Ready to unlock beast mode on your fat-burning goals? Here’s how to use the elliptical trainer the right way for weight loss, including some pro tips to max out fat burning, and three workouts to get you started.
The Elliptical machine, like all cardio machines, can be an amazing weight-loss tool…
When it is used properly.
Which is where most trainees stumble when it comes to cardio. Either they do cardio too long, not at the right intensity, or use the wrong machines for fat burning.
In this article, we will look at how to use the Elliptical Machine the right way for supercharged fat loss.
We’ll cover the reasons you should choose the elliptical machine for weight loss, share some tips to maximize your time on the elliptical, and drop three fat-burning workouts you can do on the elliptical to get the ball rolling with your weight loss goals.
Let’s jump right in.
Benefits of Using an Elliptical for Weight Loss
Before we dive into the “how” of using the elliptical cardio machine for weight loss, I want to take a moment to highlight the “whys”.
Specifically, why you should use the elliptical machine for your weight loss-focused cardio training over other machines, such as the treadmill or stair climber.
Here are some of the elliptical benefits that make it an excellent machine:
Low Impact
Perhaps the best benefit of the elliptical machine is that it’s virtually zero impact on your joints.
When you walk, run, or climb stairs, there is some degree of impact every time you lift your foot and set it back down again.
The higher the impact (from exercises like jumping or sprinting), the greater the toll your workout takes on your joints. While high-impact workouts do wonders for strengthening your bones, they can also be too intense and cause joint and bone deterioration.
Not so with the elliptical machine.
Because your foot never lifts off the pedals, there is virtually no impact on your joints at all.
There is the repetitive motion—pushing/pulling on the handles, striding on the pedals—that can lead to repetitive motion joint injuries, but the motion is largely natural (like walking) and thus is mostly safe.
For those who are worried about the health of their knees, hips, ankles, and lower back, even high-intensity elliptical training is likely the safest options around.
Train Your Whole Body
Take a look at all the muscles worked on the elliptical, and you’ll see that it gives you a full body workout every time you use it.
When you push on the handles, your chest, triceps, and shoulder muscles engage, and your back, shoulders, and biceps get to work when you pull on the handles.
Your quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves all engage through the pedaling/walking motion. Finally, your core (abs, lower back, and obliques) work to keep you upright and balanced throughout your workout.
No other cardio machine in the gym can say the same thing. Even the rowing machine, often considered the “best” for a full-body workout, fails to hit as many muscles as the elliptical machine.
Thus, training on the elliptical can lead to better strength and endurance in your entire body with regular workouts.
Burns More Calories
The number of calories burned on the elliptical ends up being higher than the calories you’d burn on pretty much any other cardio machine.
According to Harvard Medical School1, over the course of a 30-minute training session, a 155-pound person will burn
- 324 calories on the elliptical machine
- 278 calories on the stationary bike, pedaling vigorously
- 252 calories on the rowing machine, rowing at a moderate pace
- 216 calories on the stair step machine
It’s pretty clear to see that the elliptical burns more calories than almost every of its competitors. Heck, even “vigorous weight lifting” will only burn around 216 calories in that same time—nearly 50% less than you’d burn on the elliptical machine.
Burning more calories through your workout is a crucial component in your weight loss journey. The more calories you burn, the more your body needs to pull from available fat stores and the food you eat to replenish the depleted energy.
Over time, this leads to a faster metabolism, which means your body is more efficient at absorbing and utilizing the calories you consume, storing fewer calories in fat form.
Easy to Train HIIT
One of the best ways to push your fitness to the next level and burn A LOT of calories in a short amount of time is through HIIT, or high intensity interval training, workouts.
Simply put, HIIT involves periods of high/maximum-intensity effort with periods of low-intensity effort—for example, sprinting for 30 seconds, followed by 60 to 120 seconds of walking or jogging.
While the treadmill is typically seen as the best machine for HIIT workouts (because it makes sprint training so easy), you’ll find the elliptical machine is an excellent option, too. There are a lot of elliptical HIIT workout options that will help you to burn a significant amount of calories—and specifically fat calories—using this machine.
