If you're looking for an exercise machine that helps you burn fat aerobically, either a treadmill or Tony Little's Gazelle machines will provide a beneficial workout. However, the Gazelle offers resistance training (muscle building), an upper body workout and non-impact training. Depending on which benefits you're seeking, these machines offer markedly different benefits.
Upper Body
With a treadmill, your arms are not used during the exercise process. In order to get an upper body workout, you'll need to pump your arms, or use dumbbells during your walk, jog or run to work your upper body. This could cause a loss of balance and injury.
With a Gazelle, you use the arms and legs simultaneously, to different degrees. If you wish to work your upper body more, you simply decrease your leg effort, and rely on your arms to move the machine's pistons. The Gazelle allows you to target specific upper body muscles. For example, if you keep your elbows closer to your sides, you'll use more bicep. If you put your elbows farther out, you'll use more shoulder and lat muscles. Leaning forward with your elbows in, while using less legs, will require even more biceps use. Leaning backward on the Gazelle, with decreased leg use, will require more pectoral use.
Lower Body
A treadmill allows you to work your lower body using a number of speeds and inclines. Because you should maintain an erect posture on a treadmill for safety reasons, your ability to work different leg muscles is not as possible as it is on a Gazelle. By decreasing the use of your arms to pull and push the Gazelle's levers, you will increase the use of your legs. Leaning backwards will increase your use of your glutes. Leaning forward, with knees bent, requires you to push more with your upper legs, and increases the use of your quadriceps. Bending your knees while maintaining an erect position allows you to work the calf muscles. Turning sideways on the Gazelle allows you to achieve both abduction and adduction muscle workouts.
Impact
As you increase your speed on a treadmill, you increase your leg movements in a manner similar to jogging or running (as opposed to walking) and increase the impact of your feet, legs and body against the treadmill. A Gazelle has resistance settings which allow you to increase the ease or difficulty of your workout, but it is a completely non-impact exercise machine.
Price/Features
Both the Gazelle Edge and many treadmills come with heart rate monitors. Compared to treadmills, the Gazelle Edge is cheaper. As of 2010, a new Gazelle Edge is available on Amazon.com for $99, while the cheapest treadmill sells for $120. However, treadmills which sell in the low hundreds of dollars are manual (non-motorized) treadmills, not the more sophisticated type seen in commercial health and fitness clubs. Motorized treadmills allow you to change resistance (incline) during a workout, while the Gazelle requires you to stop your workout to change resistance levels.
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