Fitness trackers for weight lifting

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MeanderingMammal

raven56706 wrote: »

so would this mean i didnt burn any calories and i shouldnt put calories burned to MFP?

No, you just burned far fewer than the tracker says you burned. 40 minutes of resistance training, call it 200cals.

Hel it takes me an hour to burn 600 cals running.

jimmmer

cyronius wrote: »

Pen and paper may work for you, but you can achieve that same long term accessibility you're referring to without touching pen and paper...

Sure, by contorting yourself into knots to make it happen.

Still I can pull a book off the shelf, flip to this day in history and see what's going on.

And easy to make decent notes on injuries, sleep, intensity, diet, technique concerns, how you respond to this kind of rep scheme, frequency, how other training modalities may be feeding in/detracting from performance, etc.

All easy to do in notebook form, all easily accessible at a later date, no technological meltdown can threaten it. No technological revolution will obsolete it.

Simple, flexible, future-proof, easy to use.

jimmmer

raven56706 wrote: »

sorry but i just want to know because i want to make sure im doing it right

You can google for the MET values of the activities you are undertaking and work it out roughly for yourself. Then input that value as a custom entry in MFP.

You can use an online calculator such as this:

http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/activity-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx

as an example.

Please be aware that this will still be an estimate, because only you know what intensity you are working, etc. But it'll give you an idea.

You can work out your weight training, elliptical and cycling separately for their respective durations and then sum them to get the gross value. You can then subtract the amount of cals you would have burned in a coma to get a rough net calorie burn value if you want to be super picky and Bob's your uncle.

Please be aware, that anything you use will just be a more or less accurate estimation at the end of the day. Close enough is good enough...

ScubaSteve1962

raven56706 wrote: »

i definitely can. most Def. but i seem to burn alot more during strength than the cardio. But i guess the polar is just for the cardio correct(as in the bike and ellipitcal)

Which polar are you using, and how long are you doing cardio, today I did on 1hour of demanding cardio, and only burn 664 cal, but mine has different profiles. I change according to what I'm doing to keep the cal burn separate

nbooth07

What about "push" tracker? Anyone used that?
http://www.trainwithpush.com

raven56706

im using the polar blue tooth strap. I use digifit to cal the calories. I guess my question would be : how would i know how much to eat if i dont track calories burned for strength training? i can calculate the cardio work but was wondering if i should factor in strength training.

i appreciate everyones input and i think this can help others as well

raven56706

bump

jimmmer

raven56706 wrote: »

im using the polar blue tooth strap. I use digifit to cal the calories. I guess my question would be : how would i know how much to eat if i dont track calories burned for strength training? i can calculate the cardio work but was wondering if i should factor in strength training.

i appreciate everyones input and i think this can help others as well

Have a look at my last reply - it was directly in reply to you and directly addressed how you would work it out. I quote it here, because you obviously didn't read it:

jimmmer wrote: »

You can google for the MET values of the activities you are undertaking and work it out roughly for yourself. Then input that value as a custom entry in MFP.

You can use an online calculator such as this:

http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/activity-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx

as an example.

Please be aware that this will still be an estimate, because only you know what intensity you are working, etc. But it'll give you an idea.

You can work out your weight training, elliptical and cycling separately for their respective durations and then sum them to get the gross value. You can then subtract the amount of cals you would have burned in a coma to get a rough net calorie burn value if you want to be super picky and Bob's your uncle.

MeanderingMammal

raven56706 wrote: »

i appreciate everyones input and i think this can help others as well

You mean like in every other thread where it's explained that HRMs aren't effective for guestimating calorie expenditure in most circumstances.

M30834134

jimmmer wrote: »

cyronius wrote: »

Pen and paper may work for you, but you can achieve that same long term accessibility you're referring to without touching pen and paper...

Sure, by contorting yourself into knots to make it happen.

Still I can pull a book off the shelf, flip to this day in history and see what's going on.

And easy to make decent notes on injuries, sleep, intensity, diet, technique concerns, how you respond to this kind of rep scheme, frequency, how other training modalities may be feeding in/detracting from performance, etc.

All easy to do in notebook form, all easily accessible at a later date, no technological meltdown can threaten it. No technological revolution will obsolete it.

Simple, flexible, future-proof, easy to use.

