1,000 calories in 1 hour? Almost.
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But what I really want to know is...
How finely are we going to split this hair?3 -
NorthCascades wrote: »MHarper522 wrote: »Elite athletes like Michael Phelps have said their burn during training is max 15 cal/min so I doubt most of us are going to exceed that.
Calorie burn in cardio activities varies a lot by your weight, as well as intensity. While a lot of us will never be able to match the intensity of an athlete, a lot of us on MPH are heavier than those same athletes which means more calories for the same level or lower level of effort.
For a lot of kinds of exercise your weight has little effect on your calories. Biking, rowing, etc, aren't weight bearing. Bench pressing 200 lbs doesn't require more energy from s 300 pound person than a 180 pounder.
But walking and running for sure.
Rowing boats is weight bearing. Machines are a little bit, if you're doing it right: You unweight the seat and most of the body weight goes between feet and handle; plus you're moving your body through space on the rail (less so, perhaps, if the rowing machine's on slides or a C2 dynamic).
I would've thought moving a 250 pound cyclist uphill would be more work than moving a 100 pound cyclist up the same hill, too . . . but I'm not a cyclist. Stationary bike, not so much difference, for sure.
I agree with your main point, though: Body weight is a factor in activities where you're moving that body weight, not when you're not.
I think at least part of what NorthCascades was trying to get at is, given an average number of watts over the course of a ride, someone weighing 150lbs will have burned the same amount of calories as someone weighing 250lbs.
I believe the bolded is the source of confusion (as well as an illogical assumption).
This is like saying "if two people burn the same joules per second, they'll burn the same calories per minute."
The assertion that a larger person will burn more calories doing the same activity as a smaller person holds true so long as drag/inertia come into play and the activity is indeed the same activity.
In the case of cycling uphill, the only way that unequally sized riders burn the same calories per minute is if the larger rider travels at a slower pace. At that point, they are really not performing the same activity.
Cycling at 10mph =/= cycling at 15mph any more than cycling up a 10 degree grade is the same as cycling up a 15 degree grade.
Again, when discussing whether body mass impacts energy expenditure for an activity, assuming an equal energy expenditure (or "an average number of watts over the course of a ride") is illogical.1 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »MHarper522 wrote: »Elite athletes like Michael Phelps have said their burn during training is max 15 cal/min so I doubt most of us are going to exceed that.
Calorie burn in cardio activities varies a lot by your weight, as well as intensity. While a lot of us will never be able to match the intensity of an athlete, a lot of us on MPH are heavier than those same athletes which means more calories for the same level or lower level of effort.
For a lot of kinds of exercise your weight has little effect on your calories. Biking, rowing, etc, aren't weight bearing. Bench pressing 200 lbs doesn't require more energy from s 300 pound person than a 180 pounder.
But walking and running for sure.
Rowing boats is weight bearing. Machines are a little bit, if you're doing it right: You unweight the seat and most of the body weight goes between feet and handle; plus you're moving your body through space on the rail (less so, perhaps, if the rowing machine's on slides or a C2 dynamic).
I would've thought moving a 250 pound cyclist uphill would be more work than moving a 100 pound cyclist up the same hill, too . . . but I'm not a cyclist. Stationary bike, not so much difference, for sure.
I agree with your main point, though: Body weight is a factor in activities where you're moving that body weight, not when you're not.
I think at least part of what NorthCascades was trying to get at is, given an average number of watts over the course of a ride, someone weighing 150lbs will have burned the same amount of calories as someone weighing 250lbs.
I believe the bolded is the source of confusion (as well as an illogical assumption).
This is like saying "if two people burn the same joules per second, they'll burn the same calories per minute."
The assertion that a larger person will burn more calories doing the same activity as a smaller person holds true so long as drag/inertia come into play and the activity is indeed the same activity.
In the case of cycling uphill, the only way that unequally sized riders burn the same calories per minute is if the larger rider travels at a slower pace. At that point, they are really not performing the same activity.
Cycling at 10mph =/= cycling at 15mph any more than cycling up a 10 degree grade is the same as cycling up a 15 degree grade.
Again, when discussing whether body mass impacts energy expenditure for an activity, assuming an equal energy expenditure (or "an average number of watts over the course of a ride") is illogical.
