choosing the right cardio equipment

Choosing the right cardio equipment Taking together the research on caloric expenditure and the amount of skill needed to acquire a cardiovascular and caloric benefit, the treadmill would have to be considered the best piece of cardio equipment, followed by the cross-country skiing machine (e.g., NordicTrack), rowing machine, stair stepper and stationary cycle. So, next time one of your clients asks which piece of cardio equipment is best, tell him or her to choose equipment that uses a lot of muscle mass, is weight-bearing and has a low skill level so he or she can get more out of the activity.


Your clients expend approximately 5 calories for every 1 liter of oxygen consumed (which varies slightly depending on how much fat and carbohydrates are used). Using more muscle mass during exercise also increases energy expenditure after exercise, as the post-exercise metabolic rate (as measured by the excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) has been found to be significantly greater and take longer to return to resting values following lower-body exercise (stationary cycling) than following upper-body exercise (arm cranking) performed at the same relative intensity.

Weight-bearing activities are associated with a significantly greater caloric expenditure than non-weight-bearing activities,5 even when the two types of exercise are performed at the same level of intensity.1 Among weight-bearing activities, running uses more calories than most everything else, being equaled only by cross-country skiing and sports that require a lot of running, like soccer, squash, handball and racquetball

Comparing the rates of energy expenditure at RPE values of 11 (fairly light), 13 (somewhat hard) and 15 (hard) on the Borg scale of 6 to 20 between six indoor exercise machines — Airdyne, cross-country skiing simulator, stationary cycle, rowing machine, stair stepper and treadmill — Zeni, et al.,11 found that the treadmill induced a significantly higher rate of energy expenditure at each RPE compared to all of the other exercise equipment. Among the other equipment, the cross-country skiing simulator, rowing machine and stair stepper induced significantly higher rates of energy expenditure than the Airdyne and stationary cycle. The highest HR occurred on the treadmill and the stair stepper, and blood lactate concentration (another marker of exercise intensity) was highest on the stair stepper and rowing machine. The authors concluded that the treadmill is the optimal indoor exercise machine for enhancing energy expenditure when perceived exertion is used to establish exercise intensity.