A new way to use the elliptical

A combination of pushing too hard and stretching too little this weekend aggravated a muscle in my leg. My wife told me I should skip today's exercise but I just couldn't. Mondays are elliptical days for me and although I felt it had less impact on my muscle strain than running I decided not to use it for my legs. Instead, I straddled the elliptical machine but only worked the arms. Unlike the normal use where resistance is minimal at the first level, this experience was more akin to cross country skiing. Increasing the resistance made the effort very challenging. I ended up doing 15 minutes which was enough to get my heart rate up for a while. It wasn't the same amount of exertion as running but today was scheduled to be a light to moderate workout. Besides that, my upper arms are not used to working that hard and I didn't want to pull a muscle there either. I had not heard of anyone using the elliptical this way but I plan to use it for upper arm training even after my short break from running.