Again, it would be really easy and pretty accurate to say, in cycling, calories per minute are most accurately calculated when using watts. When doing so, body weight doesn't factor in as much as any of the more popular calculators that don't use power would like to think.
Yes, people have said this.0 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »MHarper522 wrote: »Elite athletes like Michael Phelps have said their burn during training is max 15 cal/min so I doubt most of us are going to exceed that.
Calorie burn in cardio activities varies a lot by your weight, as well as intensity. While a lot of us will never be able to match the intensity of an athlete, a lot of us on MPH are heavier than those same athletes which means more calories for the same level or lower level of effort.
For a lot of kinds of exercise your weight has little effect on your calories. Biking, rowing, etc, aren't weight bearing. Bench pressing 200 lbs doesn't require more energy from s 300 pound person than a 180 pounder.
But walking and running for sure.
Rowing boats is weight bearing. Machines are a little bit, if you're doing it right: You unweight the seat and most of the body weight goes between feet and handle; plus you're moving your body through space on the rail (less so, perhaps, if the rowing machine's on slides or a C2 dynamic).
I would've thought moving a 250 pound cyclist uphill would be more work than moving a 100 pound cyclist up the same hill, too . . . but I'm not a cyclist. Stationary bike, not so much difference, for sure.
I agree with your main point, though: Body weight is a factor in activities where you're moving that body weight, not when you're not.
I think at least part of what NorthCascades was trying to get at is, given an average number of watts over the course of a ride, someone weighing 150lbs will have burned the same amount of calories as someone weighing 250lbs.
I believe the bolded is the source of confusion (as well as an illogical assumption).
This is like saying "if two people burn the same joules per second, they'll burn the same calories per minute."
The assertion that a larger person will burn more calories doing the same activity as a smaller person holds true so long as drag/inertia come into play and the activity is indeed the same activity.
In the case of cycling uphill, the only way that unequally sized riders burn the same calories per minute is if the larger rider travels at a slower pace. At that point, they are really not performing the same activity.
Cycling at 10mph =/= cycling at 15mph any more than cycling up a 10 degree grade is the same as cycling up a 15 degree grade.
Again, when discussing whether body mass impacts energy expenditure for an activity, assuming an equal energy expenditure (or "an average number of watts over the course of a ride") is illogical.
Again, it would be really easy and pretty accurate to say, in cycling, calories per minute are most accurately calculated when using watts. When doing so, body weight doesn't factor in as much as any of the more popular calculators that don't use power would like to think.
Yes, people have said this.
This is the same as saying, "feet per second are most accurately calculated when using miles per hour."
Watts are joules per second. A Calorie (kcal) is 4,186.8 joules.
Thus, there is no difference beyond semantics when comparing watts (joules per second) with Calories per minute (4,186.8 joules per 60 seconds).
Using one measure of power over another measure of power has no impact on the fact that body weight does influence the amount of energy required to perform the same activity when it is the body itself being moved.
Calories per minute IS a measure of power.
Cycling at a 10 degree incline at a pace of 10 mph for 10 minutes with a bodyweight of 180 pounds will require less power (Calories per minute, watts, joules per fortnite, however you want to measure it) than with a bodyweight of 280 lbs.1 -
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never mind2
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But what I really want to know is...
How finely are we going to split this hair?
The original implied (or inferred by me, anyway) question is whether or not it is reasonable to think a fit person that is not an elite athlete can come close to burning 1000 calories an hour on an elliptical machine.
This article:
https://www.octanefitness.com/octaneblog/blog/2016/11/13/burn-maximum-calories-elliptical/
Quotes this information:
According to the Harvard Medical School, you burn approximately 2.16 calories for every pound of body weight during 30 minutes of elliptical use. For example, a 160-pound person would burn about 345 calories during 30 minutes on the elliptical.
They use this information to extrapolate a table of ranges applying some values for % over or under average effort. The top of the range for a 200 pound man is 1000 calories according to that. It does seem to make a case of it being theoretically possible. I didn't think it was.
One source that gave me that opinion was information on the Cybex Arc Trainer, which I use.
https://www.livestrong.com/article/422769-can-you-lose-weight-on-a-cybex-arc-trainer/
One study conducted at the University of Wisconsin concluded that the Cybex Arc Trainer is the superior choice for calorie loss when compared to other low impact exercise machines such as the Precor Adaptive Motion Trainer and EFX 546i elliptical trainer. After examining 16 healthy men and women on each machine, the researchers found that the Cybex Arc Trainer burned 10.8 calories per minute, which the study determined to be significant when compared to 9.9 calories per minute on the Adaptive Motion Trainer and 9.3 per minute on the elliptical.
