Calories burned on stationary bikes
AMC110
Posts: 188 Member
I just finished 12 minutes on my exercise bike with a distance of 2.92 miles. The built-in computer tells me that amounts to 76.1 calories burned but when I log my details into online calculators the results are much higher (143 calories). I know the bike doesn't take my stats (height, weight etc.) into consideration but that's such a big difference so I'm not sure which result to rely on.
0
Replies
-
When in doubt, go with the lower amount5
-
76cals sounds pretty reasonable. 143 seems fairly high to me.
The bike knows the activity that you're doing, which on stationary exercise machines, is more important than is your particular stats.0 -
Height isn't relevant and weight is only has a small relevance on an exercise bike that's why your bike doesn't ask for them.
Remember it's not a weight bearing exercise.
(Pro cyclists tend to be far lighter than me and burn twice as many calories as I can.)
Miles aren't a good measure for an indoor bike either as you aren't actually going anywhere and there's not a universal standard, it will vary from machine to machine.
Your fitness, intensity and endurance are the big factors.
Does your bike display power output (in watts) as you can easily and reliably convert that to calories.
2 -
There is but very expensive - you would need to be a serious cyclist to justify the expense.
Power meter equipped indoor trainers are becoming more common all the time.
Unless you do a lot of cycling (hours and hours) I would simply go by your bike's estimate.
You can try to "calibrate yourself" to get an idea of your capabilities - use a Concept2 rower or run on level ground as two examples.0 -
There are devices you can buy and attach to measure power (watts) but they'll cost $500 or more. They're fantastically useful for fitness purposes, but probably overkill for weight management.0
-
If it's any help......2.92 miles over 12 minutes is just under 15mph/24kmh which is pretty close to my average speed during a commute. I have a power meter on my bike and I'm assuming I'm heavier than you (weight is not really a factor unless you're climbing a lot of hills) and I burn about 17cal per km at that speed on a relatively flat route (2.92 miles is about 4.7km which would be approx 80 cal) so I'd go with the lower number.
3 -
I did one hour and 45 minutes on a trainer last night and the meter read that I had burned 765 calories.
I have no idea if that's correct.
average watts? dunno, probably in the low 100's but also pushing up into the 200's at times
12 minutes? yeah, go with the lower number of approx. 75 total calories burned.0 -
I don't track the distance I do on the bike, but my last couple of workouts my Apple Watch gave me 89 calories for 17 minutes and 92 calories for 15 minutes. My bike's display usually roughly agrees with the watch. So yeah, 76 calories for 12 minutes sounds reasonable. I recently switched from running to the indoor bike and am still getting used to the lower calorie/minute burn myself. I wouldn't bother with a power meter, just use your bike's numbers.0
-
12 mins is 1/5th an hr. 76x5=380 cals/hr. 143x5=715 cals/hr.
You'd have to be spinning at a fairly high level of effort to burn 715 cals/hour.
There should be at least some shortness of breath, difficulty talking and sweating involved and your HR should be somewhat elevated.
This describes my experience when I row at a rate of 675-725 cals/hr on my Concept2, which is currently my normal pace.
On the other hand, 380 cals/ hour is pretty much a walk in the park. You shouldn't be breathing hard, should be able to talk easily, shouldn't break a sweat and your heart rate should hardly budge.
OP: Go w/the description best fits your experience in order to choose which cal estimate to use.0 -
BrianSharpe wrote: »If it's any help......2.92 miles over 12 minutes is just under 15mph/24kmh which is pretty close to my average speed during a commute. I have a power meter on my bike and I'm assuming I'm heavier than you (weight is not really a factor unless you're climbing a lot of hills) and I burn about 17cal per km at that speed on a relatively flat route (2.92 miles is about 4.7km which would be approx 80 cal) so I'd go with the lower number.
That's really helpful, thanks!0 -
Height isn't relevant and weight is only has a small relevance on an exercise bike that's why your bike doesn't ask for them.
Remember it's not a weight bearing exercise.
(Pro cyclists tend to be far lighter than me and burn twice as many calories as I can.)
Miles aren't a good measure for an indoor bike either as you aren't actually going anywhere and there's not a universal standard, it will vary from machine to machine.
