HIIT Lateral Elliptical Workout

30 Minute HIIT on a Lateral Elliptical Machine

Our last few articles have focused on providing you with information about your Heart Rate. Now we want to share our HIIT Lateral Elliptical Workout (if you are anxious to see the workout plan, click here). We hope you had an opportunity to determine your target Heart Rate from the previous articles. If not, the Charts by age are provided in these articles:

• The Importance of Knowing Your Heart Rate – here we provide a Target Heart Rate Chart by Age and a Resting Heart Rate Chart along with highlighting some of the benefits of knowing your heart rate.
• Finding Your Heart Rate – this article explains how, using the charts from the previous article, you can find your heart rate. Between both of these articles, if you were unfamiliar, you should be able to know how important your Heart Rate is to your health. A wearable monitor is recommended, but if you know how to determine your heart rate without one, they aren’t necessary.

So, after those articles, we did some research about how we can improve our resting heart rate. The results of that research are in this article:

• 3 HIIT Training Benefits – this article discusses 3 benefits of the HIIT workout and quotes from several AARP articles about HIIT.

My conclusion: the most noteworthy articles mentioned HIIT training.

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HIIT Definition

High-intensity interval training (HIIT), also called high-intensity intermittent exercise (HIIE) or sprint interval training (SIT), is a form of interval training, a cardiovascular exercise strategy alternating short periods of intense anaerobic exercise with less intense recovery periods, until too exhausted to continue.

High-intensity interval training – Wikipedia

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Why HIIT?

After doing the research, I was intrigued and wanted to give HIIT a try. I was impressed with the information and wanted to see if it was as beneficial as reported.  That was in late May. Here is it nearing mid-July, so I thought I’d share my conclusion, good or bad. We hope this information will help you decide whether to give it a try too (after consulting with your doctor, of course). With that, read on…

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Note that this is from my personal experience and your results may differ. There are many factors to consider when deciding to begin or increase your exercise routine. Please consult your doctor to see if this type of exercise is right for you.

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A HIIT Lateral Elliptical Workout Plan

As you may know, the best way to accomplish anything is with a plan, so here is the information about my ‘HIIT test’.

Equipment – I planned on switching up my Sunday workout on a Lateral Elliptical to include HIIT training (high bursts of intense – see definition above).

Workout – Beginner – using the Interval setting on the Octane Fitness Machine. This is one of the few machines I can use that doesn’t cause my hip arthritis to act up. For your convenience, we show the Lateral Elliptical I use for my workout below.

Intensity Plan – since the Octane already has an interval setting, I up both intervals by 2 levels. After readying the AARP article, High-Intensity Interval Training: Why It Just May Be a ‘Miracle’ Workout I planned on using their guide, but it was easier to use the Octane ‘as is’. But you can vary the intensity of both levels at any time.

Duration – 30 minutes followed by a 3-minute cool down.

Minute Intervals – begin with 4-minute warm-up, followed by 1 minute of easy-level intensity as quickly as possible. Try to do 3 to 5 one-minute ‘easy but fast’ intervals followed by at least a 3 minute ‘normal pace at higher intensity’.

The Results of the HIIT Lateral Elliptical Test

By adding just 3 to 4 1-minute high-activity intervals, once a week, I was able to see results. Yes, I lost weight, but the most noticeable is that my resting Heart Rate has been below 70 every day since I began. And that was true even when I missed a Sunday workout. Before 5/27, there were days where my resting heart rate was as high as 75.

Going back several weeks in May, prior to when I started HIIT, my resting rate was less than 70 only a few times. In June, several weeks into my HIIT efforts, my resting heart rate was EXCELLENT for my age and most days are in the GOOD category.

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Conclusion

I enjoy my HIIT training session because it didn’t require additional time at the gym. I still have my weight and flexibility training days. My investment is 4-5 minutes of trying to move as fast as I can followed by time to catch my break. Towards that, I highly recommend HIIT training. I think it’s great, especially if you have been training for a while and want to ‘kick it up a notch’ for better results. But do check with your doctor before beginning this type of cardio workout.

One thing I should mention, and it may be me, but I found that it seems harder to get my heart rate to the peak zone. My first workout was for a total of 4 intense minutes, but my Fitbit registered 5 minutes. So, I received a bonus peak minute. Now, it seems that for 5 minutes peak, the Fitbit only registered 4 minutes. Seems like I may have to use the harder level for HIIT and rest at the easy level. I’ll have to check that out.

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You might like…

After this article was published, we were contacted by Andy Brown about his HIIT Ultimate Guide. We took a look and thought it was very informative and helpful. You may also enjoy the video’s he’s published as well. See if you agree: HIIT Workout: The Ultimate Guide

I find that the Lateral Elliptical gives me a nice HIIT workout without being stressful to my joints. If you can find one at your gym, check it out to see if you agree that it’s a great addition to your home gym! And please note that when you come back to our site to purchase, as an Affiliate, Amazon pays us for advertising.

Check out Maggie Binkley’s HIIT Workout Video’s on Amazon Prime Video. She has a great mix of workouts to choose from!

No Equipment Needed. This workout is designed to burn mega-calories and improve fitness and muscle tone through high intensity interval training. 15 Minutes Workouts, great for all fitness levels.

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Wishing you the best of health!