9.3/minute for an elliptical is pretty good, but less than 600 per hour. I don't use that 10.8/minute for the Arc Trainer, which would be about 650 an hour. I use the Arc Trainer that doesn't have the arms motion. I have a torn rotator cuff I am finally getting repaired next week. I also typically am at or a little below 100 SPM and I found another article that said 150 SPM is optimal. My 60 year old hips think that is a really bad idea. But I set resistance at 50 for the entire time, which the machine registers as high. Yesterday I did 90 minutes and gave myself 550 calories. When I use numbers similar to that in conjunction with what I think I burn if sedentary and what I think the total that I ate is, I am staying about the same weight. YMMV, but I don't think any of my 3 numbers is substantially far removed from reality.1 -
CarvedTones wrote: »But what I really want to know is...
How finely are we going to split this hair?
The original implied (or inferred by me, anyway) question is whether or not it is reasonable to think a fit person that is not an elite athlete can come close to burning 1000 calories an hour on an elliptical machine.
This article:
https://www.octanefitness.com/octaneblog/blog/2016/11/13/burn-maximum-calories-elliptical/
Quotes this information:
According to the Harvard Medical School, you burn approximately 2.16 calories for every pound of body weight during 30 minutes of elliptical use. For example, a 160-pound person would burn about 345 calories during 30 minutes on the elliptical.
They use this information to extrapolate a table of ranges applying some values for % over or under average effort. The top of the range for a 200 pound man is 1000 calories according to that. It does seem to make a case of it being theoretically possible. I didn't think it was.
One source that gave me that opinion was information on the Cybex Arc Trainer, which I use.
https://www.livestrong.com/article/422769-can-you-lose-weight-on-a-cybex-arc-trainer/
One study conducted at the University of Wisconsin concluded that the Cybex Arc Trainer is the superior choice for calorie loss when compared to other low impact exercise machines such as the Precor Adaptive Motion Trainer and EFX 546i elliptical trainer. After examining 16 healthy men and women on each machine, the researchers found that the Cybex Arc Trainer burned 10.8 calories per minute, which the study determined to be significant when compared to 9.9 calories per minute on the Adaptive Motion Trainer and 9.3 per minute on the elliptical.
9.3/minute for an elliptical is pretty good, but less than 600 per hour. I don't use that 10.8/minute for the Arc Trainer, which would be about 650 an hour. I use the Arc Trainer that doesn't have the arms motion. I have a torn rotator cuff I am finally getting repaired next week. I also typically am at or a little below 100 SPM and I found another article that said 150 SPM is optimal. My 60 year old hips think that is a really bad idea. But I set resistance at 50 for the entire time, which the machine registers as high. Yesterday I did 90 minutes and gave myself 550 calories. When I use numbers similar to that in conjunction with what I think I burn if sedentary and what I think the total that I ate is, I am staying about the same weight. YMMV, but I don't think any of my 3 numbers is substantially far removed from reality.
I know. My response was directed at the one of the tangents the thread has taken relative to cycling and calories burned... about weight and speed and incline and drivetrain friction and aero/body position and rolling resistance of the tires and clothing drag and power and cadence and fitness level and humidity and wind and...2 -
CarvedTones wrote: »But what I really want to know is...
How finely are we going to split this hair?
The original implied (or inferred by me, anyway) question is whether or not it is reasonable to think a fit person that is not an elite athlete can come close to burning 1000 calories an hour on an elliptical machine.
This article:
https://www.octanefitness.com/octaneblog/blog/2016/11/13/burn-maximum-calories-elliptical/
Quotes this information:
According to the Harvard Medical School, you burn approximately 2.16 calories for every pound of body weight during 30 minutes of elliptical use. For example, a 160-pound person would burn about 345 calories during 30 minutes on the elliptical.
They use this information to extrapolate a table of ranges applying some values for % over or under average effort. The top of the range for a 200 pound man is 1000 calories according to that. It does seem to make a case of it being theoretically possible. I didn't think it was.