Your fitness, intensity and endurance are the big factors.
Does your bike display power output (in watts) as you can easily and reliably convert that to calories.
How do you convert the watts to calories burned?0 -
@livenfree45livenfree45 wrote: »Height isn't relevant and weight is only has a small relevance on an exercise bike that's why your bike doesn't ask for them.
Remember it's not a weight bearing exercise.
(Pro cyclists tend to be far lighter than me and burn twice as many calories as I can.)
Miles aren't a good measure for an indoor bike either as you aren't actually going anywhere and there's not a universal standard, it will vary from machine to machine.
Your fitness, intensity and endurance are the big factors.
Does your bike display power output (in watts) as you can easily and reliably convert that to calories.
How do you convert the watts to calories burned?
As the efficiency ratio (of converting energy to power) of experienced cyclists is in quite a narrow range around 24% lot of the complexity of the full equation can be cancelled out and boiled down to....
Watts x 3.6 per hour.
So an hour of cycling at an average of 200w burns 720 net calories.
Here's a link that explains in much more detail
http://mccraw.co.uk/powertap-meter-convert-watts-calories-burned/
1 -
@livenfree45livenfree45 wrote: »Height isn't relevant and weight is only has a small relevance on an exercise bike that's why your bike doesn't ask for them.
Remember it's not a weight bearing exercise.
(Pro cyclists tend to be far lighter than me and burn twice as many calories as I can.)
Miles aren't a good measure for an indoor bike either as you aren't actually going anywhere and there's not a universal standard, it will vary from machine to machine.
Your fitness, intensity and endurance are the big factors.
Does your bike display power output (in watts) as you can easily and reliably convert that to calories.
How do you convert the watts to calories burned?
As the efficiency ratio (of converting energy to power) of experienced cyclists is in quite a narrow range around 24% lot of the complexity of the full equation can be cancelled out and boiled down to....
Watts x 3.6 per hour.
So an hour of cycling at an average of 200w burns 720 net calories.
Here's a link that explains in much more detail
http://mccraw.co.uk/powertap-meter-convert-watts-calories-burned/
thank you1 -
Distance doesn't matter. What matters is time and resistance. On a regular bike you could ride downhill and burn few calories, but ride the same distance uphill in the same amount of time and you would burn a lot. People on stationary bikes tend to think they are burning more than they are. But using resistance and cadence there is enough information for a stationary bike to calculate calories burned.1
-
I just finished 12 minutes on my exercise bike with a distance of 2.92 miles. The built-in computer tells me that amounts to 76.1 calories burned but when I log my details into online calculators the results are much higher (143 calories). I know the bike doesn't take my stats (height, weight etc.) into consideration but that's such a big difference so I'm not sure which result to rely on.
Using time as a measure, I'd go with a rough estimate of 400 calories per hour ... therefore 12 minutes could be about 80 calories. If your built-in computer told you 76, I'd go with that.
0 -
For 10 minutes my bike says 77 calories0
-
For 15 minutes Apple Watch says ~50 calories. The bike is usually estimating higher. I tend to believe the Watch is closer. For My 15 minute ‘don’t be a sloth at home’ rides usually bike resistance is about 1/2 way up to max, I could hold conversation but not easily, and my heart rate is at about same as very fast walk. I’m very short tho, and my calorie burns are pitiful.0
-
stationary bikes like the Keiser used for spin classes measures watts and converts that to calories. This measure is more accurate.
Stationary bikes that report a distance aren't that accurate.0 -
Heart rate plays a large factor into figuring this out. If your heart rate is not elevated into Zone 3 or above, you are not burning much of anything. If you do an hour in Zone 4 you will burn a ton of calories. Biking is one of the quickest burners out there that is very gentle physically to your body. As you get more fit, it becomes harder to burn as your body is not exerting/burning calories as much energy this is why heart rate becomes a factor, when your rate is elevated, you know your are burning calories no matter how fit you are. Everyones heart rate zones also change and are different as well.
Biking around a lake as not fit at 12 mph for an hour with a heart rate of 160 might burn you close to 800 calories or more.
