THIS is why HRMs have limited use for tracking calories

sijomial

How would a person find out their VO2max?

VO2 max testing is expensive as it is basically under lab conditions but VO2 max estimating (note that word "estimate" again!) can be done many different ways.

By comparing your performance against data points of people who have been tested you will get a reasonable idea.
First choose your activity, one that your are used to doing and can be both consistent and give maximum effort. Then find a test using that activity.

Cooper test for running as an example (max distance you can run in 12 minutes).

Here's a link for VO2 estimating using an indoor rower - how fast you can do 2000m -
http://www.concept2.com/indoor-rowers/training/calculators/vo2max-calculator

Carfoodel

I had been using my calorie burns from my hrm to gauge my fitness improvement - but I have also been using the calorie burns provided as a guide as to what I need to put back in for fuel - but it's not working and I have been tinkering like mad to work out what I was doing right before that I am not doing now as in the last year I have only lost about 17lbs - but I have come down several dress sizes and my fitness has increased through the roof.

I suspect that my max hrm should be set much higher than it is - but I am a bit wary about changing the settings on the watch. I was thinking of looking at the downloaded watch data on the polar site and getting an average max heart rate for my sessions in general and changing my watch settings to reflect that. I was then thinking of calculating how much I burn when I am inactive for an hour - and deduct that off the burns as well.

from what you are saying though - the difference in my routines from 18-22 months ago is that I did used to do a ton of solid state cardio and now I do weights, kettlebells, core resistance stuff like planks & burpees and loads of walking and hillwalking etc- so even adjusting the max HRM on the watch and deducting a base rate off - is perhaps still going to be pretty inaccurate? daily TDEE from my fitbit based on weekly average for the last year is 2778 so I am generally pretty active (I think that is an ok TDEE?) but the figures not adding up is driving me a bit bonkers as I love my stats.

any advice is appreciated.

ssaraj43

Bump for @edDavenport

__Di__

How would a person find out their VO2max?

VO2 max testing is expensive as it is basically under lab conditions but VO2 max estimating (note that word "estimate" again!) can be done many different ways.

By comparing your performance against data points of people who have been tested you will get a reasonable idea.
First choose your activity, one that your are used to doing and can be both consistent and give maximum effort. Then find a test using that activity.

Cooper test for running as an example (max distance you can run in 12 minutes).

Here's a link for VO2 estimating using an indoor rower - how fast you can do 2000m -
http://www.concept2.com/indoor-rowers/training/calculators/vo2max-calculator

Ahh although I did end up Googling, your info is very helpful, thanks! Going to take a look now :flowerforyou:

3dogsrunning

I love your posts. Tagging this one to use as another reference.

Cainster13

Thanks for the thread,really interesting to know...

jonnythan

This is a great thread.

Here's the other reason they have limited use:



HRMs have to be programmed with a set VO2max, which is basically the conversion factor for going from steady-state cardio heart rate to calorie expenditure.

Where is yours? Is it 25? 35? 45?

Do you know? Do you think your HRM knows?

peeaanuut

so if there is no way of knowing without being hooked up to a million dollar oxygen machine, whats the point of counting calories and logging? Since we have no idea what we are burning, whats the point of any of this?

jonnythan

I had been using my calorie burns from my hrm to gauge my fitness improvement - but I have also been using the calorie burns provided as a guide as to what I need to put back in for fuel - but it's not working and I have been tinkering like mad to work out what I was doing right before that I am not doing now as in the last year I have only lost about 17lbs - but I have come down several dress sizes and my fitness has increased through the roof.

I suspect that my max hrm should be set much higher than it is - but I am a bit wary about changing the settings on the watch. I was thinking of looking at the downloaded watch data on the polar site and getting an average max heart rate for my sessions in general and changing my watch settings to reflect that. I was then thinking of calculating how much I burn when I am inactive for an hour - and deduct that off the burns as well.

from what you are saying though - the difference in my routines from 18-22 months ago is that I did used to do a ton of solid state cardio and now I do weights, kettlebells, core resistance stuff like planks & burpees and loads of walking and hillwalking etc- so even adjusting the max HRM on the watch and deducting a base rate off - is perhaps still going to be pretty inaccurate? daily TDEE from my fitbit based on weekly average for the last year is 2778 so I am generally pretty active (I think that is an ok TDEE?) but the figures not adding up is driving me a bit bonkers as I love my stats.

any advice is appreciated.

