Until two years ago I was not a person to talk to about cross-training. I’m a runner, and runners run. Period. But that’s not exactly true if you want to prolong your running career and maintain a well-rounded fitness program. Still, my conversion to cross-training believer didn’t come easily.

As a high school student I was a gymnast. Not satisfied specializing on one or two events, I competed in all of them. I loved gymnastics and believe it’s one of the best sports for developing overall fitness. Sadly, there’s only so much a middle aged body can take when it comes to gymnastics, and I’ve had some pretty serious injuries related to that sport so it’s not in my best interest to pursue it any further.

Over twenty years ago I had surgery on my neck to fuse discs damaged in a fall from the horizontal bar, and had to stop running for a year. During that time I tried swimming, another sport that can develop an overall strong, fit body if you can endure the monotony of swimming back and forth, over and over again, to get the workout that you need. I swam a lot of miles while waiting for the doctors okay to resume my running program. I also logged a lot of miles on my bicycle. I enjoyed that, but to elevate my heart rate to the level I was used to from running, I had to go really far, really fast. It was fun, but it never felt the same as running and I never felt like I was working as hard or efficiently as I wanted. Once I completed my year of healing from spinal fusion, I hit the roads hard.

Two years ago I had to have surgery on both of my feet. Not because of running too much, but because I have some bones in my feet that are too short and caused too much stress in all the wrong places. I now have five pieces of titanium in both feet. My feet work properly now but I still get sore if I overdo the running. One year ago I had to have my lower spine fused. Again, not because of too much running, but because I have degenerative disc disease. Not really a disease, this is something that’s very common and affects different people in different ways and most of us will feel its effects in one way or another as we age. I now have six pieces of titanium in my back. All of this brings me back to the original point: I need to cross-train if I want to continue running.

An article toward the back of Runner’s World magazine last year led me to a contraption called “ElliptiGO”. Picture an elliptical trainer on wheels and you’re on the right track. Described as an elliptical bicycle, the ElliptiGO has two wheels and handle bars with hand brakes like a bike, but no seat. Your feet sit in trays and your legs move in an elliptical motion while you stand upright. This upright position produces more wind resistance than a bike and provides an excellent workout! The motion is as close to running as you can get without actually running, and the pounding on the body is nonexistent. If you can’t handle stares from curious onlookers, the ElliptiGO isn’t for you. But if you want a great workout very similar to running without the pounding, give one a try. Check out www.elliptigo.com or stop in at a HealthStyles Exercise Equipment near you for more information. I promise it’ll put a smile on your face and some sweat on your brow.

Tom Riggs
Fort Collins Coloroadoan

HealthStyles Exercise Equipment carries the full selection of ElliptiGO bikes. Complete specifications and additional videos, images, and reviews are online here:

ElliptiGO 11R Outdoor Elliptical Bike

ElliptiGO 8C Outdoor Elliptical Bike

ElliptiGO 3C Outdoor Elliptical Bike

By Brandon Wood, Creator and Editor of The Gearist, gearist.com

I feel like I should start this with a disclaimer: I do not use elliptical machines. I have used them in the past, but it’s probably been since 2005 that I’ve found myself atop one.

A few weeks ago I got an email from the people at ElliptiGO to try one of their odd looking machines. The ElliptiGO is something that I had seen before and was something that I was really looking forward to trying out. When I saw it prior to my personal experience it was because one Mr. Dean Karnazes was riding one from San Francisco to Los Angeles, a ride of a mere 488 miles.

I met Mike Gostigian, a trainer here in New York City who has a few of the machines for people to demo, on a sunny and brisk Saturday on Central Park West. After a brief overview of the machine and how it operates I hopped aboard and took off.

A few things about the machine itself; the frame is aluminum and has 20 inch wheels (100 PSI). The drive arms, the platforms where you stand which make the machine go, are made of a multi-modulus carbon. It’s not the lightest “bicycle” in the world, coming in at 40 lbs though that is largely because the market for a super light “racing” model simply isn’t there. The shifting is from one Shimano Alfine SL-S500 trigger shifter, typical mountain bike shifter, which shifts the 8-speed internal gearing. If you’ve never seen internal gearing (or NOT seen it as the case may be) it’s a very cool concept where all the shifting takes place inside the rear hub. The drive arms are attached by a unique crank arm to a 53-tooth chain ring.

