Eliptical trainers are great for people with bad knees who want to walk and possibly get an aerobic workout. And the Gazelle Freestyle is considered by some to be the “poor man’s eliptical trainer.” But this gem of a $175 machine has become a very important part of my lower back pain solution. It’s not really an eliptical trainer, and if it were, it woudn’t do much for my low back. Most eliptical trainers have a fixed or variable “stride” that might be as long as 20 inches or slightly more. The Gazelle Freestyle lets you have whatever stride your legs are capable of. So if you take long strides, it gives you a tremendous thigh stretch along with a great aerobic workout. But if you just walk with this machine, you won’t get much out of it. It’s a really fun machine to use, and I need fun in order to sustain this daily workout. If you’ve ever done a “runner’s stretch,” you’re stretching the same thigh muscles that this machine stretches in a long stride workout. You can’t get this workout by running. You can’t maintain the kind of sprint that this strid requires for long without getting totally exhausted. But I can do a 20-minute aerobic workout on the Gazelle Freestyle at full stride. I don’t do that every day though. I generally do 10 minutes at full stride, and in addition to the aerobic workout, I get a stretch like nothing I’ve ever had with any other machine or exercise. My back pain over the 8 year period that I lived with it, often traveled down my sciatic nerves …

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