Crossfit and calories

jennydelgado09
jennydelgado09 Posts: 119 Member
edited November 21 in Fitness and Exercise
If you do crossfit how many calories do you estimate you burn?

I have a vivosmart hr Garmin that I wear and sometimes it's great. On a good day it'll say I've burned 450-500 calories. Of course it varies depending what we're doing.

And then other days I'm huffing and puffing and I'll look down and it's reading my heart rate at 85. And I know that's not right. So those days it says I've burned 200 or 300 calories.

Replies

  • MilesAddie
    MilesAddie Posts: 166 Member
    CrossFit is by definition 'constantly varied', so it's difficult to come up with a formula for how many calories you will burn. Some WOD's are for time, some are AMRAP; some are bodyweight only, some throw around some heavy weight. And some moves are easier for taller people (like wall balls), and some are easier for shorter people. I find "Fran" to be one of the tougher Benchmark WOD's, while most people think it's one of the easier ones.

    I've seen ANECDOTAL evidence in a study that says for men doing "Cindy" will burn 13 calories per minute, and thats a bodyweight only WOD. But we don't know the participants fitness levels, METS, yada yada...

    What I do, and what I see others do, is either assign a caloric value per minute, and then plug that in (say 10 cals/min), or use a TDEE. When I was more concerned with weight loss, I estimated about 10 calories per minute, and now that I am about goal weight, I use a TDEE.

    Sorry, I know thats kind of a let down - I'm not sure I would trust a heart monitor though...

    Best WODing!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    A HRM isn't going to be very accurate for that kind of activity. There is no direct correlation between your HR and energy expenditure. Your HR is used in an algorithm to estimate some % of VO2 max you're working at so necessarily assumes a steady state aerobic/cardiovascular event.
  • alyrie
    alyrie Posts: 22 Member
    So I'm not sure how accurate it really is, but my apple watch says I burn anywhere from 400-550 calories during a 60 minute crossfit class. I've worn it the last month and a half, and my calories burned have wound up in that range consistently.
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