your heel can go an inch or two below your toes. Do these slow on the way down.

First, if you are injured your training wasn't working for your body. Despite the American way, running injuries are not normal or healthy.

Resume doing your normal volume on another mode (bike or elliptical or whatever). Monitor your intensity so you are working out hard enough, but limit your high intensity training. Keep some as a stimulus to stay fit, but most days per week don't just grind it. Keep your HR around 75%max or under, but ideally over 65% max for optimal training effect.

Mindset needs to shift. I am making an assumption, because you are injured. It takes a certain mindset to injure your body using a mode like running. Instead of the fitter, fitter, fitter mindset try healthier, healthier, healthier. Then you can take that mindset back into running when your body is ready.

You can also focus on an anti-inflammatory diet, can be a contributor to injuries like the one you have.

Many years ago when I had an injury and access to an elliptical, I used a heart rate monitor to try to mimic what I would get from a run. Lots of different methods for HR training, but I think I was using under 75% for easy days, and 85-90% for "tempo" days.

They key for me was keeping the cadence at 180 and adjusting the resistance to hit the desired HR range. Then just workout on the elliptical for the same amount of time you would normally run. For easy days, 40 minutes at 75% HR. For "long run" an hour+ at 75%. For tempos or fartleks, you can alternate between easy HR zone and tempo zones by adjusting the resistance during the workout.