I disagree with you Jimmer. How can you deny benefits of electronic log? Can you notes show my my progress over 2 years with a graph and trend lines? Can you run a report that will show you what days you lifting was not up to par? Can your notebook remind me to increase a weight or rep?

You've mentioned in your previous post that what if the fanboy developer goes somewhere or your OS stop receiving updates - REALLY???? If that's your understanding of the electronic logbook - you really need to look at them again.

My log app (FitNotes) is on my phone and all data is on my phone, automatically backed up. I have no relation to OS updates or "fanboy programmer" traveling arrangements - the app and data is on my phone. My app has notes where I can log any injuries, sleep, intensity, etc, it has weight tracker, and body fat. My app can create a graph of my 1RM, of the volumes, frequency of exercises, I can compare different exercise side by side with a graph. I know how many times I've worked my shoulders or any other part for any given time period. My app can calculate my PR for any exercise or any time period. I can create different routines and choose them with one tap.

Can you your notebook do that?

jimmmer

MasterVal wrote: »

jimmmer wrote: »

cyronius wrote: »

Pen and paper may work for you, but you can achieve that same long term accessibility you're referring to without touching pen and paper...

Sure, by contorting yourself into knots to make it happen.

Still I can pull a book off the shelf, flip to this day in history and see what's going on.

And easy to make decent notes on injuries, sleep, intensity, diet, technique concerns, how you respond to this kind of rep scheme, frequency, how other training modalities may be feeding in/detracting from performance, etc.

All easy to do in notebook form, all easily accessible at a later date, no technological meltdown can threaten it. No technological revolution will obsolete it.

Simple, flexible, future-proof, easy to use.

I disagree with you Jimmer. How can you deny benefits of electronic log? Can you notes show my my progress over 2 years with a graph and trend lines? Can you run a report that will show you what days you lifting was not up to par? Can your notebook remind me to increase a weight or rep?

You've mentioned in your previous post that what if the fanboy developer goes somewhere or your OS stop receiving updates - REALLY???? If that's your understanding of the electronic logbook - you really need to look at them again.

My log app (FitNotes) is on my phone and all data is on my phone, automatically backed up. I have no relation to OS updates or "fanboy programmer" traveling arrangements - the app and data is on my phone. My app has notes where I can log any injuries, sleep, intensity, etc, it has weight tracker, and body fat. My app can create a graph of my 1RM, of the volumes, frequency of exercises, I can compare different exercise side by side with a graph. I know how many times I've worked my shoulders or any other part for any given time period. My app can calculate my PR for any exercise or any time period. I can create different routines and choose them with one tap.

Can you your notebook do that?

Yes, because I can do maths. I actually calculate and record my volumes and so forth.

Graphs are pretty and easily accessed visual representations of data, but I can just as easily look at a figure from one day and compare it to a figure on another day. It's in my ambit.

solarpower03

FitNotes is one of the best apps for strength training logging

lostinwebspace

To @HaibaneReki , how is your Fitbit? I've heard middle-of-the-road reviews on it, like its calorie tracking isn't good (with cardio and steady-state activity) and that it can actually burn the wrist and leave a scar. So I've been hesitant to get it, even though I've had my eye on the Surge? What would you say about it? Or, to open it up to anybody, is there a product you'd recommend? I wanted to get one for calorie tracking and sleep tracking. I have sleep issues and I'm wondering if Fitbit or any other product can shed some light on what's going on at night. A bonus would be if it interfaces with your phone so you can skip tracks for music or anything I've seen those fancy gadgets do in the photos. It should be able to hook up to Android and Windows.

Also, is there a fitness tracker than can keep track of your rests? What I mean is, if I take a minute rest between sets, can I program my fitness tracker to beep when I need to get back to work? I program it for a minute, tap it when I'm done a set, and then in 50 seconds, it warns me to get back to work soon? Something like that. Sometimes there's no clock where I'm at or I forget to watch the time. Not that I'm one of those people that counts every second, but when your mind wanders, it's hard to even ballpark your rests.

shadow2soul

PhysicsOnIce wrote: »

I have been toying with the idea of getting a fitness tracker to keep track of my calories more effectively. However, today at the gym my trainer redesigned my program to be lifting-centric. So, I guess my question is, Do fitness trackers provide accurate calorie expenditures for strength-training?

