Best Cardio Machines
What you Absolutely Need-to-Know about the Best Cardio Machines
Your body is always ultimately going to be the best cardio machine! Whether a cardiovascular exercise is effective or not has less to do with the machine than you would think. Cardio exercise is not fun for most people, especially avid weight trainers.
If you have not visited the best cardio exercise page you probably should check it out. Knowledge is power and it could save you hundreds of hours of sweating in the gym.
The Main Purpose of any Cardio Machine is to Raise your Heart Rate
With the best cardio exercises you are not twiddling your thumbs, you are moving the large muscles in your body which require a lot of oxygen which is circulated in your blood.
When you get your blood pumping, your heart rate rises to pump the blood to your working muscles. If you are out of shape and look to get back into it, your extremities may fatigue before your heart does. If you have the knowledge about which cardio machines are best for your goals, you can maximize your cardiovascular exercise.
How do you Find which Cardio Machine is Best for You?
The Best Cardio Machines for Your Best Friend May Not be Best for You
You already know that the most important aspect of successful cardiovascular exercise is to raise your heart rate. Even though you can raise your heart rate on any cardio machine there is a cardio machine which is best for you.
The Best Cardio Machine for You Depends on a Few Factors
Whether you Enjoy it or Not
It may seem amateurish to have such an obvious solution but it is very important to enjoy the exercise. If you enjoy (or hate less) a certain cardio machine, it is best for you. You get absolutely no benefit if you don’t use the best cardio machines.
Whether the Cardio Machine Exacerbates any Physical Problems
You have heard a million times, "everything in moderation." It holds true when using the best cardio machines. If you perform the same motion over and over again it will lead to muscle imbalances which lead to static and dynamic posture problems. If you sit all day at work in front of a desk, the stationary bike is not the best choice for a cardio machine. If you have extremely bad knee problems the stair master is most likely going to do harm than good.
Whether the Cardio Machine is Consistent with Your Goals
If you look to burn fat, improve, and maintain your cardiovascular fitness, all of the best cardio machines will help you. If your goals are performance related you predominantly use a cardio machines which most closely relates to your given activity. For example, if you are a marathon runner the majority of your cardio exercise should be running. This does not mean that you shouldn’t use the stationary bike every so often.
Whether the Machine is Conductive for a Productive Workout
Even though you can get the same cardiovascular benefit from any cardio machine, some are just more difficult. Some cardio machines are more difficult than others simply because they are more difficult to be lazy on.
Why are There So many Different Types of Cardio Machines ?
Cardio Machines were first Developed for Training Purposes not Fat Burning Devices
Cardio machine used to be predominantly used for training. Treadmills were used by people who couldn’t get outside to run. Rowing machines were used by people who wanted to train their rowing ability without the inconvenience of getting to the river.
People started to become overweight at an alarming rate and the fitness revolution happened in the 1980s. Cardio machines were designed to simulate daily physical activities which could be done in place on a machine.
Later on in the 1990s elliptical machines were designed specifically for non impact exercise.
Here is an Overview of Cardio Machines you will Find in a Gym (in no particular order)
Treadmills
Treadmills are for for the most basic impact exercise walking, jogging and running. Every quality treadmill has the ability to change the speed and incline (level of hill) to about 10-15% incline. Treadmills usually have safety features such as an auto stop switch and side handles to make sure you don’t kill yourself.
Another feature of the best treadmills is a remote heart rate monitor. It is not convenient to put your hands on the hand heart rate monitors when you running if you are serious about your exercise intensity.
The best treadmills allow you to put a strap around your sternum which will send your heart rate to the treadmill by remote.
Exercise Tip: If you do not like running walking on the treadmill can be just as effective for burning calories, fat and cardiovascular effect. The key is to set the treadmill at a significant incline. Working against gravity will increase difficulty and caloric expenditure.
Do not pull on the handles when you have an incline.. If you grab the handles it completely defeats the purpose of the incline. The calories burned meter on the machine will not be accurate also. If you have to hold on the for dear life you should probably slow down the machine.
Recumbent Stationary Bikes
Recumbent bikes are the lazy person’s favorite cardio machine.
