Calories burned on stationary bikes
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@Philipv1Heart rate plays a large factor into figuring this out. If your heart rate is not elevated into Zone 3 or above, you are not burning much of anything. If you do an hour in Zone 4 you will burn a ton of calories. Biking is one of the quickest burners out there that is very gentle physically to your body. As you get more fit, it becomes harder to burn as your body is not exerting/burning calories as much energy this is why heart rate becomes a factor, when your rate is elevated, you know your are burning calories no matter how fit you are. Everyones heart rate zones also change and are different as well.
Biking around a lake as not fit at 12 mph for an hour with a heart rate of 160 might burn you close to 800 calories or more.
Biking around the same lake very fit at 12 mph for an hour with a heart rate of 137 might burn you close to 300 calories or less.
There are sites that you can use that help figure this out. But in the end it's all dependent on weight, heart rate, and time.
The bold sections are completely wrong I'm afraid. There is no equation to convert heart beats to calories.
Heart rate is personal and it is not something that can really be compared between individuals.
Three people producing the same power at different heart rates are all burning almost the same number of calories and I've seen variation between three fit cyclists (not from unfit to fit) from 130 to 150 to 180bpm all burning the same calories.
An unfit person at my exercise HR might be burning half the calories I can.
Chris Froome at the same HR as me would be producing twice the power and burning twice the calories as I can because of his phenomenal fitness level.
When you are fit you can burn more calories, produce more power, go faster and further. Otherwise unfit people would be winning races!1 -
Heart rate plays a large factor into figuring this out. If your heart rate is not elevated into Zone 3 or above, you are not burning much of anything. If you do an hour in Zone 4 you will burn a ton of calories. Biking is one of the quickest burners out there that is very gentle physically to your body. As you get more fit, it becomes harder to burn as your body is not exerting/burning calories as much energy this is why heart rate becomes a factor, when your rate is elevated, you know your are burning calories no matter how fit you are. Everyones heart rate zones also change and are different as well.
Biking around a lake as not fit at 12 mph for an hour with a heart rate of 160 might burn you close to 800 calories or more.
Biking around the same lake very fit at 12 mph for an hour with a heart rate of 137 might burn you close to 300 calories or less.
There are sites that you can use that help figure this out. But in the end it's all dependent on weight, heart rate, and time.
There is not a correlation between heart rate and caloric expenditure. Heart rate is indicative of fitness.
Physics tells us that it takes a certain amount of energy to move a given mass a given distance. And due to the mechanic efficiencies of a bike weight makes very little difference unless you're climbing hills.
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Heart rate plays a large factor into figuring this out. If your heart rate is not elevated into Zone 3 or above, you are not burning much of anything. If you do an hour in Zone 4 you will burn a ton of calories.
This is nonsense.
Zone 3 is up to 156 bpm for me, zone 4 starts at 157. That 1 bpm won't make a difference between hardly any and tons of calories. Drinking coffee will affect my heart rate by more than that.0 -
Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?0 -
Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
Yes more work equals more calories (units of energy) - but HR isn't a completely reliable measure of work. Reasonable but not that consistent.
I've been doing a lot of indoor riding this month as I can't tolerate cold very well.
Here's some recent steady state workouts and there's quite a variation in HR.
170 watts - 151 bpm (bad day)
180 watts - 143 bpm
170 watts - 130 bpm (felt great that day!)
160 watts - 137 bpm
170 watts - 147 bpm
140 watts - 146 bpm (HR zones way out of line with my power zones, no idea why)1 -
Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
Yes more work equals more calories (units of energy) - but HR isn't a completely reliable measure of work. Reasonable but not that consistent.
I've been doing a lot of indoor riding this month as I can't tolerate cold very well.
Here's some recent steady state workouts and there's quite a variation in HR.
170 watts - 151 bpm (bad day)
180 watts - 143 bpm
170 watts - 130 bpm (felt great that day!)
160 watts - 137 bpm
170 watts - 147 bpm
140 watts - 146 bpm (HR zones way out of line with my power zones, no idea why)
Thanks. The bolded part is what I was looking for. It's what I've always thought I knew, but people are SOOO dismissive of HR around here that I thought I'd double check.0 -
One time I was hiking, and somebody's dog tried to bite me. If you pull up the file in Garmin Connect, you'll see a moment when my pace drops to zero (so I'm not burning exercise calories) and my HR shoots to 190. A moment earlier I was burning calories walking uphill with my ticker doing something reasonable like 100 bpm.
Better example. I stopped exercising for a week and a half thanks to a death cold. When I got back on the bike, I did my standard after work loop that I've done hundreds of times before. This time my HR was dozens of bpm higher than normal because of the lingering sickness and because I'd lost some fitness. I was burning fewer calories than normal doing the same number of miles more slowly (so less air resistance), but at a much higher HR.0 -
Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
Yes more work equals more calories (units of energy) - but HR isn't a completely reliable measure of work. Reasonable but not that consistent.