One source that gave me that opinion was information on the Cybex Arc Trainer, which I use.
https://www.livestrong.com/article/422769-can-you-lose-weight-on-a-cybex-arc-trainer/
One study conducted at the University of Wisconsin concluded that the Cybex Arc Trainer is the superior choice for calorie loss when compared to other low impact exercise machines such as the Precor Adaptive Motion Trainer and EFX 546i elliptical trainer. After examining 16 healthy men and women on each machine, the researchers found that the Cybex Arc Trainer burned 10.8 calories per minute, which the study determined to be significant when compared to 9.9 calories per minute on the Adaptive Motion Trainer and 9.3 per minute on the elliptical.
9.3/minute for an elliptical is pretty good, but less than 600 per hour. I don't use that 10.8/minute for the Arc Trainer, which would be about 650 an hour. I use the Arc Trainer that doesn't have the arms motion. I have a torn rotator cuff I am finally getting repaired next week. I also typically am at or a little below 100 SPM and I found another article that said 150 SPM is optimal. My 60 year old hips think that is a really bad idea. But I set resistance at 50 for the entire time, which the machine registers as high. Yesterday I did 90 minutes and gave myself 550 calories. When I use numbers similar to that in conjunction with what I think I burn if sedentary and what I think the total that I ate is, I am staying about the same weight. YMMV, but I don't think any of my 3 numbers is substantially far removed from reality.
I know. My response was directed at the one of the tangents the thread has taken relative to cycling and calories burned... about weight and speed and and incline and drivetrain friction and aero/body position and rolling resistance of the tires and clothing drag power and cadence and fitness level and humidity and wind and...
But minimal gains!!!
/tongue firmly in cheek
One of those moments when I'm so glad I'm not an elite cyclist chasing down aerodynamic and drive chain efficiency while also trying to keep my bike's weight just at the UCI's minimum weight limit.1 -
CarvedTones wrote: »But what I really want to know is...
How finely are we going to split this hair?
The original implied (or inferred by me, anyway) question is whether or not it is reasonable to think a fit person that is not an elite athlete can come close to burning 1000 calories an hour on an elliptical machine.
This article:
https://www.octanefitness.com/octaneblog/blog/2016/11/13/burn-maximum-calories-elliptical/
Quotes this information:
According to the Harvard Medical School, you burn approximately 2.16 calories for every pound of body weight during 30 minutes of elliptical use. For example, a 160-pound person would burn about 345 calories during 30 minutes on the elliptical.
They use this information to extrapolate a table of ranges applying some values for % over or under average effort. The top of the range for a 200 pound man is 1000 calories according to that. It does seem to make a case of it being theoretically possible. I didn't think it was.
One source that gave me that opinion was information on the Cybex Arc Trainer, which I use.
https://www.livestrong.com/article/422769-can-you-lose-weight-on-a-cybex-arc-trainer/
One study conducted at the University of Wisconsin concluded that the Cybex Arc Trainer is the superior choice for calorie loss when compared to other low impact exercise machines such as the Precor Adaptive Motion Trainer and EFX 546i elliptical trainer. After examining 16 healthy men and women on each machine, the researchers found that the Cybex Arc Trainer burned 10.8 calories per minute, which the study determined to be significant when compared to 9.9 calories per minute on the Adaptive Motion Trainer and 9.3 per minute on the elliptical.
9.3/minute for an elliptical is pretty good, but less than 600 per hour. I don't use that 10.8/minute for the Arc Trainer, which would be about 650 an hour. I use the Arc Trainer that doesn't have the arms motion. I have a torn rotator cuff I am finally getting repaired next week. I also typically am at or a little below 100 SPM and I found another article that said 150 SPM is optimal. My 60 year old hips think that is a really bad idea. But I set resistance at 50 for the entire time, which the machine registers as high. Yesterday I did 90 minutes and gave myself 550 calories. When I use numbers similar to that in conjunction with what I think I burn if sedentary and what I think the total that I ate is, I am staying about the same weight. YMMV, but I don't think any of my 3 numbers is substantially far removed from reality.
I know. My response was directed at the one of the tangents the thread has taken relative to cycling and calories burned... about weight and speed and incline and drivetrain friction and aero/body position and rolling resistance of the tires and clothing drag and power and cadence and fitness level and humidity and wind and...