If you make the trek to your local gym you will definitely see a few people read a magazine while they watch TV and talk on their cell phone on a recumbent bike.
This does not have to be the case. Like any of the best cardio machines you can elevate your heart rate significantly on the recumbent bike but you have to have some kind of motivation.
Exercise Tips: If you want to get the best cardio workout on a recumbent bike use one of the hill profiles. These are interval programs which raise the resistance for intervals.
At the top of some hills you will want to quit because your legs burn so bad, but just as you are ready to quit, the interval will be over and you will be coasting again.
Make sure you set up the distance to the pedals properly. Your legs should come to almost full extension but not locked. If the pedals are too close you will most likely burn out your leg muscles more than increase your heart rate.
Elliptical Trainers
Elliptical machines are famous for non impact exercise. Non impact exercise means there is minimal compressive forces on your bones and joints.
There are 2 main varieties of elliptical machines. One variety has handles which allow upper and lower body concurrent push-pull movement. The intensity is increased by adding resistance.
The other variety does not have handles and usually allows the incline level of the foot rests to be adjusted as well as resistance.
Exercise Tips: Do not make the elliptical machine your only source of cardio. If you perform only non impact exercise your bone mass and strength could suffer in the long term.
To get the best workout on an elliptical machine with handles, set the resistance high so you have to use your arms as well as your legs.
Stairmasters
Stairmaster is actually a brand of stair stepper machines which predominantly known as Stairmasters now. The motion of a Stairmaster is similar to climbing up steps, but your body weight is actually pushing the steps down. If the difficulty of the Stairmaster is increased, the steps will fall faster which will cause you to step faster.
On a Stairmaster your are working directly against gravity and your body weight. Any time a cardio exercise has a vertical component it will be more difficult than horizontal only activities.
Stairmasters have been known to be hard on the knees. If you have any major muscle imbalances and posture problems the Stairmaster is probably not your best cardio machine.
Exercise Tips: Like most of the best cardio machines it is better for you to not hold onto the handles for dear life. The handles are for balance. If you need to support your body weight with the Stairmaster you should lower the intensity level.
To get the most effective workout on a Stairmaster use an interval program. Which most cardio exercises on machines, the interval programs will allow you to burn the most calories a shorter amount of time.
Interval programs are great because they work you aerobic and anaerobic systems together which has a significant effect on your metabolism.
Stepmills
Stepmills or Stairmills are like the escalators from hell. It is just like you are stepping up your local stadium steps, except they are never ending.
Stepmills are not for the beginner. Even at very low settings Stepmills get your heart rate up very quickly. When you increase the difficulty level, the escalator goes faster.
Something else to take note of is the steps are pretty narrow. If you have feet over size 12 it may be awkward to exercise on the Stepmill which is definitely one of the best cardio machines to get your heart rate up and keep it up.
Exercise Tips: Do not support your entire body weight with the handles. You should hold them for safety reasons but they are not to support your body weight which takes away from the exercise’s effects.
You can also step up sideways both ways on Stepmills. This is a great way to help functionally strengthen your legs stabilization mechanism, inner and outer thighs. Do not try this if you have any ligament problems in your knees.
Adaptive Motion Trainers
At the time of this writing the only models of these types of trainers in existence are the Precor Adaptive Motion Trainer and the Technogym Vario.
Adaptive motion trainers represent the evolution of cardio machines and a huge step up from elliptical and arc trainers. The reason being is freedom of movement.
As the name suggests, adaptive motion trainers adapt the motion of the exercise to your movements. Rather than traveling in a same motion such as an ellipse, you are free to move whichever way you like.
While there is some limitation, you can perform movements ranging from stepping up and down, short stride rowing, long strike running and elliptical-like motions.
All this freedom comes with a price as these types of the best cardio machines are very expensive and the price is unlikely to come down until there is more competition.
Exercise Tip: Get the most out of the adaptive motion trainer by varying the types of strides you take. Since you can perform different types of motions and you have control over how long your perform them for, use the timers on the machines programs to avoid performing too much of a single motion and have a balanced workout.
