So the first time I got on the arc trainer back in October I survived 5 minutes. Over the first few weeks I quickly built to 30 minutes. Since then we (my boyfriend and I) typically do 30 min on it in combination with other cardio and the strength machines. Usually once a week I go to the gym by myself. He goes to play tennis with one of his buddies. I use this day to see how long I can go on the arc trainer, when my body is up to it. Several times I've pushed and made it to 45 minutes maybe a little more but yesterday I cruzed right through. Acutually would have kept going but I guess is has a preset limit of 60 minutes b/c at 58 it started the cool down. and shut down at 60.
I din't take it easy. I start slow. The first 10-15 minutes you don't feel like you'll make it past those 10-15. Approaching 30 I get my groove on and my tunes help me keep a brisk pace of about 130 steps per minute. My heart rate beats about 160 bpm and I feel like I could go all evening. This is when I play with my resistance and incline. What a blast I had! I did some math and figure I took over 7,ooo steps. The machine said I went over 2.5 miles and the HRM on the arc trainer gave me close to 600 calories burned. I wear a HRM and it gave me 490. I'll take credit for 500 since it reached that before I had the sweat wiped off my face. Maybe next time I'll enter in 90 minutes to see if it will keep going past 60!