Essential Elliptical Trainer Accessories

by E-NewsCast Team
April 30th, 2010

You’ve purchased your new elliptical trainer. You’ve assembledit, made the commitment to train on it 4 times a week for 30minutes, and you’ve even purchased the latest pair of high-techcross training shoes. Congratulations! You’re well on your wayto attaining a new level of health and fitness. But let’s besure that you’re not forgetting anything that could enhance yourelliptical training experience.There are many training accessories that we often take forgranted when working out at a health club: things such as TVs,piped-in music, water bottle holders, book and magazine racks,heart rate monitors, and the list goes on. It’s often adifferent story when setting up an elliptical trainer in yourhome.Below is a list of accessories to consider to enhance yourelliptical training:* Magazine and bookracks — many elliptical trainers come with abuilt-in bookrack. However, this may be nothing more than asmall ledge on the console that is not capable of holding morethat a few sheets of paper. There is a large variety ofbookracks to choose from that slip over the elliptical consoleand can hold even the largest of hardback novels.* Hydration-Pak — Some elliptical trainers are fitted with awater bottle holder, but the location may be awkward to access.Nathan has an ingenious concept called a Hydration-Pak. It isessentially a fanny pack that holds a water bottle and also haspockets for an MP3 player and nutrition bottle. All within easyreach during your elliptical workout.* Heart Rate Monitor — Again, many elliptical trainers comeequipped with a heart rate monitor. There are two basic kinds –a wireless chest strap variety and ones that are built-in to thehandle grips. The wireless models tend to be more accurate. Ifyour elliptical trainer is Polar-compatible you can purchase athird party Polar-compatible heart rate monitor and it will workwith your elliptical. This is great for ellipticals that use theheart rate monitor to control resistance.* MP3 Player — if you like to workout to music and you don’twant to disturb the rest of your household, then this is the wayto go.* Weight Set — an elliptical trainer is primarily a cardiotraining device. Sure, you can tone up your arms and legs, butit’s an aerobic exercise whereas muscle building is anaerobic.For a very small investment, you can purchase an adjustableweight bench and a pair of adjustable dumbbells and add weighttraining to your exercise program. This will not only buff upyour physique, but will greatly assist you in fat burning sincelean muscle burns more calories while at rest.* Training Log — it’s easy to get complacent about yourexercise routine. Don’t just go through the motions each timeyou workout by doing the same pace at the same resistance levelfor the same amount of time. It should be progressive and thebest way to achieve this is to record your training sessions inan exercise training diary. Download a free exercise trainingdiary from our site and use it to keep both your elliptical andweight training programs on track.You may not need every elliptical trainer accessory in the list,but use it as a starting point and recheck it periodically asyou advance in your elliptical training routine. You may findthat some of the items begin to look a little more essential.

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