Eliptical Tips?

[BlueTravesty]

So my wife and I were both doing the eliptical the other day. As far as simulated distance, my personal best is 2.89 in 30 minutes, and I was booking it. I'm at the 20 minute mark, pushing to get to the 2 mile mark, and my wife is at 2.25!! Now, here are a few things to consider-

My wife is about 5'2", and therefore has shorter legs than I do (I'm 5'11")

Until we joined the gym, she had not done any consistent regular cardio for about 4 years (whereas I jogged, jumped rope and did a whole host of cardio at Kung Fu- and in the spring and summer I swam laps on my own time.)

Overall, I was going quite a bit faster (I checked my strides per minute and they were consistently greater than hers.)

This isn't jealousy; In her junior high days, she did track, so I have no doubt that some of her "runner's technique" might help. What I'd like to know is HOW she does it. I've asked her already and she just shrugged
Here are a few hypotheses

1) She has a smoother stride, which counts for more "distance" per step.
2) Her legs are shorter, so maybe it takes less time to complete one "cycle"
3) The Eliptical Machine is inaccurate
This one sounds like a joke, and it is-mostly. However, when I took the "fitness assessment" on it, it said my fitness level was "High"- this is not the case, unfortunately... but hey, I'm working on it!

So are there any ideas? Is there any way I can make the most of my cardio sessions?

[Chief Fox]

The eliptical is great for a very low impact low intensity cardio session. In my opinion, you can build a great cardio base on the eliptical.

Keep in mind, those gym elipticals are pretty much for very large out of shape people so you probably are very fit when compared to the person the machine was designed for.

As far as improving your cardio goes, there are tons of things that you can do. I'm a big fan of circuit training. Quickly moving from exercise to exercise with very little or no rest in between.

Here's what we did at my BJJ conditioning class last week.

The instructor set up 5 stations.

Station 1: Jump rope
Station 2: circular ground movements (wiith your hands and feet on the floor in the bear crawl position, step through with your one leg and move your hand over so now you are on your hands and feet facing up. Step through again so now you're facing down. Keep going and change direction regularly.
Station 3: Single leg take down lunges.
Station 4: Medicine ball throw situps with a partner.
Station 5: Lateral jump burpees over a kicking sheild.

We did each station for 1 minute. Completing all stations equals 1 round. We did 5 rounds in 25 minutes.

I was fried. You can make up your own stations. Try to make it a full body workout.

Doing something like a this a couple of times a week added to your eliptical training and your cardio will EXPLODE!

Good luck

[BlueTravesty]

Sounds intriguing... That bear-crawl thing sounds pretty good, I'll have to try it at the park next time I go there. I do have to get back into jumping rope... it was one of my favorite excercises at Kung Fu. I miss doing the circuit, and I was having trouble thinking of some stations that wouldn't require a heavy bag- I've never tried lateral burpees, so that will provide an interesting wrinkle. I'm gonna have to try these

All in all, very good ideas. Thanks, Chief Fox!