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This "kitten" got deeeppp!0
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Pffff....plenty of ways to consume 1000 calories in an hour, not sure what the big deal is. Pretty sure I've hit 1000 calories in an hour plenty of times.0
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Deary, is this tongue in cheek?Aaron_K123 wrote: »Pffff....plenty of ways to consume 1000 calories in an hour, not sure what the big deal is. Pretty sure I've hit 1000 calories in an hour plenty of times.0 -
L1zardQueen wrote: »
Deary, is this tongue in cheek?Aaron_K123 wrote: »Pffff....plenty of ways to consume 1000 calories in an hour, not sure what the big deal is. Pretty sure I've hit 1000 calories in an hour plenty of times.
What can I say....in a snarky mood :-)1 -
robertw486 wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »MHarper522 wrote: »Elite athletes like Michael Phelps have said their burn during training is max 15 cal/min so I doubt most of us are going to exceed that.
Calorie burn in cardio activities varies a lot by your weight, as well as intensity. While a lot of us will never be able to match the intensity of an athlete, a lot of us on MPH are heavier than those same athletes which means more calories for the same level or lower level of effort.
For a lot of kinds of exercise your weight has little effect on your calories. Biking, rowing, etc, aren't weight bearing. Bench pressing 200 lbs doesn't require more energy from s 300 pound person than a 180 pounder.
But walking and running for sure.
Yea.... thats the reason why we have a crap load of 200lbs + pro cyclists.
The reason we don't have a crap load of 200 lb + pro cyclists is fluid dynamics. If they all stayed inside and measured wattage on stationary bikes, the sport would likely be dominated by larger riders.NorthCascades wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »MHarper522 wrote: »Elite athletes like Michael Phelps have said their burn during training is max 15 cal/min so I doubt most of us are going to exceed that.
Calorie burn in cardio activities varies a lot by your weight, as well as intensity. While a lot of us will never be able to match the intensity of an athlete, a lot of us on MPH are heavier than those same athletes which means more calories for the same level or lower level of effort.
For a lot of kinds of exercise your weight has little effect on your calories. Biking, rowing, etc, aren't weight bearing. Bench pressing 200 lbs doesn't require more energy from s 300 pound person than a 180 pounder.
But walking and running for sure.
Rowing boats is weight bearing. Machines are a little bit, if you're doing it right: You unweight the seat and most of the body weight goes between feet and handle; plus you're moving your body through space on the rail (less so, perhaps, if the rowing machine's on slides or a C2 dynamic).
I would've thought moving a 250 pound cyclist uphill would be more work than moving a 100 pound cyclist up the same hill, too . . . but I'm not a cyclist. Stationary bike, not so much difference, for sure.
I agree with your main point, though: Body weight is a factor in activities where you're moving that body weight, not when you're not.
I think at least part of what NorthCascades was trying to get at is, given an average number of watts over the course of a ride, someone weighing 150lbs will have burned the same amount of calories as someone weighing 250lbs.
That would be true of watts . . . but the post he was responding to was in terms of calories per minute.
BTW: I think bodyweight must count as a factor in work anytime one's power moves one's body through space, whether vertically or horizontally, whether standing or not. How much it matters may depend on position and nature of the movements/mechanical advantage.
Just as part of the thought fodder: I expected slower machine splits and no change in boat speed with weight loss. What I got was the same machine splits (more competitive as a lightweight: yay!
), and noticeably faster boat speed. Go figure. (I know this confounds the argument I'm making above, BTW.)
But to different degrees, right? On a bike, you can power up to speed and then coast, moving your body though space with no effort or extra calorie burn. Weight is paramount for a lot of types of exercise like running and walking, but it's much less important for other types. Because the mechanics are so different. In a lot of situations you can't just assume double the weight means double the calories. I think this started off about swimming, and that's something where the water bears your weight, the main thing you use your muscles to overcome is water resistance, and better skill can lower your energy need at the same weight.
To the bolded: Intuitively, yes, sure. That's what I meant by "how much it matters may depend . . .". I'm sorry I didn't write that clearly.
I have no idea what the differences in multipliers might be. The standard mets formulas appear (?) to always use bodyweight in the same way across activities; that seems strange to me, but I'm hesitant to think I know more than people who specialize in a subject.
Are you sure that better skill in something like swimming lowers your energy need at the same weight? (Are you talking with respect to the same speed, or for the same length of time, since we tripped on that communicationally earlier?). It confuses me because it seems like for some activities lower skill means more wasted motion, which may be similar calorie expenditure for lower effective performance. (I'm pretty sure some of the people I see at the gym on a rowing machine are using more calories to get X meters than I would, because they're doing a lot of motion, but not getting much into the flywheel. ).
