5 Reasons to Use a Cross Trainer

Home Cross trainersIf you have ever gone to a gym, any gym, then you know that cross trainers are quite popular. There’s a good reason for that – cross trainers have a lot of health benefits.

Here are just some of the reasons why you should use a cross trainer:

1.  Workout for the Whole Body

When you’re using the cross trainer, you’re using your whole body. Unlike the treadmill, which allows you to only work on the lower half of your body, the cross trainer lets you work on almost all of your body’s muscles. After all, that’s why it is called a ‘cross’ trainer in the first place.

The cross trainer lets you simultaneously work out the

  • quadriceps
  • biceps
  • triceps
  • hamstrings
  • glutes
  • chest
  • back muscles

As you move your legs in a walking or running motion, you use your leg muscles and work out the lower half of your body. By holding the handlebars and making a resistance to the lower half of your body, you’re working out the upper half – the back, the chest, etc.

However, this is the case only if you’re using the cross trainer properly. Some people just focus on the legs and superficially work out the upper body, which is not the right way to do it. You should try to create as much resistance to your lower body as you can. Only then can you get a full-body workout and get the most of the cross trainer.

2.  Great Cardio Exercise

Not only does the cross trainer help you build muscles, but it also helps you improve your cardio endurance. Actually, the cross trainer is probably the best way to build your cardio, which is why many professional fitness trainers swear by it.

Using the cross trainer will get your heart rate up, making it stronger each time you exercise. Besides that, the cross trainer also exercises your lungs and breathing capacity.

After using the cross trainer for a while, you’ll surely notice how much your cardio stamina has improved. You’ll be able to run or walk for much longer periods of time than before. You can see your progress during some other activities, too – cycling, rope-jumping, etc.

3.  Effective for Weight Loss

WeightlossBecause it requires you to use a lot of different muscles at once, the cross trainer also helps you burn calories fast.

Some experts say that a regular half an hour workout can burn up to 400 calories. That’s a lot, considering you burn half as much running on a treadmill for 30 minutes.

Besides that, 400 calories can be considered an average energy value of one meal.

The best thing about cross trainers is that you don’t even feel tired while using it. The RPE (Relative Perceived Exertion) is quite low with cross trainer users. So, basically, you’ll be able to use it for a longer time and burn a bunch of calories without even realizing it.

4.  Helps Build up Strength

The cross trainer can help you become stronger and fitter, which is no secret.

However, many doctors recommend the cross trainer to patients as a form of physical therapy because it’s a great weight-bearing exercise.

Using the cross trainer resembles a real walking motion. The machine follows your natural ankle, foot, knee, and even hip movement, and doesn’t put any stress on the joints. Your feet lay flat on the pedals without lifting, which is why there’s no strain.

When you’re walking or running on the ground, each step creates a lot of pressure on the joints. That can be quite detrimental to the health and strength of the joints. Furthermore, it can cause you a lot of pain. The cross trainer enables you to get the same workout, only without the stress on the joints.

Also, the cross trainer can help strengthen your bones and prevent bone diseases, such as osteoporosis.

5.  Easy to Use

This is the most obvious reason to use the cross trainer, but in the busy world we live in today, simplicity is very important.

The only thing you need to do is step on the cross trainer and start walking. If you want, you can choose a program of your liking, which is also pretty easy to do. Just press the buttons, and that’s it. Why not try out a new program and test your endurance?

While you’re exercising on the cross trainer, you can multitask. You can use your phone, read a book, watch a movie, etc.

You can get a cross trainer for your home if you don’t like going to the gym, or don’t have the time. The cross trainer is not that big either, so you can probably fit it in even if you live in an apartment.

Furthermore, the cross trainer is a low-maintenance machine. Because it has fewer parts, it is less likely to break. However, even if it does accidentally break, most cross trainers will have a warranty that can cover the reparation costs.

Rehab Exercises for Common Injuries





What are rehab exercises?






How do these exercises work?







Are there any alternatives?




Knee Injury Rehab Exercises

knee massageThere are many different situations where the knee has to be reconditioned. These situations include illnesses (like arthritis), activity-related injuries, and even general injuries as well.

The first step in pain and injury treatments involves stretches and exercises. Knee pain and injuries are very annoying but you don’t need to suffer anymore. Physiotherapy can relieve chronic pain and address any activity-related injury.

The exercises

Regardless of what knee exercises we are talking about, they all have the same goal –  their main purpose is to build strength and flexibility in all knee muscles. The muscles that can be targeted with these exercises include the hamstrings, quadriceps, gluteus medius and maximus, abductors, and adductors.

