How do YOU do YOUR HIIT on an elliptical?

**Liquid** · 10-07-2003, 03:41 PM

Yestery was the first time I tried one. I usually do my HIIT outside but its getting cold here in canada so yesterday i decided to do cardio at school. I used a precor efx. Man, it was amazing! No hurting joints after. I can't believe I never tried one. Since it was my first time, I did 45 mins low intensity (156 avg heartrate so that's like 70-80% max heartrate). And it felt awesome! Anyway, I wanna do hiit on it. When I run for my hiit, i usually sprint half a soccer field, then jog for another 3 halves then sprint again for like 9 intervals. How do you guys do your HIIT on elliptical? How do you judge? thx

**Bignbuff** · 10-07-2003, 03:48 PM

Hey Liquid,

The elliptical trainer is a great machine to do HIIT cardio on and it's actually quite simple how you can do it.

What you have to do is go by time intervals instead of distance intervals. Since it's kind of hard to determine distance on the ellipcial just use time. For example, I like to do the 20 second sprint followed by a 40 second jog. Repeat this or any other time interval of your preference for the desired number of times depending on your fitness level with a 3-5 minute warm up and cool down and you should be good as gold!

Bignbuff

**Liquid** · 10-07-2003, 04:09 PM

Originally posted by bignbuff
Hey Liquid,

The elliptical trainer is a great machine to do HIIT cardio on and it's actually quite simple how you can do it.

What you have to do is go by time intervals instead of distance intervals. Since it's kind of hard to determine distance on the ellipcial just use time. For example, I like to do the 20 second sprint followed by a 40 second jog. Repeat this or any other time interval of your preference for the desired number of times depending on your fitness level with a 3-5 minute warm up and cool down and you should be good as gold!

Bignbuff

hmm, should I also judge by heartrate?
I remember seeing some people saying that they go up to a certain heartrate level, and hold it there for a certain period, then decrease the load until they reach a certain heartrate hold it there for a while then repeat. Would something like this be more efficient than just upping the resistance for an interval?

**Bignbuff** · 10-07-2003, 04:33 PM

Well you could do it by heartrate but that would seem more complicated to me than just moving your feet faster and slowing them down. Just my opinion though.

Bignbuff

**hotgymchick** · 10-07-2003, 04:43 PM

Originally posted by Liquid
hmm, should I also judge by heartrate?
I remember seeing some people saying that they go up to a certain heartrate level, and hold it there for a certain period, then decrease the load until they reach a certain heartrate hold it there for a while then repeat. Would something like this be more efficient than just upping the resistance for an interval?

Maybe you could mix it up in order to prevent boredom. Sometimes I'll use an elliptical or bike and get my heartrate to around 170 BPM and hold it for 30-60 sec, then get my heart rate down to around 150-155 and recover for as long as I need, usually 60-90 seconds

**mirror** · 10-07-2003, 11:50 PM

I have had some of my 'best' HIIT 'experiences' on the elliptical. It can be a killer. as Bignbuff said you can just increase leg speed for sprints but you can also increase resistance. I normally go up 2 notches on resistance and get leg speed going as fast as possible for sprints. You will feel it. I don't use heart monitor. I go by time and fight the lactic.

**Liquid** · 10-08-2003, 10:09 AM

Well the precor elliptical machine that im gonna be using has something so taht i can change resistance AND change the angle (2 seperate buttons) So im gonna be playing around with that.

**Liquid** · 10-08-2003, 10:11 AM

Originally posted by Liquid
hmm, should I also judge by heartrate?
I remember seeing some people saying that they go up to a certain heartrate level, and hold it there for a certain period, then decrease the load until they reach a certain heartrate hold it there for a while then repeat. Would something like this be more efficient than just upping the resistance for an interval?

The reason i asked this was that I thought that it would be better to be more accurate when doing it. So that I do the same thing every time and can track my progress.

**mtbiac** · 10-08-2003, 02:21 PM

I dont know about you guys, but i KILL myself using the eleptical machine for HIIT...

I up the resistance about 10 notches out of 20 compared to my moderate cardio workouts, and I like to keep my legs bent alittle so I can go as fast as possible. I try to keep it at around 100rpms. I do this for 30sec, then 40sec of 60% rest, then another 30sec 100%, etc

3min warmup, 3min cooldown, and usually around 15min Total. I'm about 240lbs and i Burn around 350cals doing this.

goood/badd??

thanks in advance

**Zachary** · 10-08-2003, 05:17 PM

Elliptical HIIT is awesome. I simply could not get motivated to do HIIT in running sprints...either I couldn't run fast enough or I hated doing it outside or something of the like. Tried Elliptical and I'd never go back. Hard work, though!

One thing I'd ask others of you who do it...do you hold on to the elliptical machine during the sprints (or even during the running?)? I can't seem to get going fast enough if I don't hold on to the cardio machine, though I've heard that that can lower the effectiveness...anyone know?

**john456** · 10-08-2003, 07:43 PM

I'm actually curious about the same question; is it bad to hold on to the machine while doing HIIT?

**RamSeS** · 10-08-2003, 08:54 PM

If I don't hold on, I'll probably fall off when doing the sprints...I would also like to know if holding the bar is bad while sprinting.

And can you guys go in reverse without holding the bar? Damn it feels like I could fall off or something.

**Bignbuff** · 10-09-2003, 03:20 AM

Hey guys,

No I don't think it really matters if you're holding the bar or not. Just as long as you can still go all out intensity. Swinging your arms does not make a huge significance in calories burned...unless of course you weigh 600 pounds.