Now for the riding part! It is daunting at first to climb up on the ElliptiGO, but any hesitation was gone in about two seconds. Regardless of its weight, the bike (yep, since it’s got two wheels it IS technically a bike) is very agile and easy to maneuver. The handlebars are adjustable to your weight and the stride distance can be set to one of four different lengths. As a testament to its agility, we were riding in Central Park on a Saturday at about noon. That’s like being on the D.C. beltway at rush hour, but with walkers, runners, cyclists, horse-drawn carriages and …tourists! The two hand brakes gave me plenty of security and safety.

The trickiest part has to be the shifting. Dialing the gears in just right for either an ascent or a descent can take some getting used to. The best way to get used to it is to take your time and remember that this bike can coast just like any other. As we came around the Northwest corner of Central Park, Mike and I hit the Harlem hills and went up with probably less effort than on a bike. Our two loop, 12 mile ride did not go without several comments, questions and looks, but it sure was fun!

The ElliptiGO is an absolute blast to ride. Had we been in any headwind, which apparently results in your body being a big sail that slows you down, I may be less enthusiastic (not really). It is a fantastic workout and for those that may have real, permanent issues with actually running, this is an excellent opportunity to take the elliptical machine that you would otherwise be standing on in a gym for hours at a time and see the outdoors!

 

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Stop in to demo an ElliptiGO Mobile Elliptical Trainer at one of HealthStyles’ retail locations or call us at 800-829-9705 for more information.

Click here to shop online for the ElliptiGO Mobile Elliptical Trainers

A University of Colorado graduate has found a way for people to get the cardio workout of running without the pain that follows when you pound the pavement.

Inventor and CU grad Brent Teal invented the ElliptiGO to be a way for people to get the workout of running and the low impact exercise of an elliptical without being confined to a gym.

So what’s an ElliptiGO?

At its core, the ElliptiGO is a fitness device that emulates running outdoors without the associated impact. Many different names for the product have emerged recently, including elliptical exercise cycle, stand-up bike, mobile elliptical trainer, mobile cross-trainer, and outdoor elliptical trainer. Regardless of the moniker, there are four fundamental attributes of an elliptical bicycle:

1. It is used outdoors
2. It has two wheels
3. It is propelled by an elliptical motion that emulates running
4. It performs similarly to a conventional road bike in terms of speed and handling

Elliptical bikes enable people to take low-impact weight-bearing exercise outdoors. Studies show that people tend to exercise longer, more intensely, and more consistently when they are able to do so outdoors. As a result, elliptical bikes provide people with a great way to get fit and stay active for years to come.

What’s wrong with the conventional bicycle?

There’s nothing wrong with the bicycle. It’s a great vehicle. In fact, every member of our company has spent a lot of time on a bicycle. The two founders are former Ironman triathletes (a race that includes a 112-mile bicycling portion) and our employees include former professional road and track bike racers and competitive triathletes. We are not tying to recreate or change the bicycle – far from it. In fact, what we’ve created isn’t actually a bicycle, it’s a pedal-driven scooter. If it were at all easy to say “elliptical pedal-driven scooter” we’d call it that. We’ve simply chosen the term bicycle out of convenience, but we’re the first to admit that the ElliptiGO is not a bicycle. More importantly, the ElliptiGO is a solution made by runners, for runners. Our goal is to re-create running outdoors without the impact. As any runner will tell you, bicycles don’t do that for a number of reasons.

First of all, the cycling position is very different from the running position. Cyclists ride seated with their upper torso hunched forward so they can reach the handlebars. Runners exercise in a much more upright position. Secondly, the cycling propulsion motion is very different from the running motion. Cyclists pedal in a circle while runners take long elliptical strides. Finally, the overall experience is different. The cycling position facilitates resting, but can make it challenging to keep the head up, which results in many cyclists spending a lot of their time staring at the ground a few feet in front of their own front wheel. A runner’s head is in a relaxed position that enables the runner to more comfortably absorb his environment visually and appreciate his surroundings. Cycling and running both have their good points and bad points, but we believe that they are significantly different, and the ElliptiGO is designed to deliver an experience that is much closer to running than to cycling.

That said, the ElliptiGO would not have come into existence if we had been able to find a comfortable bicycle saddle. After thousands of miles of cycling, professional fittings, and trying out a wide variety of seats, we concluded that bike seats are just uncomfortable for some people. Accepting the fact that our nether regions were going to go numb every time we worked out just stopped making sense after awhile – especially since we don’t have kids yet. Layer on top of that the lower back, neck, and shoulder pain caused by the hunched over riding position and the need to come up with a low-impact alternative to cycling seemed pretty obvious. Turns out we weren’t alone. Well over half of the 1,500 cyclists we’ve surveyed have indicated that the pain caused by the seat and riding position is a drawback to cycling. Elliptical bikes eliminate the pain from the seat and riding position. We think that’s a good thing.

