I have an elliptical with the wheel at the back and it hurts both my husbands knees and mine. Any idea why?

Is the stride too short? On many cheaper ellipticals, the stride is 18" or shorter which can aggravate your knees.

or are you using the machine with too much tension??

this is what hurts my knees - too much tension/too high of a step

Does your knee go past your toe at any point in the motion? When I was in physical therapy, my therapist said that'd be problematic for my knees...on any cardio machine, the goal to prevent knee problems is to keep your knee from ever going past your toe. On some machines, you can adjust your movement to prevent that (for example, on a stairclimber, standing up straight and taking very small steps will keep your knee properly behind the toe), and on some ellipticals, adjustments can be made (on mine, I have to set the incline pretty high to get into a no-knee-past-toe movement), so you may want to experiment. If the stride length is too short, though, it'll be almost impossible to get your knee consistently behind your toe.

i've notices in the gym alot of people who are fairly knew to ellipticals tend to be almost straight legged and allow the rotation of the foot plates to move their legs up and down from the hips putting all the up thrust through the knee with no give in it.

does you head stay at almost the same height? or does it move up and down slightly if it does try flexing your knees more.

also make sure the foot plates are a fair bit larger than your feet in both length and width that way you can move your feet around every now and then to adjust the action on the leg and also find the most comfortable position

Thanks, it is not an issue with not knowing how to use the machine I think it is an issue with it being an older not as well designed machine. I did a bit of research and stride length can have a huge impact and the newer machines have a better stride length. We have tried the more expensive ellipticals in hotel gyms when travelling recently and they don't hurt our knees. So it must be design- on the bright side we have just gained more square footage in our bedroom.

When I first started it really hurt my knees, I didn't make any adjustments to the machine, but I just kept going. I guess what I do is keep my knees soft and focus on keeping my thighs moving, the knees and chins will follow. Just do it a few more time and you'll adapt.

I have the same thing, i am 54yrs, and my one also has wheel at the back. what I have found with the home ones is that the foot rests are a little wider than the ones in the gym.mkaing the insides of my knees sore. I am going to try and see if I can redo mine and bring them in a little.
Maryl

My local YMCA just got new elliptical machines. The old ones used to hurt my knees. The new ones which are pretty much identical but a newer upgrade, don't hurt at all. AND they got satellite TV hooked to all the new ones (woo hoo!)

I had no idea (and neither did they) why one hurt and the other didn't. Must have been the stride or the tilt of the machine or something.

Learn something new every day.

You should call the manufacturer and ask him why!

Yeah, I'm having difficulty using the ones at the gym. I'm also short. I guess I need to play with the settings or something.

Wanted to say that I've started to conquer the elliptical! I did over 20 minutes of my workout on it today and it was great!

That happened to me as well - the first time I ever tried to use the elliptical I couldn't even make the thing move, and by the time I had to move away from my gym I could to 45 minutes with no problem. It gets easier!

today i bought an elliptical and tried it for two minutes and my knees are killing me. it's true that i didn't warm up or anything and i'm in my twenties! i feel that the length of the step is too short and i have long legs. i thought that i wiould be able to do it for 30 minutes right away! yeah right! i'll try it out few more times and see how it goes. it's a second hand so i can't return it. i feel sorry for not going to store to buy and try one.