Biking around the same lake very fit at 12 mph for an hour with a heart rate of 137 might burn you close to 300 calories or less.
There are sites that you can use that help figure this out. But in the end it's all dependent on weight, heart rate, and time.5 -
@Philipv1Heart rate plays a large factor into figuring this out. If your heart rate is not elevated into Zone 3 or above, you are not burning much of anything. If you do an hour in Zone 4 you will burn a ton of calories. Biking is one of the quickest burners out there that is very gentle physically to your body. As you get more fit, it becomes harder to burn as your body is not exerting/burning calories as much energy this is why heart rate becomes a factor, when your rate is elevated, you know your are burning calories no matter how fit you are. Everyones heart rate zones also change and are different as well.
Biking around a lake as not fit at 12 mph for an hour with a heart rate of 160 might burn you close to 800 calories or more.
Biking around the same lake very fit at 12 mph for an hour with a heart rate of 137 might burn you close to 300 calories or less.
There are sites that you can use that help figure this out. But in the end it's all dependent on weight, heart rate, and time.
The bold sections are completely wrong I'm afraid. There is no equation to convert heart beats to calories.
Heart rate is personal and it is not something that can really be compared between individuals.
Three people producing the same power at different heart rates are all burning almost the same number of calories and I've seen variation between three fit cyclists (not from unfit to fit) from 130 to 150 to 180bpm all burning the same calories.
An unfit person at my exercise HR might be burning half the calories I can.
Chris Froome at the same HR as me would be producing twice the power and burning twice the calories as I can because of his phenomenal fitness level.
When you are fit you can burn more calories, produce more power, go faster and further. Otherwise unfit people would be winning races!1 -
Heart rate plays a large factor into figuring this out. If your heart rate is not elevated into Zone 3 or above, you are not burning much of anything. If you do an hour in Zone 4 you will burn a ton of calories. Biking is one of the quickest burners out there that is very gentle physically to your body. As you get more fit, it becomes harder to burn as your body is not exerting/burning calories as much energy this is why heart rate becomes a factor, when your rate is elevated, you know your are burning calories no matter how fit you are. Everyones heart rate zones also change and are different as well.
Biking around a lake as not fit at 12 mph for an hour with a heart rate of 160 might burn you close to 800 calories or more.
Biking around the same lake very fit at 12 mph for an hour with a heart rate of 137 might burn you close to 300 calories or less.
There are sites that you can use that help figure this out. But in the end it's all dependent on weight, heart rate, and time.
There is not a correlation between heart rate and caloric expenditure. Heart rate is indicative of fitness.
Physics tells us that it takes a certain amount of energy to move a given mass a given distance. And due to the mechanic efficiencies of a bike weight makes very little difference unless you're climbing hills.
3 -
Heart rate plays a large factor into figuring this out. If your heart rate is not elevated into Zone 3 or above, you are not burning much of anything. If you do an hour in Zone 4 you will burn a ton of calories.
This is nonsense.
Zone 3 is up to 156 bpm for me, zone 4 starts at 157. That 1 bpm won't make a difference between hardly any and tons of calories. Drinking coffee will affect my heart rate by more than that.0 -
Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?0 -
Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
Yes more work equals more calories (units of energy) - but HR isn't a completely reliable measure of work. Reasonable but not that consistent.
I've been doing a lot of indoor riding this month as I can't tolerate cold very well.
Here's some recent steady state workouts and there's quite a variation in HR.
170 watts - 151 bpm (bad day)
180 watts - 143 bpm
170 watts - 130 bpm (felt great that day!)
160 watts - 137 bpm
170 watts - 147 bpm
140 watts - 146 bpm (HR zones way out of line with my power zones, no idea why)1 -
Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
Yes more work equals more calories (units of energy) - but HR isn't a completely reliable measure of work. Reasonable but not that consistent.
I've been doing a lot of indoor riding this month as I can't tolerate cold very well.
Here's some recent steady state workouts and there's quite a variation in HR.
170 watts - 151 bpm (bad day)
180 watts - 143 bpm
170 watts - 130 bpm (felt great that day!)