Also, does anyone have a suggestions on what to get? I can't really afford something really expensive at the moment, but would like to get something reliable.

I have the Fitbit Surge. I won't say it's accurate for lifting, because I really don't know. I've been using it to track my lifting since I got it. I typically get 200-250 calories for 75-90 mins of lifting (Ice Cream Fitness 5x5). It doesn't seem like a completely unreasonable amount of calories to me.

My expected loss (based on Fitbit's Calorie burn and intake) and my actual loss are pretty close to each other (my actual loss is slightly higher than my expected loss). However, this could mean that it overestimates my lifting, but underestimates at some other point in my day. Hard to say.

alekth

I'm a bit perplexed with these devices tracking (in some of the described cases) more calories than one would expect to have burned. It's usually the opposite since there is barely any time for the heart rate to go up and that doesn't register as anything strenuous.

It must be said though, that for some types of weights training, it can match expenditure reasonably well, and those are the circuit/lighter-weights activities where there's quite a bit of cardio.

For heavy lifting HRM is hopeless, not only because it won't measure much, but also because a huge part of the calories burned are burned by tissue rebuild later on, not during the lifting itself.

dave4d

I don't worry about it. I try and eat a little extra on lifting days to fuel my workouts. On non-lifting days, I eat at a deficit.

HaibaneReki

lostinwebspace wrote: »

To @HaibaneReki , how is your Fitbit? I've heard middle-of-the-road reviews on it, like its calorie tracking isn't good (with cardio and steady-state activity) and that it can actually burn the wrist and leave a scar. So I've been hesitant to get it, even though I've had my eye on the Surge? What would you say about it? Or, to open it up to anybody, is there a product you'd recommend? I wanted to get one for calorie tracking and sleep tracking. I have sleep issues and I'm wondering if Fitbit or any other product can shed some light on what's going on at night. A bonus would be if it interfaces with your phone so you can skip tracks for music or anything I've seen those fancy gadgets do in the photos. It should be able to hook up to Android and Windows.

Also, is there a fitness tracker than can keep track of your rests? What I mean is, if I take a minute rest between sets, can I program my fitness tracker to beep when I need to get back to work? I program it for a minute, tap it when I'm done a set, and then in 50 seconds, it warns me to get back to work soon? Something like that. Sometimes there's no clock where I'm at or I forget to watch the time. Not that I'm one of those people that counts every second, but when your mind wanders, it's hard to even ballpark your rests.

Hi @lostinwebspace ad first question - I swear by it before, I had a Flex and I lived by it's estimations for almost a year never straying from my goal weight for more than a kilo both ways. Make sure You have Your profile setup with correct data and the MFP-FitBit sync properly.

Recently got the Charge HR - which for me is the perfect size/features ratio. The Surge is a little too big for my taste. The Charge HR also turns the sleep mode on automatically and so far is pretty accurate about it. There's a discussion about HR monitors and strength training - but I'm on the "use it" side, at least regarding FitBit, because unlike the stand-alone HRMs it also knows that I'm not running so the cal. exp. equation is different than when doing cardio.

Ad second question - there's Microsoft Band that I know of - it's a proper smart wear (not just watch) - Bing (or Google ) it. But that's a little pricey, somewhere along the Surge, which itself seemed little overpriced to me.


Anyway, I'm extremely happy with my Charge HR and would call it the perfect fitness tracker from what choice is now on the market. See You there http://www.fitbit.com/user/2Q8G5Z

Have fun.

raven56706

thank for the info guys. im just so hungry after weight training. 4 sets of 12 for all my exercises

branflakes1980

I can't remember exactly where I found the following information but I have been using the formula below for over a year to calculate calorie burns for my lifting sessions. It seems to be accurate, for me atleast.

your weight x how long your session was
Then take that and multiply it by a number between 0.020 and 0.030 with 0.020 being a very light effort lifting session and 0.030 being a really strenuous one.

So for example for me yesterday (shoulders and abs) 143lbs x 25 minutes = 3575 x 0.022 (wasn't very strenuous like a leg day would be) = 78.65 calories burned.

Hope this helps.

Edited to add, I only count minutes of actual lifting, not rest.

raven56706

thanks.. i definitely understand but it sucks because i feel like im burning more. i mean im sweating real good but think im burning more. Guess im not