How can you ride a bike without a seat?

People often ask us how it’s possible to ride a bicycle without a seat. Fortunately, it’s easy to ride an elliptical cycle because it turns out that people are able to balance quite well when standing. Think about the last time you were riding a bike over some kind of obstacle – train tracks, potholes, speed bumps – chances are you stood up on the pedals to improve your balance when crossing the obstacle. Basically, the elliptical bike rider is in that well-balanced position the entire time.

In addition, the need to rest on a seat while exercising is something of a myth. People run marathons without sitting; people hike for hours on end without sitting; and almost everyone finds themselves walking and standing for long periods of time fairly frequently. Just think about the last time you were at the mall, or Disneyland, or sightseeing. Riding an elliptical bike is basically like walking, hiking, or running. You can comfortably do it for hours, and as you’ll see on the “Epic Rides” pages, we’ve tested our theory and found that there is no substantive difference in the amount of time we can ride the ElliptiGO versus how long we could walk, run, or ride a bike.

Is there anything else out there like it?

We haven’t seen any other elliptical bikes out there yet. We have seen an elliptically-driven tricycle advertised on NBC’s The Biggest Loser and endorsed by the show. These tricycles appear to be targeted at overweight individuals and we’ve been told that TBL contestants will be seen riding these mobile elliptical trikes as part of their workout regimens this season. These outdoor elliptical trainers use a short elliptical/circular pedaling motion for propulsion and include arm levers that help drive the vehicle forward. Because it doesn’t perform like a bicycle however in terms of speed and handling, the three-wheeled mobile outdoor elliptical trainer used on The Biggest Loser is not an elliptical bike. Although this isn’t one, we do expect to see other elliptical bike companies enter the market in the near future.

The best way to find out more about ElliptiGO, and how fun it is to ride,  is to go to the closest HealthStyles Exercise Equipment location and do a test ride. HealthStyles is excited to introduce this new and exciting outdoor elliptical to the Denver Metro area and Colorado. You just have to stop in and try it!

Click here to shop online for the ElliptiGO Mobile Elliptical Trainers.

A woman who had knee surgery needed a way to exercise without the pounding of running to her joints. She was given a free ElliptiGO 8S Mobile Elliptical Trainer on The Doctors TV Show so she could have a low impact, running-like workout outdoors.

Click here to buy the EliptiGO 8S Mobile Elliptical Trainer online.

The best way to find out more about ElliptiGO, and how fun it is to ride,  is to go to the closest HealthStyles Exercise Equipment location and do a test ride. HealthStyles is excited to introduce this new and exciting outdoor elliptical to the Denver Metro area and Colorado. You just have to stop in and try it!

An introduction to the ElliptiGO 8S Mobile Elliptical Trainer and some of the elite runners who use it.

Dean Karnazes, the Ultramarathon Man, discussing his thoughts on the new ElliptiGO elliptical bicycle. Dean has been using the ElliptiGO to cross train for his extreme endurance events and plans to start completing ElliptiGO events as well. His epic rides consist of a 488 mile ride from San Francisco to the start of the Los Angeles Marathon and the Hell’s Gate 100, a 100 mile ride through Death Valley.

Click here to buy the EliptiGO 8S Mobile Elliptical Trainer online.

The best way to find out more about ElliptiGO, and how fun it is to ride,  is to go to the closest HealthStyles Exercise Equipment location and do a test ride. HealthStyles is excited to introduce this new and exciting outdoor elliptical to the Denver Metro area and Colorado. You just have to stop in and try it!

An overview of how the ElliptiGO 8S Mobile Elliptical Trainer performs.

Click here to buy the EliptiGO 8S Mobile Elliptical Trainer online.

The best way to find out more about ElliptiGO, and how fun it is to ride,  is to go to the closest HealthStyles Exercise Equipment location and do a test ride. HealthStyles is excited to introduce this new and exciting outdoor elliptical to the Denver Metro area and Colorado. You just have to stop in and try it!

ElliptiGO customers talk about riding the ElliptiGO Mobile Elliptical Trainer.

Click here to shop for the EliptiGO Mobile Elliptical Trainers online.

The best way to find out more about ElliptiGO, and how fun it is to ride,  is to go to the closest HealthStyles Exercise Equipment location and do a test ride. HealthStyles is excited to introduce this new and exciting outdoor elliptical to the Denver Metro area and Colorado. You just have to stop in and try it!