Choosing the Right Elliptical For You

Refurbished commercial ellipticals are an excellent choice for both home and commercial users. We stock commercial ellipticals and cross trainers from a variety of top brand such as Life Fitness, Cybex, Precor, and Octane. With so many options it can be hard to decide what is the best option for your needs. Here’s an overview to help guide your decision.

In general each brands’ sticks to its propriety design, and all model offered by that brand are similar. That means most Cybex Arc Trainers feel the same as each other, most Precor ellipticals feel the same as each other and so forth. Once these companies perfected their range of motion, movement patterns and user comfort many year ago, they began focusing on features such as advanced consoles, pre-loaded workouts, entertainment options to attract users. This tends to be the biggest difference between the older and newer models.

Now as far as what each brand offer, this where the differences begin.

Life Fitness Ellipticals

Strengths:

Known for durability and reliability, Life Fitness ellipticals are built to endure high-traffic gym settings or home use.
These are a great get up and go elliptical – with almost no learning curve. Just step on and start moving.
The flywheel is located at the back, promoting a more horizontal elliptical motion. This mimics a natural walking or running motion.
Offers a wide range of models with various features, including personalized workouts, heart rate monitoring, and interactive consoles.
The Life Fitness ellipticals all having moving arms, allowing you to get a full body work.
Narrower frame allow these to be easily moved between rooms and through doorways.

Considerations:

These designs tend to take up more space due to the elongated design.

Cybex Arc Trainers

Strengths:

Cybex focuses on ergonomics, providing comfortable and efficient ellipticals that reduce stress on joints.
Patented Arc Trainers simulate natural movement and provide a low-impact, high-calorie-burning workout.
The flywheel is placed at the front of the machine, providing a vertical movement path. This means the arc trainers have a shorter footprint than some of other brands.
Impressive variety in training programs, incline levels and resistance levels cater to diverse fitness levels.

Considerations:

Arc Trainers may require adjustment for users accustomed to traditional elliptical motion such as the Life Fitness ellipticals.
Arc Trainers come in both full body and lower body only models. Not sure which is which – take a look at your handy comparison chart.
Although more compact, they tend to be wider. Taking the arms off is fairly straightforward and the machine can fit through most conventional doorways when that is done.

Precor Ellipticals

Strengths:

Renowned for smooth and natural movements that mimic running or walking without impact on joints.
Adaptive motion and CrossRamp technology allow users to target different muscle groups by changing the incline while running. This design gives a unique dimension as to how strenuous the workout can be which is often preferred by home where multiple users with different mobility and training needs.
Offers a range of workout programs and advanced console features for personalized training.

Considerations:

Like the Arc Trainers, these have a full body and lower body only model. So make sure you select what works best for you.
With the cross ramp functionality these have a slightly higher step up height, meaning they might not be the best candidate for users with mobility concerns such as rehabilitation clinics or retirement homes.

Octane Ellipticals

Strengths:

Octane ellipticals feature a converging MultiGrip handlebars with fingertip controls and heart rate sensors, allowing users to target different upper body muscles by adjusting their grip.
Low-impact design suits users with joint concerns while offering varied exercises for different muscle groups.
Offers adjustable stride length options, enabling users to customize their workout and target various muscle groups more effectively.
Innovative features like the LateralX series provide lateral motion, engaging more muscles. No better machine on the market if you are looking to build glutes and thighs while burning calories.

Considerations:

Lateral motion might feel unconventional initially to users unfamiliar with the machine.