1. When you use an elliptical the natural alignment of your body is thrown off no matter how close the footpads are. This is because when you push backward on the bottom of the stroke your hips will move from one side to the other. The distance between the footpads is not as important as is the angle of the footpad from left to right. If you stand behind an elliptical and look at the footpads you will notice all other elliptical footpads are flat. Now look at a Spirit elliptical and you will notice a slight inward angle of two degrees. This seemingly insignificant detail is important because having this angle puts your body back into a neutral alignment throughout the motion during exercise. This helps alleviate sore backs, knees, ankles and hips. Other manufacturers are aware of this problem and have tried to solve it by moving the footpads close together. Unfortunately this is only part of the problem and does not address the main problem of mis-alignment.
2. Not all people are built the same way and don’t walk with the same gait. Some people are knock kneed while others are bow legged. Some people walk on the balls of their feet while others walk flat footed. When Spirit engineers were testing various Ellipticals we noticed that some of us had our toes go numb during our workouts while others had pain in their knees. We found that this had to do with the fixed angle of the footpad from front to rear at the bottom of the ellipse pattern.
3. While most good elliptical trainers have what are called “Articulating footpads” (like the Spirit XE series) to address this problem it does not solve the problem of numb toes and painful knees for every user. So the engineers at Spirit determined the best way to solve this problem was to make the footpad angle adjustable (On the XE350 and XE550 only) to fit different users. The people who had numb toes adjusted the angle higher in the rear and people with painful knees adjusted the angle lower. This simple idea not only solved these maladies but also added an extra benefit. When the angle is adjusted lower you work your hamstrings more and when adjusted higher you work your quads and harder.

Spirit Elliptical Highlights -
Ellipticals (XE 100, XE 200, XE 300, XE 400 and XE 500)

• The same basic architecture regardless of the price
• Contact Heart Rate & Telemetric HR protocols
• HRC is standard
• 20” stride length with articulating foot pedals
• Electronically controlled resistance
• The foot pedals are inverted 2 degrees to keep a user in biomechanical “neutral” position
• Four rail track system minimizes “side load”
• Cooper bushing in the key pivot points
  • Most think a bearing used in key pivot points is “the best”. However, the correct bushing used in a low speed/change in direction application like the pivot arm of an Elliptical will last much longer than a bearing.
    • A bearing will wear out!
    • At Spirit we use bushings that consist of 80% copper & 20% steel.
      • This has been tested and has proven to last much longer than a bearing and has yet to wear out in the “LIFE” testing we incorporate into our products.
      • Most use a bearing that is 80% steel and 20% brass. This will result in premature wear and noise issues.

A few facts about Ellipticals –

• Inversion – The Definition (The sole of the foot moving inward or supination) * (Aversion is the sole of the foot moving outward or pronation).
  • The Spirit Ellipticals feature a 2 degree inversion attitude on the foot pads for improved biomechical alignment.

• Most Elliptical manufacturers are obsessed with the distance between the foot pads?
  • This has little to do with the problem of trying to obtain neutral alignment for your body to feel comfortable during an elliptical movement!
  • No matter how close the footpads are positioned on a machine if the pedals are not inverted they will still throw the user out of neutral alignment when the footpads are horizontal.

The real issue –

• The problem with Ellipticals is that the user is not only pushing back on the pedals but also outward (sort of like skating). This causes the ankle to try and roll outward. The user overshifts their body weight (causing stress on the ankles, knees and hips) this is why our footpads are angled inward to compensate.

The only Elliptical that has adjustable plantar flexion –

• Adjustable Plantar/Dorsal flexion. (see: http//www.exrx.net/Articulations/Ankle.html)
  • Most Ellipticals introduce too much dorsal flexion resulting in the user compensating by getting up on the balls of their feet which causes the toes to go numb.
  • This also causes Achilles heel problems ad too much knee shear (stresses the patellar tendon).
• The XE 100  XE 200 and XE 300 have 3 positions
  • 0 degrees
  • 5 degrees
  • 10 degrees
    • Varying the positions of the degree of the pedal also allow a user to work different muscle groups and at the higher positions prevent “numb toe” syndrome.

Flywheel Size –

• The XE flywheel actually weighs 30 pounds. Competitors use “virtual weight” that is calculated by the virtual weight based on gear ratio (inertial weight)

Our heavier flywheel and higher gear ratio gives our elliptical a much smoother feel, higher inertia and no dead spots in the motion.

The transport wheel track –

• The roller guides are made from aircraft grade aluminum which is hard coated anodized. This makes the roller guide Rustproof and Chip-proof.

The Wheels –

• Is made of a high grade poly-urethane (urethane doesn’t rust) and the molding process ensures higher quality.
• The grade of Urethane raw material is also very important, as is the durometer (softness/hardness), in ensuring a smooth feel, high durability and no chipping or breaking.
• The quality of wheel Spirit has selected is double the price of our competitors and is 4 times the quality coming from the same manufacturer. The competitors that used the same wheel vendor are selling their product for $2000 and above.
• We also use commercial grade bearings.

Arm position –

• The Spirit Elliptical arms in the farthest position back (closet to the user) are vertical. Our competitor has a rearward angle that causes the hand to lose contact with the grip. The users hand loses contact because the wrist doesn’t bend in this direction