Furthermore, If we treat these muscles with the right set of exercises, we can increase the range of motion in the knee joint. Only the strong muscles surrounding the knee can provide enough support that can potentially prevent future injuries.

How to properly treat knee joints?

There are several things that we need to keep in mind. In the first phase, the patient has to perform the exercises that can gently stretch both muscles and ligaments. At the same time, a physician needs to monitor these activities.

In a typical scenario, he should encourage these movements as quickly as possible. Of course, he can’t encourage them if the pain doesn’t allow it. As you gain your strength back, these exercises will become more demanding.

That is a trend that scales gradually. The end goal is to increase the load on your knee as well as the surrounding muscles. As you keep getting stronger, the physician will eventually start targeting different movements. In particular, he will target the movements that you need for different kinds of activities and sports.

The key points

There are several key points that the physician needs to follow to ensure that these exercises are as effective as possible.

You need to warm up and cool down at the right times. You can walk or ride a bike for about five minutes to warm up properly. The next step is stretching. Ideally, you should perform it before you do any strength-building exercise.

Your therapist should constantly monitor the rate of progress of your therapy. If you feel pain at any point, the therapy should be stopped and the physician needs to target the issue directly. Optimally, the therapist should also force controlled movements to get the best results.

Alternative treatments and therapies

Knee pain and injuries can be very annoying and stressful. They can both cause great suffering as well. Such treatments include platelet-rich injections and stem cell injections.

These therapies are fairly new but they are already showing great promise. They can effectively harness the potential of the body’s own growth factors. These factors are very important for healing as well as regeneration.

The best thing about these treatments is that they can be applied in a clinical setting. Furthermore, they don’t involve any extensive recovery periods, which is always a good thing.

Shoulder Rehab Exercises

shoulder massageTough shoulder injuries can happen at any point. At the same time, they can also occur during activities like racket sports or rowing, even if you have  the best rowing machine around, without proper form you can cause injury. If you continuously perform the same repetitive motions, you can develop overuse injuries as well.

for more info on proper rowing technique check out: https://perfectrower.co.uk/best-rowing-machine-reviews/

If you have arthritis, you can experience severe shoulder pain and suffer an injury too. And, if you have an old injury that was not treated properly, you will have plenty of issues.

No matter where shoulder pain is coming from, there are many effective ways to treat it. Rehab exercises are just a small part of the bigger shoulder rehab program but they are a very good way to promote healing nonetheless.

Your local health center should have experts who know how to deal with these issues on a regular basis, providing non-surgical care and other methods to properly heal shoulder injuries. They should also be equally experienced in other issues as well.

The best thing is that physiotherapy treatments can be easily combined with other sports injury recovery strategies. That way, you can get the best results very quickly and efficiently.

The joints

The shoulders consist of several joints. All of them are surrounded by a lot of muscles and ligaments. They provide enough strength and support to make the joints functional.

The rotator cuff includes tendons and muscles that allow you to move your arm overhead. The other ligaments have different functions, but they are equally important. They allow full-range motion of both collarbone and shoulder blade.

Shoulder rehab exercises can drastically improve flexibility and strength of these particular muscles. That applies to both pain and shoulder injury.

Shoulder rehab exercises

The most important thing to keep in mind when we talk about shoulder rehab exercises is flexibility. That’s the primary focus of each and every modern shoulder rehab exercise. A therapist will always try to increase the patient’s range of motion with the help of shoulder rehab stretches.

There are two different kinds of stretches – static and dynamic stretches. Static stretches involve stretches that are completely pain-free. Patients need to hold these stretches for about 20-30 seconds and they need to repeat them at least three times.

Dynamic stretches also involve 100% pain-free stretches. However, unlike static stretches, the patients need to hold them between one and five seconds in total. They also need to repeat them at least 10 times in total. However, the ideal number of repetitions should be 15.

As soon as the patient has performed these stretches, the therapist will decide whether it’s time to start with strengthening exercises.

Physiotherapists can treat these exercises as a new phase in the overall rehab process. They can drastically improve the strength of all shoulder muscles at the same time.

Patients can use either dumbbells or a resistance band to perform these exercises. But, they can easily perform them even with no additional equipment whatsoever.

Other treatment parts

It doesn’t matter how old you are. Modern technologies have brought in many innovative treatments that were not possible before. These treatments are truly remarkable and they show great promise for the future as well.

At the moment, the most popular innovative therapies are platelet-rich injections and stem cell injections. Both of these treatments are very effective. They use your own cells to promote healing at the very core of the injury site.

We mustn’t forget regeneration either. Not only do these therapies enhance healing, but they regenerate the damaged tissues as well.

You don’t need to be in pain and you don’t need to suffer the side effects of shoulder injuries either.

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