I'm definitely way out of my depth here, though: Not a kinesiologist, not a physicist, not a biomechanical engineer . . . ! :drinker:
Not being a rower, I had never really considered how complex it is. The unweighting in the seat, the body moving forward, etc would I imagine give even top level pros some complex formulas to deal with. With the fluid dynamics involved in the boat moving through liquid and the upper parts and bodies moving through air, probably nightmarish formulas would be involved. Even on the amateur level I'm imagining a boat already moving forward, while the paddle ends more backward (or more likely stationary in the water really), and the upper body moving forward faster than the boat. Boundary layer changes, vortices in both the air and water, laminar flow across some of the hull, Coanda effect variations at the back of the hull...... No I don't want to even think about it.
Actually I do, but would need someone much more skilled in all that crap to figure it out.
But to the original topic, 1000 calories is no joke regardless of how it's output. I've cracked 1000 per hour on our elliptical, but it measures gross and slightly high. If Strava estimates are even close (argued both ways by many with power meters) I would think I could do it easier less hard with a lower chance of puking on a bike.
But keep in mind that in total gross calories, it's one of the rare occasions that being larger makes the calorie burn per minute easier to achieve. As for Phelps I'd have to think that 15 kcal a minute is based on training paces and not full race pace. Though doing it for an hour certainly is another thing, many less than elite amateurs can easily output that kind of power for shorter periods.
Frail flower that I am, I'm going to drop my part of this multiply-criticized arcane and pedantic sub-thread after this post (I think ), but I did want just to add this.
With the bolded, I believe you've already realized something a lot of actual rowers don't realize right away . . . sometimes not for a long time, until someone tells them: As a rower, you're not trying to pull the oar-blade through the water. The blade doesn't move all that much in the water (not at all might be good, if you could manage ). You're trying to place the blade, and use it to pry the boat over the water. (The body moving backward thing is kind of true and kind of not, BTW.)
And a well-rowed, well-rigged good boat achieves lift . . . literally, hydrodynamically. (http://www.row2k.com/features/970/What-is-Hydrodynamic-Lift--and-how-does-it-affect-my-rowing-/ has discussion of one aspect). In a big, fast boat (like an 8) you can - when you're lucky - actually feel it . . . and it's magical.1 -
robertw486 wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »MHarper522 wrote: »Elite athletes like Michael Phelps have said their burn during training is max 15 cal/min so I doubt most of us are going to exceed that.
Calorie burn in cardio activities varies a lot by your weight, as well as intensity. While a lot of us will never be able to match the intensity of an athlete, a lot of us on MPH are heavier than those same athletes which means more calories for the same level or lower level of effort.
For a lot of kinds of exercise your weight has little effect on your calories. Biking, rowing, etc, aren't weight bearing. Bench pressing 200 lbs doesn't require more energy from s 300 pound person than a 180 pounder.
But walking and running for sure.
Yea.... thats the reason why we have a crap load of 200lbs + pro cyclists.
The reason we don't have a crap load of 200 lb + pro cyclists is fluid dynamics. If they all stayed inside and measured wattage on stationary bikes, the sport would likely be dominated by larger riders.NorthCascades wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »MHarper522 wrote: »Elite athletes like Michael Phelps have said their burn during training is max 15 cal/min so I doubt most of us are going to exceed that.
Calorie burn in cardio activities varies a lot by your weight, as well as intensity. While a lot of us will never be able to match the intensity of an athlete, a lot of us on MPH are heavier than those same athletes which means more calories for the same level or lower level of effort.
For a lot of kinds of exercise your weight has little effect on your calories. Biking, rowing, etc, aren't weight bearing. Bench pressing 200 lbs doesn't require more energy from s 300 pound person than a 180 pounder.
But walking and running for sure.
Rowing boats is weight bearing. Machines are a little bit, if you're doing it right: You unweight the seat and most of the body weight goes between feet and handle; plus you're moving your body through space on the rail (less so, perhaps, if the rowing machine's on slides or a C2 dynamic).
I would've thought moving a 250 pound cyclist uphill would be more work than moving a 100 pound cyclist up the same hill, too . . . but I'm not a cyclist. Stationary bike, not so much difference, for sure.