Given that it’s easier on your joints, trains your whole body, and burns more calories, it’s fair to say that the elliptical may very well be the best machine to use for not only your HIIT workouts, but all workouts!
Elliptical Workouts to Lose Weight Fast
If you’re looking to push your fat-burning and weight loss efforts up a notch, you’ll want to give the elliptical machine a try.
Thanks to this machine, you’ve got a lot of options of workouts that will torch calories, build muscle, and encourage weight loss.
Below, we have three awesome workouts to choose from: one low-intensity, one focused on muscle-building, and one specifically aimed at high-intensity training.
Incorporate them all into your weekly workout regimen and you’ll see some serious results in the mirror and on the scale.
Workout 1: Low and Slow
With low-intensity, steady-state exercise, your body is able to utilize the oxygen in your bloodstream to activate and burn stored fats.
Though you won’t burn as many calories over the course of your workout, the bulk of the calories you do burn will be fat-based rather than sugar-based.
This is why lower-intensity cardio exercise is such a great tool for burning fat.
For a simple low-and-slow workout, here’s what you need to do:
Minute 0-5: Start off pedaling at a slow, easy pace with no resistance or incline. Give your body time to warm up, limber up your muscles, and get your heart beating. This is the warm-up—the rest of the workout is yet to come.
Minute 6-30: Once you’re warmed up, pick up the pace a little and add some light resistance or a gentle incline. Your goal is to push your heart rate into the “fat-burning zone”, which is roughly 70% of your Max Heart Rate. For example, if your MaxHR is around 180 BPM, you’ll enter the fat-burning zone once your heart rate hits 126 BPM.
Minute 31-55: Keep the effort up, but now switch to pedaling in reverse. This will hit your lower body muscles differently, training your quads, shins, and calves more than your glutes and hamstrings. Maintain the same speed, incline, and resistance, just switch directions. Again, keep your heart rate in that “fat burning zone”.
Minute 56-60: Slow down, drop the incline and resistance, and use the last few minutes to cool down.
This workout may not feel particularly challenging, but sustaining 70% Max HR for an hour will be more fatiguing than you might realize.
You’ll find that you walk away from this workout having burned A LOT of calories (easily upward of 400 or 500), much of it fat-based calories.
Workout 2: Shred Those Muscles
With this workout, your aim is to target your muscles, building strength and endurance to boost your metabolism and increase the number of calories your body naturally burns on a daily basis.
After all, muscle cells burn more energy than inert fat cells.
For this muscle-focused workout:
Minute 0-5: Start off pedaling at a slow, easy pace with no resistance or incline. Give your body time to warm up, limber up your muscles, and get your heart beating. This is the warm-up—the rest of the workout is yet to come.
Minute 6-20: Reduce the movement of your legs as much as possible. You’ll still need them to keep you upright, but try to engage your arms to the max to push/pull on the handles and do the pedaling work for you. Treat the elliptical machine like an assault bike, and let your arms do the work for 15 minutes.
Minute 21-35: Time to give your arms a break and focus on your legs. For the next 15 minutes, alternate between 30 to 60-second periods of squat walking, and 1 to 2-minute periods of normal pedaling. Your quads will be on fire by the end of this part!
Minute 36-45: Raise the incline to the max, and add at least 50% resistance. This will hammer your glutes and hamstrings hard and burn serious calories.
Minute 46-50: Slow down, drop the incline and resistance, and use the last few minutes to cool down.
Workout 3: HIIT Killer
Time to take your efforts to the next level with some HIIT! With just 25 minutes of working out, you’ll burn serious amounts of calories and fat, build muscle, and increase your cardiovascular capability significantly. It’s a game-changer for sure!
For this workout:
Minute 0-5: Start off pedaling at a slow, easy pace with no resistance or incline. Give your body time to warm up, limber up your muscles, and get your heart beating. This is the warm-up—and brace yourself, because what’s next is going to be BRUTAL!
Minute 6: Pick up the pace until you’re pedaling/working the handles as fast and hard as you can. Don’t worry about adjusting the incline; just push your body to top speed and intensity.
