adding in weight training sessions?

3AAnn3

How do I add in heavy weight training sessions? I'm talking heart pumping the whole time?

lishie_rebooted

You can log it under cardio.
however it won't be accurate, nor will using a HRM to track it

sealensfit

Yeah I've never understood this. You can burn just as many calories doing an intense weight-lifting session as you can with cardio - probably burn even more with weight-lifting. They really need to find a way to log it!

DesertGunR

meagansealens wrote: »

Yeah I've never understood this. You can burn just as many calories doing an intense weight-lifting session as you can with cardio - probably burn even more with weight-lifting. They really need to find a way to log it!

The difficulty in finding a way of logging it is absolutely immense in regards to developing an algorithm that could calculate the actual calories burned. While weight training can burn more calories, every person is built differently. The variables of lean muscle mass versus body fat between two people of the same height and weight. Let alone the many different height and weight combinations. Male versus Female. Reps and Sets. Weight actually lifted and how effectively the muscles of different people burn calories using the same weight. Cardio fitness. And probably a few more factors that are not coming to mind right now.

Things like running, walking, riding a bike, etc. is pretty much just a simple power conversion algorithm.

It is just one of those "sucks don't it" problems in life. I am sure there is some math whiz somewhere trying and maybe in time they'll figure out a way to do it.

vorgas

meagansealens wrote: »

Yeah I've never understood this. You can burn just as many calories doing an intense weight-lifting session as you can with cardio - probably burn even more with weight-lifting. They really need to find a way to log it!

No you don't.

The energy required to lift a weight is well understood. It is 0.00032 Calories per pound per foot.
Assume an average lift is 3 feet of movement (which is pretty far). 0.00032 * 3 = 0.00096 Calories per pound per rep.
Your body is not a perfect conversion machine. High end compound movements like squats have a burn rate of 5 times over sitting down. So let's say you burn 10 Calories for every one it applies to the weight. 0.00096 * = 0.0096 Calories per pound per rep.

So, let's look at a typical workout in a one hour session.
10 different lifts, 3 sets of 12 reps. That's 360 reps in an hour, or 1 rep every 10 seconds, which is pretty fast.
10 * 3 * 12 * 0.0096 = 3.46 Calories per pound.
If you lift an average of 100 pounds on every lift (which is 18 tons of foot pounds) you will burn approx 346 Calories.

In an hour.

Or about the same amount of Calories as a brisk walk.

Links
Calories per foot pound: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot-pound_(energy) (please note, the calorie listed here is the small calorie. The Calories we use to track food is the kilocalorie, or 1000 calories. So divide by 1000).
METs: http://livehealthy.chron.com/calories-burned-doing-squats-3156.html

vorgas

AprilAY3 wrote: »

How do I add in heavy weight training sessions? I'm talking heart pumping the whole time?

If you can do more than 20 reps per set, then you are basically doing aerobic exercise. You can log it as circuit training.
If you are lifting heavy enough that you can't do 20 reps, then you log it as strength training.

Your HR is elevated due to pressure load, not volume load, so as mentioned earlier a heart rate monitor will not be accurate at all.

3AAnn3

I don't have heavy weights at my house - only 5 and 10 pounders, so I do a lot of squats and arms a couple times a week here. I can only possibly make the gym twice a week, so I lift heavy twice a week there. I certainly feel hungrier after that than I do when I do cardio, so I figure I should at least get a few extra calories.

arditarose

AprilAY3 wrote: »

I don't have heavy weights at my house - only 5 and 10 pounders, so I do a lot of squats and arms a couple times a week here. I can only possibly make the gym twice a week, so I lift heavy twice a week there. I certainly feel hungrier after that than I do when I do cardio, so I figure I should at least get a few extra calories.

I lift heavy 4 x a week and found that what MFP gives me for maintenance calories, actually includes my lifting in my "lightly active" setting. Poo.