Heart Rate Monitors for Anaerobic Activity

Wasatcher

Can one use any of the available heart rate monitors to get an idea of calories burned while skiing?

With accuracy?

rybo

No

NorthCascades

Nordic or alpine?

mitch16

Nordic, yes--same as running or hiking.

Alpine, no--unless you are earning your turns. Way too much "down time" for lift-serviced skiing--it's not steady-state cardio. Even if you are using online estimators remember to only count the time when you are actually skiing and not when you are waiting in line or on the lift.

Wasatcher

Appreciate the responses. We're talking alpine skiing here. I'm aware HRM-s have classically been based on assumptions from sustained heart rate activity. I was wondering if devices have come along that have somehow attempted algorithms that would translate heart rate into calories burned for anaerobic activities, such as alpine skiing or weightlifting.

NorthCascades

They don't even work well for calories for "steady state" cardio but they'll at least have some correlation with the truth for Nordic skiing.

mitch16

I've seen estimators for Alpine that say 300-400 calories per hour! We ski 50+ days in a season and I only give myself ~40 calories per hour (unless we're hiking) and feel comfortable in my underestimation. I still end up hitting the gym weights or a quick run even after skiing 6 hours.

mitch16

I've been using my Fenix 5S while I ski alpine... It actually does a pretty good job of tracking only moving time and ignoring chairlift time. Calorie burns seem very reasonable.