I've been doing a lot of indoor riding this month as I can't tolerate cold very well.
Here's some recent steady state workouts and there's quite a variation in HR.
170 watts - 151 bpm (bad day)
180 watts - 143 bpm
170 watts - 130 bpm (felt great that day!)
160 watts - 137 bpm
170 watts - 147 bpm
140 watts - 146 bpm (HR zones way out of line with my power zones, no idea why)
Thanks. The bolded part is what I was looking for. It's what I've always thought I knew, but people are SOOO dismissive of HR around here that I thought I'd double check.
Looking at the chart @sijomial just posted, it's easy to see why!0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
Yes more work equals more calories (units of energy) - but HR isn't a completely reliable measure of work. Reasonable but not that consistent.
I've been doing a lot of indoor riding this month as I can't tolerate cold very well.
Here's some recent steady state workouts and there's quite a variation in HR.
170 watts - 151 bpm (bad day)
180 watts - 143 bpm
170 watts - 130 bpm (felt great that day!)
160 watts - 137 bpm
170 watts - 147 bpm
140 watts - 146 bpm (HR zones way out of line with my power zones, no idea why)
Thanks. The bolded part is what I was looking for. It's what I've always thought I knew, but people are SOOO dismissive of HR around here that I thought I'd double check.
Looking at the chart @sijomial just posted, it's easy to see why!
I guess it's a matter of perspective/expectations.
I don't have a power meter, so I have no way to be "exact" with my calorie burn estimates. "Reasonable" is good enough for me.0 -
Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
When I was doing MFP and logging exercise, etc I determined that HR was "good enough." I personally never had issues just going with that number for my cardio and it never hindered my weight loss. That said, I would make adjustments when I knew it my calorie burn was inflated...for example, when I ride in the AM, my HR is always quite a bit higher than it is for the same work performed later in the afternoon...like a moderately paced 15-16 MPH 20K in the early morning could easily have my HR in the mid 150s...same exact ride in the afternoon and I would average 138...in these instances, I had enough data to look at the number and see it was inflated and to just use the calorie burn from some previous afternoon session on the same route.
I'd like to get a power meter at some point...not so much for the calorie expenditure, but for training purposes and seeing what kind of watts I'm putting out.0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
When I was doing MFP and logging exercise, etc I determined that HR was "good enough." I personally never had issues just going with that number for my cardio and it never hindered my weight loss. That said, I would make adjustments when I knew it my calorie burn was inflated...for example, when I ride in the AM, my HR is always quite a bit higher than it is for the same work performed later in the afternoon...like a moderately paced 15-16 MPH 20K in the early morning could easily have my HR in the mid 150s...same exact ride in the afternoon and I would average 138...in these instances, I had enough data to look at the number and see it was inflated and to just use the calorie burn from some previous afternoon session on the same route.
I'd like to get a power meter at some point...not so much for the calorie expenditure, but for training purposes and seeing what kind of watts I'm putting out.
I've done the same, and had similar results/experiences in the past.
I've recently moved to Garmin's wrist-based monitoring, and while the numbers seem a shade higher than I'd expect, I've not been logging my intake consistently enough for long enough to really know for sure.0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
Yes more work equals more calories (units of energy) - but HR isn't a completely reliable measure of work. Reasonable but not that consistent.
I've been doing a lot of indoor riding this month as I can't tolerate cold very well.
Here's some recent steady state workouts and there's quite a variation in HR.
170 watts - 151 bpm (bad day)
180 watts - 143 bpm
170 watts - 130 bpm (felt great that day!)
160 watts - 137 bpm
170 watts - 147 bpm
140 watts - 146 bpm (HR zones way out of line with my power zones, no idea why)
Thanks. The bolded part is what I was looking for. It's what I've always thought I knew, but people are SOOO dismissive of HR around here that I thought I'd double check.
Looking at the chart @sijomial just posted, it's easy to see why!
I guess it's a matter of perspective/expectations.
I don't have a power meter, so I have no way to be "exact" with my calorie burn estimates. "Reasonable" is good enough for me.
My expectation is only that my HR indicates my exertion level and a power meter gives me the sometimes disappointing truth of my power output.
I don't use a power meter outdoors and just go by Strava's ballpark calorie number - reasonable is reasonable enough. Even when I started out and used what I now know were badly inflated number from a Polar FT7 I still managed my calorie balance just fine.
With the multitude of estimates that go into trying to figure your calorie balance there's always a fighting chance inaccuracies cancel each other out.0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
Yes more work equals more calories (units of energy) - but HR isn't a completely reliable measure of work. Reasonable but not that consistent.
