Crossfit

jeny_h

Any tips how to track Crossfit workouts?

Upstate_Dunadan

Are you asking how to enter them? Or how to come up with a calorie burn for them? Those have two entirely separate answers.

jeny_h

Upstate_Dunadan wrote: »

Are you asking how to enter them? Or how to come up with a calorie burn for them? Those have two entirely separate answers.

Hey there. Looking to come up with an approximate calorie burn.

antennachick

Its really hard to figure crossfit....it varies alot depending on what you did. Some people use Aerobics General and others use Circuit training. Eithier one should work...in my opinion crossfit burns more then eithier of those but by underestimating you stay on the safe side ;-)

rebeccaEsmith

I use circuit training and go off the cals I burnt on my garmin

psuLemon

Another option, if you are a regular, just switch to using the TDEE method and dont worry about exercise calories as its already factored into your daily calorie goal.

hrobjordan

Yea you should probably look into purchasing a fitness band (Fitbit, Garmon etc). Really depends on how hard your pushing yourself and the intensity of the workouts also.

jeny_h

Thanks everyone. I have been thinking about getting a fitness band to help track it better.

antennachick

Correct me if I am wrong but I was told workouts that are hit or crossfit are harder to track with a fit band? Because they are used for constant activity such as running or spinning....

hrobjordan

antennachick wrote: »

Correct me if I am wrong but I was told workouts that are hit or crossfit are harder to track with a fit band? Because they are used for constant activity such as running or spinning....

Not that I know of...my wife and I are in the army and her unit is doing a test phase of using Fitbits to analyze their workouts...she does crossfit and had no issues. I do HIIT sometimes and it seems pretty accurate, but then again I guess depending on what type you have. Mines calculate HR, steps, cal, and stairs climbed...

lorrpb

Fitness band pedometers track steps not weights and not really intensity except for his fast you're taking those steps. HRM will help but not perfect.

psuLemon

lorrpb wrote: »

Fitness band pedometers track steps not weights and not really intensity except for his fast you're taking those steps. HRM will help but not perfect.

Both are pretty bad for anything outside of steady state cardio. I think body media might be a little better but generally they are all based on either steps (fitbits) or VOmax (hrm).

Honestly, when it comes to those questions i defer to @heybales . He knows more about those things than anyone i know.

heybales

And even I'm taking a more balanced approached to it!

Indeed, HR-based and step-based calorie burn estimates are both going to be off the farther you stray from steady state aerobics same HR for 2-4 min (and step-based workouts for those units) which they are most accurate at estimating.
Closer to pure lifting/HIIT you get the more inflated the HR-based calories will be, and for lifting the step-based will be way under-estimated.

At least step-based for HIIT (and I'm referring to the traditional term HIIT, doing cardio that could be done as steady pace but instead as intervals - not the fad application of the term where it's slapped on every workout that is intense, which frankly couldn't be done any other way) can be really good for sprints, except hill sprints - it has no idea of going up.

But unless you do a lot of weekly time with these workouts that are inflated calorie burn - the difference in the time done isn't that great compared to total weekly burn anyway.
And usually the nature of those types of workouts means you aren't doing them for that much overall time.

Lifting and step-based tracker being the exception. Getting credit for maybe 8-10 slow steps in 1 min (likely less) doing squats or deadlift, or none doing OHP or bench, and being assigned close to BMR level calorie burn during all that lifting time - that's a bad estimate when it's really probably closer to 3 x BMR level, or higher if good circuit training.

But even there - if you lift for 15 min 3 x weekly - no big whoop.
40 min x 6 weekly - now it could matter if you have a small deficit.

psuLemon

heybales wrote: »

And even I'm taking a more balanced approached to it!

Indeed, HR-based and step-based calorie burn estimates are both going to be off the farther you stray from steady state aerobics same HR for 2-4 min (and step-based workouts for those units) which they are most accurate at estimating.
Closer to pure lifting/HIIT you get the more inflated the HR-based calories will be, and for lifting the step-based will be way under-estimated.

At least step-based for HIIT (and I'm referring to the traditional term HIIT, doing cardio that could be done as steady pace but instead as intervals - not the fad application of the term where it's slapped on every workout that is intense, which frankly couldn't be done any other way) can be really good for sprints, except hill sprints - it has no idea of going up.

But unless you do a lot of weekly time with these workouts that are inflated calorie burn - the difference in the time done isn't that great compared to total weekly burn anyway.
And usually the nature of those types of workouts means you aren't doing them for that much overall time.

Lifting and step-based tracker being the exception. Getting credit for maybe 8-10 slow steps in 1 min (likely less) doing squats or deadlift, or none doing OHP or bench, and being assigned close to BMR level calorie burn during all that lifting time - that's a bad estimate when it's really probably closer to 3 x BMR level, or higher if good circuit training.

But even there - if you lift for 15 min 3 x weekly - no big whoop.
40 min x 6 weekly - now it could matter if you have a small deficit.

Thank you. As always, fantastic information.