What SUP? Calories?

CarvedTones

I paddle a 9'9" inflatable all around SUP (that matters because the effort to go 3.5 mph is fairly intense; on a longer touring SUP it would be casual paddling). I track with Strava, which has SUP as a standard activity, and it gives me around 150 calories a mile, which is about 500 calories an hour if I stay at a pretty good pace. But it is difficult for me to stay at a pace that is truly aerobic because of the anaerobic aspect. Paddling my SUP fast is really hard work that I can't keep up all that long. But if I back off on the pace, it is only slightly aerobic; my HR is not that high. So I end up cycling between the two modes of paddling. I often do this for 3 hours at a time, going about 10 miles and Strava tried to give me ~1500 calories for it. Is that at all reasonable?
I am ~157 pounds, 5'7.5", male and 59 if any of that matters. I have been doing this 1-2 times a week for a few months and often do kettlebell swings on other days, so I am in pretty good shape.

C_Stretton

I don’t know how accurate this is because my heart rate monitor isn’t waterproof and I fall sometimes, but I’ve seen comparisons between about two times the calories burned whilst moderate walking to leisurely SUP. So, for three hours at a more aggressive pace, you could be burning that much. But again, without a HR monitor, it’s hard to know for sure

AnvilHead

The Compendium of Physical Activities only has one listing for paddleboarding, assigning an expenditure value of 6.0 METs. Using Cornell University's METs to Calories Calculator and plugging in your stats as given, it shows 1284.5 calories expended.

Hard to nail it down exactly since we don't know what intensity level the Compendium used for their MET value and there are other variables involved, but if we assume they're taking it as 'moderate' effort, the calorie figure from the converter should at least be somewhere in the ballpark.

Vladimirnapkin

I had a similar question, having spent hours a day on one during a recent vacation. I agree with you about the relative difficulty between brisk and relaxed paddling. It seems completely different.

CarvedTones

AnvilHead wrote: »

The Compendium of Physical Activities only has one listing for paddleboarding, assigning an expenditure value of 6.0 METs. Using Cornell University's METs to Calories Calculator and plugging in your stats as given, it shows 1284.5 calories expended.

Hard to nail it down exactly since we don't know what intensity level the Compendium used for their MET value and there are other variables involved, but if we assume they're taking it as 'moderate' effort, the calorie figure from the converter should at least be somewhere in the ballpark.

OK, today I did this:



and Strava gave me 1487 calories. Using the numbers you found, it's 1390 (10.82 x 128.45 = 1389.83). I edited it down to 1200.

emmamcgarity

I just checked the calorie burn for rowing moderate or vigorous effort which seems kinda similar and the numbers seem to jive with your calculations