160 watts - 137 bpm
170 watts - 147 bpm
140 watts - 146 bpm (HR zones way out of line with my power zones, no idea why)
Thanks. The bolded part is what I was looking for. It's what I've always thought I knew, but people are SOOO dismissive of HR around here that I thought I'd double check.0 -
One time I was hiking, and somebody's dog tried to bite me. If you pull up the file in Garmin Connect, you'll see a moment when my pace drops to zero (so I'm not burning exercise calories) and my HR shoots to 190. A moment earlier I was burning calories walking uphill with my ticker doing something reasonable like 100 bpm.
Better example. I stopped exercising for a week and a half thanks to a death cold. When I got back on the bike, I did my standard after work loop that I've done hundreds of times before. This time my HR was dozens of bpm higher than normal because of the lingering sickness and because I'd lost some fitness. I was burning fewer calories than normal doing the same number of miles more slowly (so less air resistance), but at a much higher HR.0 -
Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
Yes more work equals more calories (units of energy) - but HR isn't a completely reliable measure of work. Reasonable but not that consistent.
I've been doing a lot of indoor riding this month as I can't tolerate cold very well.
Here's some recent steady state workouts and there's quite a variation in HR.
170 watts - 151 bpm (bad day)
180 watts - 143 bpm
170 watts - 130 bpm (felt great that day!)
160 watts - 137 bpm
170 watts - 147 bpm
140 watts - 146 bpm (HR zones way out of line with my power zones, no idea why)
Thanks. The bolded part is what I was looking for. It's what I've always thought I knew, but people are SOOO dismissive of HR around here that I thought I'd double check.
Looking at the chart @sijomial just posted, it's easy to see why!0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
Yes more work equals more calories (units of energy) - but HR isn't a completely reliable measure of work. Reasonable but not that consistent.
I've been doing a lot of indoor riding this month as I can't tolerate cold very well.
Here's some recent steady state workouts and there's quite a variation in HR.
170 watts - 151 bpm (bad day)
180 watts - 143 bpm
170 watts - 130 bpm (felt great that day!)
160 watts - 137 bpm
170 watts - 147 bpm
140 watts - 146 bpm (HR zones way out of line with my power zones, no idea why)
Thanks. The bolded part is what I was looking for. It's what I've always thought I knew, but people are SOOO dismissive of HR around here that I thought I'd double check.
Looking at the chart @sijomial just posted, it's easy to see why!
I guess it's a matter of perspective/expectations.
I don't have a power meter, so I have no way to be "exact" with my calorie burn estimates. "Reasonable" is good enough for me.0 -
Hopefully OP has gotten the answers she needs, and thus won't mind my continuing the derailment of this thread...
If I'm working at 125bpm for 30 minutes, I burn however many calories... let's say 200 for the sake of this conversation.
If I work at 155bpm for 30 minutes, doing the same exercise, isn't it reasonable to assume I'm doing more work, and thus burning more calories? So within my own workouts... HR is indicative of calories burned, no? Clearly you can't compare my workout to anyone else's, or my HR levels to anyone else... but as my HR goes up (based on effort/intensity... let's take things like caffeine or other external HR boosters out of the conversation), so do my cals burned, no?
When I was doing MFP and logging exercise, etc I determined that HR was "good enough." I personally never had issues just going with that number for my cardio and it never hindered my weight loss. That said, I would make adjustments when I knew it my calorie burn was inflated...for example, when I ride in the AM, my HR is always quite a bit higher than it is for the same work performed later in the afternoon...like a moderately paced 15-16 MPH 20K in the early morning could easily have my HR in the mid 150s...same exact ride in the afternoon and I would average 138...in these instances, I had enough data to look at the number and see it was inflated and to just use the calorie burn from some previous afternoon session on the same route.
I'd like to get a power meter at some point...not so much for the calorie expenditure, but for training purposes and seeing what kind of watts I'm putting out.0
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 393.4K Introduce Yourself
- 43.8K Getting Started
- 260.2K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.9K Food and Nutrition
- 47.4K Recipes
- 232.5K Fitness and Exercise
- 424 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.5K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 153K Motivation and Support
- 8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.7K MyFitnessPal Information
- 24 News and Announcements
- 1.1K Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.6K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions