Great piece of equipment. A lot of off season football players will use this type of machine. You do not have to use the arms or any pulling motion, some guy's just use lower body. But I think you would be cheating yourself if not taking full advantage of the full cardio benefits. Interval training (Tabata for example) works exceptionally well. Something like 20 seconds max effort, 10 seconds rest than back to 20 second total effort, etc, etc, etc.. Try for 5 to 8 such cycles, maybe three to four times a week. Also affects the abs greatly. Good Luck.