An interesting and somewhat amusing way to gauge your fitness improvement is to look at how many calories your HRM says you've burned while running 2 miles at a given speed at two different points in time. As your fitness improves, the calorie readout will go down even though actual calories burned don't.

This assumes you're at a constant weight, which may not be true.

jonnythan

so if there is no way of knowing without being hooked up to a million dollar oxygen machine, whats the point of counting calories and logging? Since we have no idea what we are burning, whats the point of any of this?

Well, you can certainly estimate with reasonable accuracy. HRMs give the impression of significantly increasing accuracy but in reality they don't.

Furthermore, after a few months worth of accurate logging you can calculate with even better accuracy how many calories you're burning on average.

sabified

bump to read for later

wareagle8706

For some reason, even though this is exercise physiology 101, many so-called "fitness experts" do not understand this. Now that you do, this is one way to evaluate the credibility of a trainer or fitness author. If they say something like "lifting weights can be cardio if you move quickly between exercises to keep your heart rate up", you know you are listening to someone with a serious deficit in their knowledge base--and you'll have to wonder what else they don't know.

I read most of your post. I agree that HRMs are only good for aerobic activities and not anaerobic activity. Due to your blood pressure rising during anaerobic giving a false reading on the HRM. But, I do disagree with the part I have quoted above. What you are basically saying is that a fitness "expert" is an idiot if they say you can gain cardiovascular benefit from weight training with shorter breaks, thus making your work faster/harder. I disagree with you. I am not saying that HRMs are accurate to measure weight training sessions but I am saying that you can receive cardiovascular benefit from circuits or supersets due to you constantly moving and moving quickly, therefore increasing the heart rate. Any increase in your heart rate like that is benefiting you cardiovascularly. Now, will it make you able to run a marathon? No. But doesn't every little bit count?

3dogsrunning

so if there is no way of knowing without being hooked up to a million dollar oxygen machine, whats the point of counting calories and logging? Since we have no idea what we are burning, whats the point of any of this?

You don't need to be exact. That's not the point of the post.
The reason why I love this post is that people think that HRMs are exact or at least more accurate than other methods of estimating when that is not always the case. I see so many people being told they need to buy one, it can be quite an investment for some people and its not necessary.
I have also seen some people blindly follow the HRM numbers, which can be problematic if they are over inflated.

Like someone else said, HRMs can be useful but understanding how they work properly is also.

ninerbuff

so from what I am understanding, why should I even bother to do weight lifting when I am trying to lose weight? I cant track the calories so unless I eat half of what I usually do on a lift day, I will come out above on my calories and the whole thing is wasted. So in other words, my hundred dollar purchase was a waste. Great.

Because if one loses weight on just cardio and calorie deficit, a higher amount of lean muscle tissue will be lost compared to one who does lift. And losing lean muscle tissue results in a lower metabolic rate and reduction of strength.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Azdak

I had been using my calorie burns from my hrm to gauge my fitness improvement - but I have also been using the calorie burns provided as a guide as to what I need to put back in for fuel - but it's not working and I have been tinkering like mad to work out what I was doing right before that I am not doing now as in the last year I have only lost about 17lbs - but I have come down several dress sizes and my fitness has increased through the roof.

I suspect that my max hrm should be set much higher than it is - but I am a bit wary about changing the settings on the watch. I was thinking of looking at the downloaded watch data on the polar site and getting an average max heart rate for my sessions in general and changing my watch settings to reflect that. I was then thinking of calculating how much I burn when I am inactive for an hour - and deduct that off the burns as well.

from what you are saying though - the difference in my routines from 18-22 months ago is that I did used to do a ton of solid state cardio and now I do weights, kettlebells, core resistance stuff like planks & burpees and loads of walking and hillwalking etc- so even adjusting the max HRM on the watch and deducting a base rate off - is perhaps still going to be pretty inaccurate? daily TDEE from my fitbit based on weekly average for the last year is 2778 so I am generally pretty active (I think that is an ok TDEE?) but the figures not adding up is driving me a bit bonkers as I love my stats.

any advice is appreciated.

