Strength Training doesn't count calories?

sauronseye

When I add my exercise, it does not offer me a box to put how much calories I burned nor does it calculate it on its own. Is that a glitch or?

I am posting here in hope somebody will have an answer because I am not allowed to post on Tech forum (?).

ahokay89

Put it under Cardio as Strength Training

vivalaslim

That really annoys me. But, honestly it's probably best off. Apart from maybe a shake or protein after you shouldn't be taking too many extra cals for training really.

999tigger

You can include it on the cardio section, but due to the difficulty in calculating burns from strength training most people just put 1 calorie or dont bother.

kjm3579

I put my actual reps/sets under strength training and then make an entry under cardio for strength training that shows the calories burned for the amount of time I trained.

yogicarl

you spend most of your time sitting on the end of a bench weight training so its not a great calorie burner - I wouldn't bother entering any extra calories and just see it as a weight loss bonus.

hanymamdouh

I searched the issue before and here is the conclusion, strength training (weight lifting, resistance training, etc.) doesn't burn that much amount of calories during training (1 hour burns around 120 kcal!), the fact is that it raises the RMR and your metabolism; hence you burn more while at rest after workout session. It is not accurate to add burnt calories from strength training.

szabinahazi

I use my HRM during strength trainings as well and I log burned calories in the Cardio section, but it usually covers the whey shake and grants only a small amount of "free" calories...

sauronseye

kjm3579 wrote: »

I put my actual reps/sets under strength training and then make an entry under cardio for strength training that shows the calories burned for the amount of time I trained.

Yes, I did that already. Thanks.

I just wondered if it's an actual setting or just a glitch.

yogicarl wrote: »

you spend most of your time sitting on the end of a bench weight training so its not a great calorie burner - I wouldn't bother entering any extra calories and just see it as a weight loss bonus.

Well, no. I don't do bench and weights, I do modified strength workout with a lot of moving with weights.


Thanks everyone for the replies!

StaciMarie1974

Strength training does not burn as much as you might thing. Your body is always burning based on stats (height, weight, gender...) and MyFitnessPal takes that into account already. Strength training does not burn much more than general activity movement. Cardio burns more because during cardio, you are consistently moving several major muscle groups at once. In strength training, you're generally moving a limited muscle set and slower.

sauronseye wrote: »

When I add my exercise, it does not offer me a box to put how much calories I burned nor does it calculate it on its own. Is that a glitch or?

I am posting here in hope somebody will have an answer because I am not allowed to post on Tech forum (?).

StaciMarie1974

Not an accurate calorie burn - because HRMs cannot accurately monitor strength training sessions. They're for steady state cardio, not constant stop/start activity.

szabinahazi wrote: »

I use my HRM during strength trainings as well and I log burned calories in the Cardio section, but it usually covers the whey shake and grants only a small amount of "free" calories...

liftingbro

Unless you are doing some sort of circuit training where you are keeping your heart rate up and doing short or no rest between exercises it is probably best to not log calories burned for lifting.

#1- They don't have a very good way of measuring calorie burn for lifting in the first place.

#2- Most traditional lifting routines are not big calorie burners or at the very least would be difficult to tell how much you are burning.

However, if you are doing a circuit training and quickly moving from one machine/station to the next you could probably count it under cardio==>strength training. Of course if you are doing one of those cardio classes that uses weights I wouldn't really even count it as lifting.

qn4bx9pzg8aifd

The following is a link to a terrific (and highly informative) blog post from this site, regarding the topic in question --

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/hrms-cannot-count-calories-during-strength-training-17698


...with the following being an excerpt which 'reverberated' in my mind, upon reading it --

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[...]

If an activity does not meet these criteria, then prediction equations and heart rate monitors become less accurate.

When it comes to strength training, they are not accurate at all.

There is a mistaken belief among many people--repeated even by many "experts" on bodybuilding websites--that ANY increase in heart rate reflects aerobic conditioning and an increase in caloric expenditure. This is not true. The primary reason is that the increase in heart rate that occurs with strength training results from a different physiologic mechanism than it does during aerobic exercise.

The increased heart rate that occurs with aerobic exercise is the result of the need for increased cardiac output--the heart must pump more blood to meet the energy demand of the activity. Heart rate increases because of a VOLUME load.

The increased heart rate that occurs with strength training is the result of changes in intrathoracic pressure and an increase in afterload stress. There is no corresponding increase in cardiac output, and thus only a modest increase in oxygen uptake. Heart rate increases because of a PRESSURE load.

[...]

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I have found Adzak's blog to be a source of a lot of great (and well explained) information...



And I found the following { excerpt from a Wiki page } to be useful in further clarifying how/why strength training is primarily (though not exclusively) an anaerobic activity --

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Aerobic exercise versus anaerobic exercise

Strength training exercise is primarily anaerobic. Even while training at a lower intensity (training loads of ~20-RM), anaerobic glycolysis is still the major source of power, although aerobic metabolism makes a small contribution. Weight training is commonly perceived as anaerobic exercise, because one of the more common goals is to increase strength by lifting heavy weights. Other goals such as rehabilitation, weight loss, body shaping, and bodybuilding often use lower weights, adding aerobic character to the exercise.

Except in the extremes, a muscle will fire fibres of both the aerobic or anaerobic types on any given exercise, in varying ratio depending on the load on the intensity of the contraction. This is known as the energy system continuum. At higher loads, the muscle will recruit all muscle fibres possible, both anaerobic ("fast-twitch") and aerobic ("slow-twitch"), in order to generate the most force. However, at maximum load, the anaerobic processes contract so forcefully that the aerobic fibers are completely shut out, and all work is done by the anaerobic processes. Because the anaerobic muscle fibre uses its fuel faster than the blood and intracellular restorative cycles can resupply it, the maximum number of repetitions is limited. In the aerobic regime, the blood and intracellular processes can maintain a supply of fuel and oxygen, and continual repetition of the motion will not cause the muscle to fail.

Circuit weight training is a form of exercise that uses a number of weight training exercise sets separated by short intervals. The cardiovascular effort to recover from each set serves a function similar to an aerobic exercise, but this is not the same as saying that a weight training set is itself an aerobic process.

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When I do strength training, I happen to still have my heart rate monitor on, due to the fact that I do cardio before and after, in that day's workout (I find it beneficial to 'flush' my blood around, after strength training, and before doing some final stretching, and/or spending some time in a sauna). I view whatever hrm stats happen to be generated in the course of my strength training as more of an interesting curiosity... and while I can't glean truly meaningful information from such, I nonetheless somehow find it interesting to 'take a peek at'...