Versa Climbers
The Versa climber is one of the best cardio machines you have never heard of. If you do have a Versa climber in your local gym it is one of the least popular cardio machines and is probably collecting dust.
The Versa climber is such a good cardio machine because you are climbing vertically which is directly against gravity. You also use your upper and lower body equally, which increases heart rate quickly.
To increase the difficulty of the versa climber you can add more resistance. When you add more resistance you can push and pull which will not only work your muscles but give you a tremendous cardio workout.
Exercise Tip: The versa climber is a tremendous cardio machine to use for interval training. At a decent intensity level, the Versa Climber can be tough even for 5 minutes.
It is possibly the best cardio workout to alternate a few minutes on the Versa climber with a couple minutes on a stationary bike or any other cardio machine you can make a quick transition to.
Tread Climbers
The treadclimber is one of the newer cardio machines to hit the market. Upon its release there was immediate claims of it being the "best cardio machines" but their popularity never really took off likely because the treadclimber is an awkward combination of a Stairmaster and treadmill.
This cardio machine has independent treadmills which rise and lower every time your foot strikes. There is no running on the tread climber only walking which makes it a comfortable way to burn calories if you are significantly overweight.
Exercise Tips: The up and down motion of each independent treadmill is not controlled by the machine but rather the strikes of your foot. Unless you want a wild, unproductive cardio workout make sure you plant each foot evenly and don’t stomp.
Like most of the best cardio machines you should not support the majority of your body weight on the handles. Because of the awkwardness make sure you hold to the handles when you first try the tread climber.
Incline Trainers
Incline trainers are simply treadmills with the ability to increase the incline past the usual 15% all the way to 30-40%.
Having a higher maximum incline allows you to burn the same amount of calories walking on a high incline than jogging or running on a lower incline. This makes incline trainers the best cardio machines for people who don’t like running or jogging.
While the amount of calories burned is always going to depend on the effort you put in, many people are uncomfortable running which makes incline trainers superior to standard treadmills as they will allow you to burn more calories walking.
The incline trainers also allow more advanced exercisers the ability to exercise at higher intensities and inclines which is important for people who train for hiking and other high incline, high intensity events.
Exercise Tip: As with regular treadmills, the handlebars are mainly present as a safety precaution and to aid balance. Holding on and leaning much of your body weight with the handles defeats the purpose of increasing the intensity of the machine. If you find yourself holding on the handles for dear life, lower the incline or speed.
Stationary Bikes
There are probably a million different models of stationary bikes. Stationary bikes are upright with no back rest. Every gym in the world has a few stationary bikes.
The way to increase the intensity of a stationary bike is to increase the resistance of the pedals. Most stationary bikes have many different programs.
In some programs increase the resistance on preset intervals and some depend on your heart rate. The programs which use your heart rate increase the resistance to keep you at your target heart rate. The machine usually determines your target heart rate for you from the information which you enter in before you start the program.
Exercise Tip: Make sure you sit upright and do not slouch when using the stationary bike. If you work a job or live a lifestyle where you sit for many hours during the day, you should probably not use the stationary bike and use a standing machine.
Your hip flexors are most likely tight which would cause posture problems if you overdo work on the stationary bike. The best cardio machines can hurt you as well as help you.
Fan Bikes
The Schwinn Airdyne exercise bike was the first patented fan exercise bike to provide a full total body workout. They were brought on the market in the 1980s and have endured to this day.
"Fan bikes" or "dual action bikes" made by other brands are often referred to as Airdyne bikes after the Schwinn model that has been around the longest.
Airdyne bikes are an upright exercise bicycle which incorporates arms in which the exerciser has to push and pull to aid in moving the machine at higher resistances.
The giant fan which is powered by your feet pedaling and arms pushing and pulling blows at the exerciser which can be great during difficult, sweaty workouts.
Exercise Tip: Since Airdyne bikes are designed with concurrent upper and lower body in mind performing one at a time is not the best way to use them. Set the resistance level high enough to where you cannot perform the exercise comfortably without using your arms. Now you will get the most out of the Airdyne bike as you are using your arms as well as your legs.