When you start moving to a more interval-based program, esp if those intervals start including movements that are not truly cardio movements, then it becomes increasingly difficult to keep consistent, accurate calorie counts for exercise. That just comes with the territory. With the increasing emphasis on these types of workouts, it becomes more difficult to follow the stock MFP paradigm. I personally think that at this point you have to go with more of an "intake"- based strategy, focused on consistently monitoring intake and then modifying based on results. It's not as neat and tidy that way, but I don't know of any other option because the other way is probably not going to work at all.

peeaanuut

so from what I am understanding, why should I even bother to do weight lifting when I am trying to lose weight? I cant track the calories so unless I eat half of what I usually do on a lift day, I will come out above on my calories and the whole thing is wasted. So in other words, my hundred dollar purchase was a waste. Great.

Because if one loses weight on just cardio and calorie deficit, a higher amount of lean muscle tissue will be lost compared to one who does lift. And losing lean muscle tissue results in a lower metabolic rate and reduction of strength.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

But how do I know how much I need to lift to burn what I have eaten? If I dont know that, than I am just going to gain even more?

jonnythan

so from what I am understanding, why should I even bother to do weight lifting when I am trying to lose weight? I cant track the calories so unless I eat half of what I usually do on a lift day, I will come out above on my calories and the whole thing is wasted. So in other words, my hundred dollar purchase was a waste. Great.

Because if one loses weight on just cardio and calorie deficit, a higher amount of lean muscle tissue will be lost compared to one who does lift. And losing lean muscle tissue results in a lower metabolic rate and reduction of strength.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

But how do I know how much I need to lift to burn what I have eaten? If I dont know that, than I am just going to gain even more?

The point of lifting is not to burn calories. Lifting doesn't burn many calories at all.

peeaanuut

then it looks like weight lifting is useless for me. Thanks for the post.

SirBonerFart

preach it

wareagle8706

then it looks like weight lifting is useless for me. Thanks for the post.

Wait, so because you can't physically see how many calories you're burning using a HRM during weight lifting that means it's useless??

Heck, you're probably right, it's not light weight lifting helps to strengthen your existing muscle, build new muscle, helps burn calories, or help prevent osteoperosis. Yeah, you're definitely right. Weight lifting is useless.

jonnythan

then it looks like weight lifting is useless for me. Thanks for the post.

I guess if your goals fall more in the "osteoporosis and skinnyfat" category than "toned with strong bones" category.

Lifting helps you maintain lean mass while losing weight, as well as strengthening bones and joints and a host of other benefits. If you want to be thin and flabby, with brittle bones and weak joints, then absolutely avoid weightlifting.

Carfoodel

An interesting and somewhat amusing way to gauge your fitness improvement is to look at how many calories your HRM says you've burned while running 2 miles at a given speed at two different points in time. As your fitness improves, the calorie readout will go down even though actual calories burned don't.

This assumes you're at a constant weight, which may not be true.

I know my calorie burn has decreased as from my biggest size (well over 300lbs) compared to now I really can't get the same burns I used to (sigh lol)

Creative_Sam

Super interesting, this never even crossed my mind.

Thanks for the info

Azdak

For some reason, even though this is exercise physiology 101, many so-called "fitness experts" do not understand this. Now that you do, this is one way to evaluate the credibility of a trainer or fitness author. If they say something like "lifting weights can be cardio if you move quickly between exercises to keep your heart rate up", you know you are listening to someone with a serious deficit in their knowledge base--and you'll have to wonder what else they don't know.

I read most of your post. I agree that HRMs are only good for aerobic activities and not anaerobic activity. Due to your blood pressure rising during anaerobic giving a false reading on the HRM. But, I do disagree with the part I have quoted above. What you are basically saying is that a fitness "expert" is an idiot if they say you can gain cardiovascular benefit from weight training with shorter breaks, thus making your work faster/harder. I disagree with you. I am not saying that HRMs are accurate to measure weight training sessions but I am saying that you can receive cardiovascular benefit from circuits or supersets due to you constantly moving and moving quickly, therefore increasing the heart rate. Any increase in your heart rate like that is benefiting you cardiovascularly. Now, will it make you able to run a marathon? No. But doesn't every little bit count?

I am not saying they are "an idiot" (although many of them are)--I am saying they are wrong.

Your are substituting opinion for fact, which is always dangerous. Plus you are mixing terms without understanding the different physiological mechanisms underlying each.

