My First Workout on a Precor EFX Elliptical Trainer: I'm Not Impressed

Today at the gym I did my first workout on a Precor elliptical trainer. While the Precor (model EFX 546) was solid and well built, my workout was horrible. In the end, I was NOT impressed with the Precor.

Didn't Get a Good Workout

After my standard 21 minute workout on the Precor, I was barely winded. While I'd like to think that's because I'm in great shape, I know that's not the reason. For my cardio workouts at the gym (Waverly Oaks Athletic Club in Waltham, MA) during the last few months, I've been alternating between a Lifefitness elliptical cross trainer and a Lifefitness treadmill. Both have given me solid results, and after my standard 21 minute workout, I hit my target heart rate (144), built up a good sweat, and generally felt like I got my whole cardio system pumping and working hard. At the end of the workouts on the cross trainer or treadmill, I'm winded, breathing hard, and soaked in sweat. I don't have a good measure on the elliptical, but on the treadmill, I'm only running 10 minute miles. So I'm not going very fast at all.

But after the Precor workout, I barely broke a sweat and was not at all winded. And that's not because I was going slow. I was moving pretty fast, going at 200 - 215 strides per minute. If I went any faster, I felt like I was going to fly off the darn machine. But I couldn't get my heart rate past 120.

Faulty Heart Rate Monitor

The heart rate monitor was another complaint that I had with the Precor. Like many cardio machines, this elliptical has sliver/metal looking sensors on the railing handles. But most of the time, the sensors would not pick up my heart rate at all. The Lifefitness treadmill has the same HR monitors on the movable arms/handles, and while sometimes spotty, I've used them dozens of times and they worked GREAT in comparison to the Precor sensors.

It's possible that the sensors on this Precor were worn out due to excessive use in the gym. But For the last 12 months of attending this same gym, the Lifefitness ellipticals are always in use and many of the Precors are often sitting idle.

Uncomfortable Elliptical Stride Motion

The general motion of the elliptical was also not that that great. It was VERY smooth and super stable, which I liked. But the motion felt very vertical, almost like running stadiums when I rowed crew in college. But unlike the amazing (and grueling) workout from real stadiums, the momentum enhanced by the smooth fluid motion of the elliptical took all the effort out the workout.

One possible problem might be the stride length. I'm slightly tall, coming in just over 6 feet. That's certainly not huge, but I have pretty long legs. The stride length felt very short and that made the workout feel a bit choppy, I don't know exactly now the stride length compares to that of the Lifefitness cross trainer, but that has a much better feel. Reading up a bit on ellipticals, I discovered that the stride length can vary quite a bit from 14-16 inches on most machines all the way and up to a 20 inch stride length on a Sole E35 elliptical trainer. I'll have to do some trial and error on other machines, but perhaps I need the longer stride length.

Poor Console Design and Function

My final complaint was the console. In general, the console looked quite solid and fully functional with a good feature set and relatively intuitive controls. But my complaint is with with the forward/reverse directions in the pre-defined workouts. I chose workout program #2, and it had parts of the program where I was supposed to pedal in reverse. But the display mentioned this only very briefly. If didn't happen to be looking at the console, I would miss it. And the console was not smart enough to know that I was pedaling in the "wrong" direction. You'd think it would know, and that it would continue to tell me to pedal in reverse until it noticed that I was following the directions. But instead, the program just continue with no indication that I should be pedaling the opposite direction. After a while, I noticed that it again said "pedal forward." Annoyingly, I was already pedaling forward because I had missed the "pedal in reverse" instruction. This seems like a foolish design flaw that would be easy to fix.

Final Review

Overall, I was not impressed. I didn't get my heart rate up, didn't break much of a sweat, and didn't feel like I got any sort of solid workout. And the short stride length and seemingly "steep" path of the elliptical motion made the workout feel very choppy and a little uncomfortable. I plan to give the Precor one more try, but if I have similar results I'm going to return to the treadmill and elliptical cross trainer. Those Lifefitness machines don't seem as well built, solid, and stable as the Precor, but the workouts are much better!

Update:

I decided to give the Precor one more try. To find out how it went, read my Hub about my second workout on a Precor EFX Elliptical Trainer.