Rowing Machines
The rowing machine is the most underrated cardio machine in the gym. Most people do not understand the correct way to use rowing machines.
Rowing machines are obviously the best cardio machines for simulating rowing but they are great for cardio as well if you know how to use them.
Rowing machines are not meant to be a resistance exercise. When people improperly use them they are usually pull very hard with their arms and have bad form.
The difference between rowing machines and all other cardio machines is you completely control how intense your session will be. The faster you go, the more intense your cardio workout will be.
This is why rowing machines are not the most popular cardio machine, you must have motivation to get the full benefit from rowing machines.
Exercise Tips: To get full cardio benefit of the rowing machine you should use one of the programs which is built on the little screen. These programs will show you intervals which allow you to pace yourself so you don’t get burned out too quickly.
Arc Trainers
The arc trainer is another non-impact cardio machine. They are the newest type of cardio machine in your local gym and are probably most popular.
You step on two platforms and basically swing your legs back and forth in a similar fashion to the gazelle freestyle which has been a top selling home workout machine for years.
The adjustable resistance as well as the speed which you choose to swing your legs back and forth in the scissor-like motion adjusts the intensity of your cardio workout.
Exercise Tips: Non-impact machines are the best cardio machines for people with chronic joint problems. The arc trainer can get your heart rate up effectively without putting too much stress on your legs.
Don’t let the non-impact style cardio machine sabotage your results though. Make sure you work hard and keep your heart rate up higher than your target zone. If you are free of joint problems, make sure you use forms of impact exercise such as jogging to keep your bones strong and your bone mass at optimal levels.
Hand Ergometers
Hand ergometers or hand bikes are not anybody’s favorite cardio machines. When you are forced to use a hand ergometer it usually means you either have a broken leg, sprained ankle, surgically repaired knee or are bound to a wheel chair.
Hand ergometers can actually get your heart rate up faster than leg cardio machines because your arms are closer to your heart than your legs.
Hand ergometers have been used often in research about heart rate response among other things.
Exercise Tip: Think happy thoughts. The hand bike is not very fun and can be quite boring. Very few people choose to use the hand bike as a form of cardio.
Perhaps some of the best exercise music will help you get through your rehab.
Looking for the Best Value Cardio Machine and Best Possible Workout?
If you do not have or want a gym membership a cardio machine at your home is a good idea. To make sure it doesn’t turn out to be the most expensive coat rack you’ve ever owned make sure you have did thorough research.
Amazon.com
You can find new and used (mostly refurbished) cardio machines on the world’s largest online vendor. A refurbished gym quality cardio machine is better than picking up a piece of junk from a garage sale or getting a cheap machine which will probably break in a month at your local sporting goods store. The best cardio machines which were designed for corporate gym use will last up to 10 times longer.
The Best Cardio Machines for Fat Burning
It has been said multiple times but any cardio machine can be used for fat burning. This does not mean that some machines are not better than others for fat burning. It means the effects of the best cardio machines depend on how you use them.
The best cardio machines such as Stepmill and Versa climber are no easy to cheat on. Even at a very basic level they are still challenging and help you raise your heart rate. Combining these factors makes the Stepmill and Versa climber the best cardio machines for fat burning.
- How to Get the Most out of your Cardio Exercise
If you do not know the very basics of cardiovascular exercise you should check out this page. You will find information that will help you chose one of the best cardio machines. - Challenging Interval and Cross Training Cardio Workouts
Find fun, exciting, and intense ways to get a great cardio workout with or without the best cardio machines. There are also tips which you can use to get the best workout on a single cardio machine or a combination of multiple machines. Remember, complete workout routines with resistance training and a healthy diet will help you burn fat most efficiently. You can learn about more pieces of equipment to go along with the best cardio machines to get the most out of your training. - Gym Equipment Overview
Become familiar with the different styles of gym equipment. Learn why some of the machines may do more harm than good. - Home Gym Equipment
If you workout solely at home, you may be interested in the cheapest and most effective equipment which can help you burn fat, gain muscle or simply tone up and be more fit.
Category: Cardio, Cardio Equipment, Exercise, Fitness Equipment
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