Now that's a completely different topic and one which I have commented on numerous times, so I don't really want to hijack my own thread. But, suffice to say that there is a strength component and a cardio component to all exercise movements. Where that movement sits on the continuum between "pure cardio" and "pure strength" will determine what type of results you get.

Manipulating a strength-oriented routine to try and make it more "cardio-y" denigrates the effectiveness of the strength workout and doesn't provide much in the way of cardio benefits. This has been demonstrated numerous time (including the study from which I got my "21% of VO2max" bar for the graph I showed. You can't make a pure strength program into a cardio program, just as you can't do "strength training" on an elliptical (another claim sometimes made by stupid trainers).

Doing a "circuit training" program that consists of lighter weights and other types of hybrid movements WILL result in cardio training -- but it also won't provide the same increases in strength/mass as a lifting program--and it won't result in the same level of cardio training as a pure "cardio-based" program either. And finally, as again shown in the graph, it will result in an excess HR response that will throw off your HRM calorie readings.

And finally, as I have written about numerous times, the HR increase that occurs during strength training is due to a completely different mechanism than during cardio--so a heart rate of 130 during cardio will result in cardio training, but a heart rate of 130 during strength training will not.

None of these are "good" or "bad" --they just are. And it's something that EVERY "trainer" should know on day 1 of their job or they have no business charging people money.

Anna_Joys_Journey

so if there is no way of knowing without being hooked up to a million dollar oxygen machine, whats the point of counting calories and logging? Since we have no idea what we are burning, whats the point of any of this?

^^^this. Feeling pretty discouraged now. What the heck do I do now?

jonnythan

so if there is no way of knowing without being hooked up to a million dollar oxygen machine, whats the point of counting calories and logging? Since we have no idea what we are burning, whats the point of any of this?

^^^this. Feeling pretty discouraged now. What the heck do I do now?

Lift weights, get adequate protein/fat/fiber, and monitor your calorie intake. This is probably the same thing you've been doing to lose your 18 pounds so far.

Carfoodel

When you start moving to a more interval-based program, esp if those intervals start including movements that are not truly cardio movements, then it becomes increasingly difficult to keep consistent, accurate calorie counts for exercise. That just comes with the territory. With the increasing emphasis on these types of workouts, it becomes more difficult to follow the stock MFP paradigm. I personally think that at this point you have to go with more of an "intake"- based strategy, focused on consistently monitoring intake and then modifying based on results. It's not as neat and tidy that way, but I don't know of any other option because the other way is probably not going to work at all.

Thanks - I am slowly coming around to the same conclusion, so just looking for logic behind it as I am quite a slave to my statistics so I need to get that thinking turned on its head a bit.

peeaanuut

then it looks like weight lifting is useless for me. Thanks for the post.

Wait, so because you can't physically see how many calories you're burning using a HRM during weight lifting that means it's useless??

Heck, you're probably right, it's not light weight lifting helps to strengthen your existing muscle, build new muscle, helps burn calories, or help prevent osteoperosis. Yeah, you're definitely right. Weight lifting is useless.

He said it burns almost no calories. Which means I get to eat almost no calories. I didn't say it was useless for everyone. I said it was not for me. Learn to read.

jonnythan

then it looks like weight lifting is useless for me. Thanks for the post.

Wait, so because you can't physically see how many calories you're burning using a HRM during weight lifting that means it's useless??

Heck, you're probably right, it's not light weight lifting helps to strengthen your existing muscle, build new muscle, helps burn calories, or help prevent osteoperosis. Yeah, you're definitely right. Weight lifting is useless.

He said it burns almost no calories. Which means I get to eat almost no calories. I didn't say it was useless for everyone. I said it was not for me. Learn to read.

Is this a joke or troll or something?

Your ONLY reason for exercise is to eat more? That's the absolute extent of it? You have no goals in the world other than eating more?

peeaanuut

then it looks like weight lifting is useless for me. Thanks for the post.

I guess if your goals fall more in the "osteoporosis and skinnyfat" category than "toned with strong bones" category.

Lifting helps you maintain lean mass while losing weight, as well as strengthening bones and joints and a host of other benefits. If you want to be thin and flabby, with brittle bones and weak joints, then absolutely avoid weightlifting.

The number on the scale is the only thing that matters. If I lose fat but gain muscle I will still be seen as a whale. So while weight lifting is good for some people. It appears it is useless for me.