Octane Q47 Elliptical: Home Fitness Equipment Review #03

Hut Allred:
This is Hut Allred again from New Wave Fitness, and I’m here with Craig Lewin of Busy Body and Fitness HQ. We’re going to talk a little bit about an elliptical, a cardio piece. Today it’s going to be the Q47. We spent some time on some strength-training equipment; obviously we need some equipment to go with that, and this is really one of the most efficient elliptical out on the marketplace. Tell us a little bit about the Q47, Craig, the benefit of it and what we can do on it that makes it a special piece of equipment.

 

 

Craig Lewin:
These Octane Ellipticals are phenomenal. They’ve really done a good job. The biggest thing with elliptical trainers in general is, you’ve got to have good biomechanics. It’s got to feel good, it’s got to be smooth, because when somebody is on there, you want to stay on there and you want to be able to go, go, go and not have that excuse of, “Eh, it kind of feels funny.” They really did a great job with this.

A couple things Octane does better than anybody: the first thing is, you’ve got very, very close pedal spacing. So when you bring those pedals closer together, it alleviates any pressure on your hips, so that’s a great thing. The second thing is, the actual step-up height on the machine is extremely low too, which makes it very easy to get on and off. When you get here, boom, you’re on, and that makes a big difference too.

But the biggest thing with this machine, I would say, is that it’s got an adjustable-stride feature built in, where if you actually went from like a walk to a jog, naturally your stride would get longer if you were outside. However, on this machine, the stride length automatically goes out. So when you increase your RPM’s and go faster, one thing you don’t want to do is keep the stride the same because it [causes] a lot of joint pressure, but with this, it will stretch out automatically. It will go from 18 inches to 26 inches on the fly.

Hut Allred:
Which would change the muscle groups that you’re working, from quads to calves to hamstrings and glutes, which will allow you to have some of that balance that you’re looking for.

Craig Lewin:
That’s what makes a big difference. There are a couple different things that you can use the adjustable-stride features for. One of them is, I just want to isolate different muscle groups, so I have a shorter stride and maybe I do a little bit more glutes and hamstrings. I have a longer stride and maybe I do a little bit more quadriceps. So that’s something that really, really helps.

The other thing is, I’m 20 minutes into the workout, I’ve got 5 minutes left, I am fried. But guess what? You adjust that stride even one degree and now you can last longer. You can last the last 5 minutes because the muscle groups change so now you’re not so worn out. That makes a huge difference as well.

Hut Allred:
It’s like with strength training, going from one exercise to another, working different muscle groups. If you stay on the same muscle group, you’re going to fatigue that and you’ll be done.

Craig Lewin:
Yes, and I think the other thing is boredom, right? We want to try to always change it up. That’s what we always talk about—trying to spice it up, change it up. When you buy a machine like this, you’re going to have it for 10-plus years. You’ve got to have that variability in there to be able to change it up to give you different stride lengths, for different muscle groups.

What’s really cool too with this, in talking about changing it up, Octane even takes it a step further. If you can zoom in here, just to show you, on this little area here. This is a , cross-circuit kit, or cross-circuit training. Basically the way this works with your cross-circuit stuff is, you can get on this machine, choose a cross-circuit program, and it’ll actually have you not just doing cardio, but it will also have you doing your cross-circuit training with these bands.

So you’ll get on the machine and do your cardio for 2 minutes. The machine will beep at you and say, “Okay, get off,” and now you’re going to come over here and for, let’s say, depending on how you set it up at the beginning, 30 seconds, 2 minutes, you’re going to do curls; you’re going to do a shoulder press, you’re going to do squats…. There’s a reason I’ve got legs that are this big, and it’s because of this Octane elliptical. No…but it really makes a huge difference to change it up.

Hut Allred:
Definitely, and it gives you that ability to modify, so if you’re focusing on cardio, from interval training to long-duration training, to combining your strength training with your cardio, if you don’t have a lot of time, there’s a lot of versatility with this Octane equipment.

Craig Lewin:
There really is, and the other thing too is, you have a personal trainer built into it, as if there isn’t enough. It will tell you on there, it will light up and say, “Squat down, push your arms, pull your arms.” If I hit this “X mode” button right here, it will actually start to spin. It’ll land on here and say, “Pull the arms and go fast.” What happens is, for that 30 seconds that I’m doing it, I have to pull my arms and go fast. And then it might land on “squat” or “go backwards.”

So when you’re on this machine, just to show you, you’re here and the machine is all of a sudden saying, “Now squat down and do lower body only.” Well, all of a sudden, I’m here. A lot of people don’t even know that you can squat like this on the machine, but these guys designed it in a way that you can do those things. It’s just an absolute genius product.

Hut Allred:
Yes, and I think a lot of times when it comes to cardio equipment, you hear a lot of people talk about how it gets boring, “I don’t want to do it for 30-40 minutes.” But when you have equipment like this where you can choose different programs, where you’re engaged, that time seems to go by much more efficiently. You can do the cross training here. It’s telling you what to do, and you can even have a nice little TV where Craig’s talking to you. But this is a great piece of equipment, and again, the cardio equipment—all of this equipment—you can come in and try and see for yourself at one of the Busy Body stores here in the Dallas / Fort Worth Metroplex.

Craig Lewin:
www.BusyBodyTX.com or www.FitnessHeadquarters.com. They can see all the different stuff, Octane specifically, and check out some other equipment too.

Hut Allred:
So that’s the Octane, just giving you all some more options to learn a little bit more about what home fitness equipment is all about, and we’ll bring some more equipment to you next month. We look forward to doing that. Thanks!