Minute 7: Slow down to your “normal” pace, for a low-intensity interval.
Minute 8: Speed up once more, raising the incline and resistance to 50%.
Minute 9-10: Slow down to your “normal” pace, for a low-intensity interval. Give yourself two minutes to recover.
Minute 11: Push yourself to sprinting speed again, sustaining it for a full minute of pedaling as fast and hard as possible.
Minute 12: Slow down to your “normal” pace, for a low-intensity interval.
Minute 13: Speed up once more, raising the incline and resistance to 60%.
Minute 14-15: Slow down to your “normal” pace, for a low-intensity interval. Give yourself two minutes to recover.
Minute 16: Push yourself to sprinting speed again, sustaining it for a full minute of pedaling as fast and hard as possible.
Minute 17: Slow down to your “normal” pace, for a low-intensity interval.
Minute 18: Speed up once more, raising the incline and resistance to 80%.
Minute 19-20: Slow down to your “normal” pace, for a low-intensity interval. Give yourself two minutes to recover.
Minute 21: Push yourself to sprinting speed again, sustaining it for a full minute of pedaling as fast and hard as possible.
Minute 22: Slow down to your “normal” pace, for a low-intensity interval.
Minute 23: Speed up once more, raising the incline and resistance to 100%.
Minute 24-30: Slow down to your “normal” pace, drop the incline and resistance, and use the last few minutes to cool down.
Tips for Burning Fat on the Elliptical
Want to burn more fat on the elliptical machine? Here are a few tips to try:
Squeeze your core with every movement. Working the muscles in your abs, obliques, and lower back will increase muscle engagement, deplete existing energy, and activate the fats stored around your midsection.
Stay in that fat-burning zone as much as possible. Use the elliptical’s built-in heart rate monitors to keep track of your heart rate, and speed up or slow down as needed to stay around to 65-70% Max HR.
Go for longer. Push yourself to 45, 60, or even 90 minutes of low-and-slow training. You’ll burn fewer calories per minute/hour, but because the workout is longer, you’ll ultimately burn more when all is said and done. Plus, low-and-slow workouts are excellent for fat-burning.
Hit those muscles. Training your muscles is an excellent way to burn more calories and fats, so try to incorporate resistance training into your elliptical workouts as much as possible.
FAQs — Weight Loss on the Elliptical Trainer
How much weight can you lose with an elliptical?
Really, the sky is the limit! The more you incorporate elliptical training into your fat-burning and weight-loss lifestyle, the more results you’ll see over time.
Ellipticals are an excellent fat-burning tool thanks to their inherently low-impact nature, meaning you can rack up more time in the fat-burning zone compared to other forms of cardio that are more impactful on bones and joints.
What’s the best kind of workout to do an elliptical to lose weight?
HIIT burns an insane amount of calories, pushes your cardiovascular system, and burns fat.
It’s the best type of workout to do if you want to take your fitness to the next level and lose as much weight as possible.
That said, steady-state cardio is also a good choice as it won’t leave you feeling cratered after your workout.
Smart trainees know that there is a time and place for BOTH, so incorporate both into your workout routine for the best results possible.
The Bottom Line
The elliptical machine isn’t “just another workout machine”—it’s got the potential to be one of the best in the gym, by a wide margin.
The fact that there is virtually no impact on your joints, you can work your entire body, and you can burn a lot of calories (through regular or HIIT workouts) makes it a real game-changer and a great addition to your fat-burning, weight loss-focused training.
When preparing your weekly routine for the gym, include the elliptical for your fat-burning cardio and start cranking up the results on the scale and waist size.
More Elliptical Machine Guides and Articles
Elliptical vs Running: Which One is Best for Your Workout Goals? Wondering whether the elliptical or running is right for you and your goals? We compare the two when it comes to calories burned, building cardio, weight loss, and more.
How Much Do Ellipticals Cost? (44 Different Models Compared). Ellipticals can be a costly investment into your workout goals. Here is a look at how much each type of elliptical costs and how much to spend on one.