I've been doing a lot of indoor riding this month as I can't tolerate cold very well.
Here's some recent steady state workouts and there's quite a variation in HR.
170 watts - 151 bpm (bad day)
180 watts - 143 bpm
170 watts - 130 bpm (felt great that day!)
160 watts - 137 bpm
170 watts - 147 bpm
140 watts - 146 bpm (HR zones way out of line with my power zones, no idea why)
Thanks. The bolded part is what I was looking for. It's what I've always thought I knew, but people are SOOO dismissive of HR around here that I thought I'd double check.
Looking at the chart @sijomial just posted, it's easy to see why!
I guess it's a matter of perspective/expectations.
I don't have a power meter, so I have no way to be "exact" with my calorie burn estimates. "Reasonable" is good enough for me.
I did dozens of tests for a while, comparing a modern, high end HRM to a PM, and the HRM would be off by more than 40% at times. Once it was within 10 calories of the truth, other times it was over by nearly half. It was about as consistent as dice.
Strava is probably a better way to estimate calories. They know your weight, the bike's weight, your speed, and the general shape of the terrain. Give them the same file twice, and they'll give you the same number twice; it isn't fully accurate but it's consistent. And it's entirely predictable when it will be wrong.0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »
I'd like to get a power meter at some point...not so much for the calorie expenditure, but for training purposes and seeing what kind of watts I'm putting out.Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
You can even use a power meter to figure out which jacket or body position is most aerodynamic. You just need a windless day and to repeat a route.0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
Yes more work equals more calories (units of energy) - but HR isn't a completely reliable measure of work. Reasonable but not that consistent.
I've been doing a lot of indoor riding this month as I can't tolerate cold very well.
Here's some recent steady state workouts and there's quite a variation in HR.
170 watts - 151 bpm (bad day)
180 watts - 143 bpm
170 watts - 130 bpm (felt great that day!)
160 watts - 137 bpm
170 watts - 147 bpm
140 watts - 146 bpm (HR zones way out of line with my power zones, no idea why)
Thanks. The bolded part is what I was looking for. It's what I've always thought I knew, but people are SOOO dismissive of HR around here that I thought I'd double check.
Looking at the chart @sijomial just posted, it's easy to see why!
I guess it's a matter of perspective/expectations.
I don't have a power meter, so I have no way to be "exact" with my calorie burn estimates. "Reasonable" is good enough for me.
I did dozens of tests for a while, comparing a modern, high end HRM to a PM, and the HRM would be off by more than 40% at times. Once it was within 10 calories of the truth, other times it was over by nearly half. It was about as consistent as dice.
Strava is probably a better way to estimate calories. They know your weight, the bike's weight, your speed, and the general shape of the terrain. Give them the same file twice, and they'll give you the same number twice; it isn't fully accurate but it's consistent. And it's entirely predictable when it will be wrong.
meh, it's been good enough for me, I'm going to continue calling it good enough for me. I've never seen numbers from any of my garmins (or my Suunto before that, that was non-GPS) that were so far out of left field to account for a 40% difference. Actually, I did, but that was when my old chest strap was failing.
Similar workouts at similar RPEs and at similar HRs have always given me similar numbers. Maybe I'm just lucky. #specialsnowflake.0 -
How would you know whether your HRM was off by 40% for calories or not? It sounds like you're saying it's accurate (for calories) because you want it to be.0
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Either it's accurate enough, or it's off by ~40% every time all the time.
Either way... when I use it as the basis for my calorie expenditures, in conjunction with logging my intake... my actual weight loss lines up pretty closely with what the math predicts. And ultimately, that's what accurate is to me.0 -
My RPE for the same speed at the same route tends to change based on how much exercise I've done lately and how much sleep I got, etc. RPE is a pretty good indicator of how much gas you have in the tank, how hard you're able to push at any given moment, but I don't think it's a very accurate or consistent measure of workload.0
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At this point, I'm not sure what you're arguing. Is there any option you'll accept as reasonable that isn't a PM?
I never said RPE was a reliable measure of anything. Heck, I never said HRMs were reliable measures. I said HRMs were reliable ESTIMATES FOR ME. And for me, that's all any of this is... a whole series of estimates. The trick is getting those estimates to play nicely together.0 -
Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
Roughly, maybe, but not exactly. I've been rowing (machine) almost daily for the last few weeks. I row similar intensity/duration every time, per the Concept 2 monitor. So, same work = same calories. HRM calories can differ by 20% or more. Why? Time of day, hydration, who knows.
HR is loosely related to calorie burn for aerobic exercise, to the point that it can provide a useful proxy estimator. It's approximate, though. And the further one gets from continuous aerobic exercise, the worse it is. HRM howlingly overestimates weight training calories, for example.1
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