Elliptical knowledge

I used to get a killer workout using the elliptical, I mean killer, knock you out drag you home killer.  I can get my pulse higher and work out longer on the elliptical than I can while running.  The reason I think is becuase you have the opportunity to use your arms as well as your legs, you get constant feedback, you can vary the load.

I think your lactic threshold would be different on the trainer as opposed to running.  I imagine after some training (but why would you want to train to do the elliptical) on the ellipitical you could burn more calories than if running (although elsewhere on the net it says you do not so who knows).

I have used it a handful of times this year since I started training traithlons, mostly when I felt a shin split come on.  The no impact nature of the machine was definitly appealing.  But I still have to learn to run, so I prefer to spend my time doing that.

Yeah, i see. Im not into burning specific # of calories, im looking to train my body to handle the stresses of triathlon. But uhhhh....... Today I used the elliptical for 2 hours at 50-70% (while playing online poker)...not very fast at all, but afterwards went for a solid 2 hour spin, and 10k run....legs feel great...... im thinking my cool down was too short, and little stretching may have contributed.....

But thanks for the help, as for the injury. On about 50% of my runs i experience right knee pain... comes and goes, hasnt been too bad lately, but if i do something wrong to it, it can be a real (explicit deleted) for the remainder of the day. The elliptical is very good on knee's, and I think the ones at the gym are wayyy better then the one at my aunts place.

I actually have some experience with this, being recently injured for 12 weeks with a stress fx after training hard for marathons (I ran over 70mpw with mega hills.)

I wasn't a swim/bike/triguy when I got injured, but I ran pretty strongly, finishing a half marathon at 6:30/mile pace without problem. I was amazed/horrified when I found that on the bike, elliptical and freaking stairmaster, that I was unable to keep working out at my running intensity/HR because my leg muscles, which I presumed to be super-strong from all that hill running, couldn't keep up! In fact, I got sore in weird places just as you did. For the bike and the swim, it has taken me 12 weeks to get to a decent form despite my strong aerobic base training from running.

This all is in line with the "specificity" demands of training, and actually in retrospect, not so unexpected. Even a motion similar to running such as elliptical, will be sufficiently different in key areas to cause trouble when going distance.

Expect to get hammered on the stairmaster, pool running, and even strangely, spin classes which aren't remotely like "normal cycling" if you haven't done them much before.

The unfortunate reality also is that you can train hard to be good on the elliptical, but it will be difficult to translate to faster run times (specificity again). It's better than no exercise for sure, but it just takes one or two untrained running-specific muscles to shut you down when you're pushing your limits. Same vice-versa. The only thing that overlaps is the cardio, but I definitely found that the amount of lactic acid produced by the untrained muscles strained my (strong) cardio so much that I could barely tell that I was a good cardio athlete on devices that I was inexperienced on.

That's why great tri guys have to train 25-30+ hrs/week. Not enough overlap to just gun one of 'em.