HRM told me wrong...

sabi82much

fitmom4lifemfp wrote: »

sabi82much wrote: »

Thanks for the info, everyone

I do a mix of workouts... Steady state, intervals and strength. How would the different activities affect my calorie burns shown?

Any links with info would be great too

There simply is no good way anyone can tell you what you burn - it's too hard to measure all the different exercises that go into individual workouts, for different people. This article discusses that.

http://www.sparkpeople.com/blog/blog.asp?post=you_asked_how_many_calories_does_strength_training_burn

I think the best you can do is break down your workouts into pieces, look up each *part* on a site something like this (this is set to dumbbell curls for a 150 pound person, for 10 min).

http://www.fitclick.com/calories_burned?Biceps&bpid=6#.WNWSLTvyvct

Then piece together your workout, and see what you wind up with. I've done this enough that I can come up with a good *guesstimate* based on the length of my workout and my level of effort.

Sounds good... Thanks

Psychgrrl

TimothyFish wrote: »

Heart rate monitors do a poor job of estimating calorie burns anyway.

Mine has been really helpful for losing weight and now maintaining weight. Seems accurate for me.

ashleighs148

erickirb wrote: »

ashleighs148 wrote: »

sabi82much wrote: »

TimothyFish wrote: »

Heart rate monitors do a poor job of estimating calorie burns anyway.

So then.... what would a better way be?

Good to know it's not as big a difference as I thought it'd be.

They might not be super accurate but they're the most accurate you're going to get, definitely better than mfp or machine estimates (obviously with the right height and weight in).

They are a good estimator under certain conditions. Steady state cardio. That said if you can't set your Max HR or V02Max in the embedded calculation they will be less accurate. I don't believe the Ft7 allows you to modify those imputs. In addition to that HRMs calculate total cals burned, some of which you would have burned had you not exercised and are already included in your allowance. Assuming you burn 1.25 cals at rest, and in an hour the HRM said you burned 500 cals, that would be only 410, as it counts the 1.25*60mins that are already your in MFP in your daily allowance.

I would also add that a treadmill's machine where you enter your own age, weight, etc, will be better than your hrm, as it measures work done, not perceived work done, which an HRM does.

My polar takes into account resting HR though it's not the ft7, not sure about that one. The calories you burn at rest is partly why you don't eat 100% back. Also, machines usually give me double the amount of calories compared to my polar HRM, sometimes 900+ for a spin class which for a 5'3 girl in 45 minutes is just crazy. Always found my HRM to be much more reasonable.

sijomial

sabi82much wrote: »

Thanks for the info, everyone

I do a mix of workouts... Steady state, intervals and strength. How would the different activities affect my calorie burns shown?

Any links with info would be great too

Steady state cardio - if you have a close to average exercise HR then a basic HRM may well give you a reasonable estimate, Useable even if not accurate. Get hot, dehydrated or if you are an outlier then accuracy will suffer.
Depending on what your steady state cardio actually is (Rowing? Running? Cycling?) there may be a better way to get a reasonable estimate.

Intervals - as your HR is elevated during the recovery periods your HR is higher during those periods than the actual work you are doing. Depending on the intensity/duration of your intervals the most likely outcome is somewhere between too high to very high estimates. If you are unfit with a slow recovery then ridiculously high might be the outcome.

Strength training - completely inappropriate to try and get a calorie estimate from a HRM, it's not an aerobic exercise so the work done has no relationship to oxygen uptake (HR is used as a convenient proxy for oxygen uptake). The calorie burn is primarily the volume of weight lifted x distance. Have fun trying to be accurate with that! (Just use the strength training estimate in the database would be my suggestion.)

fitmom4lifemfp

sabi82much wrote: »

fitmom4lifemfp wrote: »

sabi82much wrote: »

Thanks for the info, everyone

I do a mix of workouts... Steady state, intervals and strength. How would the different activities affect my calorie burns shown?

Any links with info would be great too

There simply is no good way anyone can tell you what you burn - it's too hard to measure all the different exercises that go into individual workouts, for different people. This article discusses that.

http://www.sparkpeople.com/blog/blog.asp?post=you_asked_how_many_calories_does_strength_training_burn

I think the best you can do is break down your workouts into pieces, look up each *part* on a site something like this (this is set to dumbbell curls for a 150 pound person, for 10 min).

http://www.fitclick.com/calories_burned?Biceps&bpid=6#.WNWSLTvyvct

Then piece together your workout, and see what you wind up with. I've done this enough that I can come up with a good *guesstimate* based on the length of my workout and my level of effort.

Sounds good... Thanks

Also remember that doing three sets of curls, over 15 minutes, is not looked up as "15 min of curls". Time each set. Do the math. For instance, I do 3 sets of standing dumbbell curls. I might be there for 10 min or so. Depends on how much time I rest in between sets. But each set only lasts 30 sec, for me. So my calories would be based on 1:30 of curls. This is why it's a difficult thing to just estimate, for other people. But measuring your actual time and adding it up is about as accurate as you will get.