Calorie Burn Question

floridagirl7264

I work out with a trainer for 30 mins 2x a week. When we workout, I do squats, pull-ups, push-ups, ropes and pushing a 75 lb sled. How do I figure out how many calories I'm burning for that period of time. I also workout on the rowing machine for 10 mins to warm up. I checked my pulse a couple of times and sometimes it was 130 bpm and after the sled it was 150 bpm. Can anyone help me figure this out?

UG77

You can get a fitness band with hrm capability to and rely on that to give you an approximation. Or you can get a hrm/chest strap that's compatible with your phone and let that do the same thing. Or you can manually approximate it on MFP by adding 30 mins of circuit training to your exercise log.

These are all approximations and some will be closer to the mark than others. You could also ask your trainer.

brianpperkins

HR is not directly tied to calories burned. If it were, scary movies and roller coasters would be weight loss techniques.

For the squats, pullups, pushups, ropes and sled ...all anaerobic activities ... your best bet is to find the MET entries for them. Rowing, if done at relatively steady (not intervals) effort is an activity that HRMs can approximate ... not measure. Rowing is an activity with enough study for some parallels between HR and energy expenditure ... assuming you account for several variables.

M30834134

+1 what Brian said. HR is useless for weightlifting - only good for steady cardio. I feel the general entry in Exercises->Cardiovascular->Strength training (weight lifting, weight training) is sufficient enough. The precision of burnt calories, especially via weightlifting, is very hard to approximate but in the big picture is not really important. What is important is consistency - just pick a way you will log your strength training and stick with it.