Ellipticals

Yesterday was spent testing every elliptical in the city of Dothan. Which, let me tell you, isn't many. There are 3 stores that I know of that carry the machines. We went to Play it Again Sports, Sears and Dick's. I am not sure if I am any closer to a decision than I was when I left. My mind was kinda set on the Esprit model I found online but after seeing so many I am once again unsure. Here is what I have found out.

Play it Again Sports has the Horizon treadmills that are made by Sole. They did not have any set up, they were actually putting them together when we arrived. He said that he would have them ready to see today. The 2 models, the EX-59 and the EX-69 he would have run $500-$700 and the Spirit model would be around $1300 (which can be ordered at Amazon for $999 with free shipping and no tax). He was very helpful and spent quite a bit of time teaching me about the ellipticals and what I would need to look for. It helped, I am sure, that I had educated myself pretty well prior to shopping. Some exciting news was that he is actually getting one of the Esprit ellipticals in as he is a reseller for them. The downside is that it won't be in for a couple weeks. Can I wait that long to try it out? Let alone wait that long to get it? I am ready now. Ugh, just one of the downsides to being impatient. I do feel though that I really need to try it before I buy it. Especially once I got on a few that he had in the store and realized that certain models hurt my knee. How crazy. I am not sure if it is the foot pedal placement or just the difference in the mechanics of the machines. I thank him very much and we trudged on to Sears.

To no surprise the help at Sears was no where near as good as that I received at PIAS. The sales guy knew a little bit about the machines he was selling, but mostly just the "selling points." I did however really like the NordicTrack 990 Pro. It feels sturdy, rides smooth and has some awesome features like iFit technology, it folds up and a power incline. The price on it was $999. Not too bad. The different sites that review them rank it as a "Best Buy" for treadmills under $1,000. Now I had a kink thrown into my plan. Dang it. We waited for over 15 minutes for the sales guy to give me a print out of the specs. The funny thing was that he simply printed it off the website. I got 1 page of the elliptical info and the 2nd page was specs on a refrigerator. LOL. Fabulous. Thanks for the great info sales guy!

Our next stop was Dick's. This is where I was really turned upside down. Not literally, but with my wonderful balance it could've happened! They carry the Sole Ellipticals that seem to get really great reviews online. Honestly, I just wasn't sold on them. The machine just felt weird. I was really disappointed because once I saw that they carried them I thought for sure i would like them. What I DID like, to my surprise, was the Livestrong machines. They just felt so fluid and natural. They had 3 models, the LS8.0e, LS10.0e and LS13.0e. Unfortunately, I can't remember if I liked the 10.0e. Waylon says that I didn't, but I know I liked the other 2. The downside is that the 8.0 doesn't have the tracking capability of the other 2, nor does it have the MP3 option and the price difference between the top and the bottom line machine is nearly $700. The bells and whistles don't add up to that much extra to make it worth that much money. Oh, the other difference is the power incline. The 8.0 has a manual incline and the other 2 have power.

As far as features go, I am not overly concerned with the power incline. If it is manual and easy to adjust that is fine with me. I do like the MP3 player option but my cajun-engineering husband says he could "rig it up for me" to play music. Oh Lord, who knows what that will be. I am having flashbacks of the GPS ziptied to his bike. I do like the technology available to me though. Tracking my progress is a big issue for me. Readouts of my workout is something that I know I would thoroughly enjoy looking at. It is very motivational to see improvement and I just love graphs etc. Have I drug anyone into my dilemma? Does anyone have any suggestions for me? Thank you Alli and Pam for responding and giving me some insight. It was very helpful in my shopping yesterday. Here goes a few more weeks of indecisiveness. Weeeeeee!