Sole

When Sole elliptical machines were first developed, it was not surprising that the company insisted upon the same quality as their popular treadmills, which have been used in the fitness rooms of major hotel chains for years. In fact, Sole Treadmills has received great ratings from the TreadmillDoctor.com for their high quality.

They have an excellent reputation for endurance and reliability and they proudly promote an interesting motto: "Priced to Please, Built to Perform".  So far, they have lived up to that motto by offering four high value elliptical machines at very reasonable prices from $1,000 for the Sole E25 elliptical to $1,700 for the E95.

If you are looking for quality, but not necessarily of the caliber as Precor, then Sole is an excellent option... especially since they frequently discount the above prices. 

One special area of expertise with Sole and their line of ellipticals is related to the footpads. When you use an elliptical your body's natural alignment is thrown off regardless of how close the footpads are positioned. When you push backward on the bottom of the stroke your hips will move from side to side; therefore, the distance between the footpads is not as important as the angle of the footpad.

Sole Fitness claims... and they may be right... that all other elliptical trainer footpads are flat. However, theirs have a slight inward angle of two degrees, which is important because it puts your body back into a neutral alignment throughout the exercise motion. These smooth ellipticals help reduce the pain of sore backs, knees, ankles and hips.

Other manufacturers certainly are not oblivious to this concern and have (according to Sole) tried unsuccessfully to solve it by moving the footpads closer together. But, this alone does not address the main problem of mis-alignment, which is that not all people are built the same way or walk with the same gait.

So, the Sole engineers decided the best way to solve the overall issue was to make the footpad angle adjustable to fit a variety of users. Those people who might develop numb toes could adjust the angle higher in the rear and people with painful knees could now adjust the angle lower. And, according to Sole this simple solution not only took care of the original problem, but it also helps to work your hamstrings more and when adjusted higher you can work your quads even harder.

Funny thing though... they only made this adjustment with their two higher priced ellipticals (Models E55 and E95).  That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  If you have a unique advantage, why not push it to the limit?

Anyway, Sole has a great product line and can handle even the heaviest of workout artists.  Their E95 can take on a 400 pounder if necessary, although the stride for someone this big probably could use something bigger than the Sole maximum of 20 inches.  Now don't get me wrong, 20 inches is certainly better than many of the competition's 14 to 16 inch machines, but if you build something this powerful it would be smart to add some stride value to the unit.

All of the Sole elliptical comparisons give you upper body arm bars, built-in speakers and iPod, mp3 hookup and no less than simple pulse readout controls, which can be upgraded if you wish.  The warranty is pretty standard, but they do have a nice benefit with their 30 day return policy for those who determine that maybe using an elliptical trainer is not ideal for their situation.  Let's fact it, we all get a little remorse sometimes after making an emotional decision to buy another gadget.

Each trainer has 20 levels of resistance and the more expensive E95 features the latest LED Display. The other 3 models come with LCD. Shipping to the 48 contiguous states is free, but only to your door.  You will pay more to get it into your home, plus you probably want to have someone there to help you assemble this thing of steel because it is heavy.