Bignbuff

**Jesin** · 10-09-2003, 07:37 AM

I do HIIT on a stationary bike. Works well, although I stopped because Im on NO2's and bulking. So Ill start my HIIT again in 4 weeks time.

**Liquid** · 10-10-2003, 08:28 AM

well, i did the HIIT on the elliptical.. and decided to just go as fast as i can for 20 seconds and upped teh resistance to 15. Then i would do slow down for 40 seconds and bring downthe resistance to 10. Did this for 12 intervals, it was nice. I was sweating like crazy after the 7th one! At the end it said my max heartrate was 190 (around 94% of max). and avg was around 160 or something. As for holding the machine, i held it throughout the whole thing and i never did it backwards... maybe i should do that on the 40 seconds that i take to catch up...

**Zachary** · 10-10-2003, 12:08 PM

Good to know I'm not alone in holding on at any rate...

HIIT on the elliptical is awesome, though.

I always feel somehow guilty 'cause I only do about 3 minutes warm-up, followed by 5-15 (5 for weight days) 15 second sprints (with 45 seconds of jogging in between) and 3 minutes of cool-down instead of my old (boring, gruelling, etc.) 45 minute run-a-thon. Yet HIIT is proven to work, and a LOT of people have seen great results, so what can I say!

**SatownT** · 10-01-2013, 04:30 AM

Ramses, I just hold the monitor*the part that has the stats* and that keeps me from falling. Also, by holding the monitor, I can really push my legs faster and you will feel it in your quads a lot.

**SatownT** · 10-01-2013, 04:50 AM

Liquid, I love HIIT on the elliptical. I have started by doing 2mins high intensity and 2 mins low intensity. I do it for 30 mins (9 intervals). I wear the top of a sweat suit and I am dripping so much sweat that I always take a thick face towel with me because I am drenched. Then I get some strength in and I am still sweating afterwards. Gauge how you feel at exhansion and increase your intervals from there. All I do is is elliptical. Hope this helps.

**alewisdvm** · 10-25-2013, 04:35 PM

Hey all,
Very curious about HIIT on elliptical.
I use the front drive precor's at my gym. It doesn't do incline, only resistance. They have the rear drive as well. Does it really matter if I use the machine that also has incline?

So, for my HIIT, I warm up for a few minutes at 11 out of 20.
Then I do 20 for 60 seconds
Then I do 11 for 2 minutes
20 for 60 seconds
11 for 2 minutes

Are my rest periods too long? My heart rate for first few gets up to about 160 (age 37).

Would this be considered a HIIT interval?

How long should you stay at the peak? So, if I could do resistance 20 for 2 minutes, should I try to stay up for the full 2 minutes then rest 2 minutes?

Thanks

**GoalPoster** · 10-25-2013, 04:50 PM

I do it a bit differently . . . I start on level 5, and bump it up a level each minute until I hit level 10. This is done at a 6.0 pace. Once I hit 10, I hold there for two minutes, then speed it up to 6.5, and increase resistance one level each minute until I hit 17 . . . then I hold that for as long as I can. This morning it was three minutes. Heart rate at the end of each cycle is about a buck-sixty.

I back it down to ten for a five minute cool down and repeat the whole thing three times, with a six minute hold at 18 on the final cycle . . . or at least that's the goal. I'm working up to that . . . when the legs burn like hell in that last hold, I back it down a level and kick through the six minutes.

I do that twice a week to punctuate my workouts.

**Dan8890** · 10-25-2013, 05:57 PM

I just do 6 interval period

interval 1 30 seconds lvl 5
interval 2 30 sec lvl 15
interval 3 45 sec lvl 5
interval 4 30 sec lvl 15
interval 5 45 sec lvl 5
interval 6 30 second lvl 15 and repeat cycle... Its cool i can up my heart rate to 180-+ thats like 92%|

BTW: This is a 2003 thread X.x

**lfreday39x** · 12-20-2014, 02:38 AM

A big bump here. I wanted to add a few thoughts in on this subject...

I have been using the elliptical for cardio for quite some time. Then decided to try and do HIIT. It's a huge difference! All my muscles feel like they are getting worked. I breathe better, I feel better, and I seem to recover a lot faster in between each set on my lifting days. I also get hungry afterwards.

The way I have been doing it, is I warmup for six to nine minutes. After the warm up, I go all out for 30 seconds (my heart rate will typically peak up to 175 bpm.) After that I do light effort until my heart rate settles back down to 125 bpm. It used to take as long as five minutes to recover, now it's down to less than two minutes. I will continue to do these cycles for 20 minutes. Max total time: roughly 30 minutes including a cooldown.

I invested in a heart rate monitor (chest strap and wrist watch) because the handles would often give an erratic reading, if it gave a reading at all, when going all out. This gives me a much more stable reading.

I accomplish this twice a week.

On a comical side, some people freak out and stare when they hear the elliptical sqealing and begging for mercy while I do it.

**DSUP** · 12-20-2014, 06:05 AM

1001 Calories.jpg

It's blurry because, after riding the machine balls-out for an hour to get it to register a 1,000 calorie burn, it was a little difficult to hold the camera steady (and the machine was still moving).

**sullalto** · 12-20-2014, 03:26 PM

Originally Posted by DSUP

It's blurry because, after riding the machine balls-out for an hour to get it to register a 1,000 calorie burn, it was a little difficult to hold the camera steady (and the machine was still moving).

You're aware most calorie calculators are pretty inaccurate, especially exercise machines-right?

Go for a bike ride, and use strava, map my ride and the wahoo app. Or a run. Calorie counters not at all in agreement, they often disagree by huge percentages.

Pretty number though!

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