Can someone talk to me about the benefits they found from using a cross-trainer?

[BelindaLouisa]

I run, and have been using a cross-trainer a bit for some low impact exercise (I also hate treadmills as it's all the same pace and I'm likely to fall off.)

The crosstrainer is great, but is it really also helping tone and strengthen my arms? I feel like I am just holding the handles! Also, is it really helping do the same to my core? I have read it does, and I make sure I am not slumping, but I am still not convinced.

I'd love to hear, and be encouraged, by benefits people have had in RL rather than relying on Google!

Thanks

ps I do 5/5.5k each time I use it, so around 35 mins

I think it can be ok if you do HIIT workouts . But I did an hour a day 5 days a week, pretty high intensity for about 2 years and didn’t see much difference. Spin is far more effective for the core imo and weights for the rest. And diet obvs.

A cross trainer is a cardio machine. If you want to strengthen your arms and build a bit of muscle (which is what “toning” really means, well with a bit of fat loss maybe), you need to do strength training. I think it will help your core a bit, but planks will be more effective.

I think cross-trainers are an excellent piece of kit, because of the low impact on joints and the way the effort is spread more than, say, a treadmill. I think the trick is to increase resistance, even if just for short bursts. That way, it's strength training as well as cardiovascular. Using it for HIIT sessions is good. There are quite a few sessions on YouTube that you can follow if you want direction.

I used one quite a bit about 5 years ago and worked up to doing three 1-hour HIIT sessions weekly. Needless to say my fitness improved a lot. At the time I was beating myself up about not doing better, but in retrospect that was pretty amazing. I'm going to try and work towards a similar target now, as I want to get back into running and I think it's a good general preparation for that.

If you feel you're just holding the handles, you need to increase the resistance so that it's more of an effort to pull them. And switch around a bit - say a minute just in a forward motion, then a minute focused on pulling, a minute not using your arms at all (just pedalling), a minute going backwards, a minute focused on pushing... rinse and repeat.

@Beachtastic that is really helpful, thank you

I always feel like it's working my lats rather than my arms