I agree with your main point, though: Body weight is a factor in activities where you're moving that body weight, not when you're not.
I think at least part of what NorthCascades was trying to get at is, given an average number of watts over the course of a ride, someone weighing 150lbs will have burned the same amount of calories as someone weighing 250lbs.
That would be true of watts . . . but the post he was responding to was in terms of calories per minute.
BTW: I think bodyweight must count as a factor in work anytime one's power moves one's body through space, whether vertically or horizontally, whether standing or not. How much it matters may depend on position and nature of the movements/mechanical advantage.
Just as part of the thought fodder: I expected slower machine splits and no change in boat speed with weight loss. What I got was the same machine splits (more competitive as a lightweight: yay! ), and noticeably faster boat speed. Go figure. (I know this confounds the argument I'm making above, BTW.)
But to different degrees, right? On a bike, you can power up to speed and then coast, moving your body though space with no effort or extra calorie burn. Weight is paramount for a lot of types of exercise like running and walking, but it's much less important for other types. Because the mechanics are so different. In a lot of situations you can't just assume double the weight means double the calories. I think this started off about swimming, and that's something where the water bears your weight, the main thing you use your muscles to overcome is water resistance, and better skill can lower your energy need at the same weight.
To the bolded: Intuitively, yes, sure. That's what I meant by "how much it matters may depend . . .". I'm sorry I didn't write that clearly.
I have no idea what the differences in multipliers might be. The standard mets formulas appear (?) to always use bodyweight in the same way across activities; that seems strange to me, but I'm hesitant to think I know more than people who specialize in a subject.
Are you sure that better skill in something like swimming lowers your energy need at the same weight? (Are you talking with respect to the same speed, or for the same length of time, since we tripped on that communicationally earlier?). It confuses me because it seems like for some activities lower skill means more wasted motion, which may be similar calorie expenditure for lower effective performance. (I'm pretty sure some of the people I see at the gym on a rowing machine are using more calories to get X meters than I would, because they're doing a lot of motion, but not getting much into the flywheel. ).
I'm definitely way out of my depth here, though: Not a kinesiologist, not a physicist, not a biomechanical engineer . . . ! :drinker:
Not being a rower, I had never really considered how complex it is. The unweighting in the seat, the body moving forward, etc would I imagine give even top level pros some complex formulas to deal with. With the fluid dynamics involved in the boat moving through liquid and the upper parts and bodies moving through air, probably nightmarish formulas would be involved. Even on the amateur level I'm imagining a boat already moving forward, while the paddle ends more backward (or more likely stationary in the water really), and the upper body moving forward faster than the boat. Boundary layer changes, vortices in both the air and water, laminar flow across some of the hull, Coanda effect variations at the back of the hull...... No I don't want to even think about it.
Actually I do, but would need someone much more skilled in all that crap to figure it out.
But to the original topic, 1000 calories is no joke regardless of how it's output. I've cracked 1000 per hour on our elliptical, but it measures gross and slightly high. If Strava estimates are even close (argued both ways by many with power meters) I would think I could do it easier less hard with a lower chance of puking on a bike.
But keep in mind that in total gross calories, it's one of the rare occasions that being larger makes the calorie burn per minute easier to achieve. As for Phelps I'd have to think that 15 kcal a minute is based on training paces and not full race pace. Though doing it for an hour certainly is another thing, many less than elite amateurs can easily output that kind of power for shorter periods.
Frail flower that I am, I'm going to drop my part of this multiply-criticized arcane and pedantic sub-thread after this post (I think ), but I did want just to add this.
With the bolded, I believe you've already realized something a lot of actual rowers don't realize right away . . . sometimes not for a long time, until someone tells them: As a rower, you're not trying to pull the oar-blade through the water. The blade doesn't move all that much in the water (not at all might be good, if you could manage ). You're trying to place the blade, and use it to pry the boat over the water. (The body moving backward thing is kind of true and kind of not, BTW.)
And a well-rowed, well-rigged good boat achieves lift . . . literally, hydrodynamically. (http://www.row2k.com/features/970/What-is-Hydrodynamic-Lift--and-how-does-it-affect-my-rowing-/ has discussion of one aspect). In a big, fast boat (like an 8) you can - when you're lucky - actually feel it . . . and it's magical.
I think that is something I would like to feel someday...1
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