Needing to tone my arms. Tell me if Im wrong

tequierosince06

SnifterPug wrote: »

People diss the calorie counting efforts of HR monitors all the time. Perhaps rightly. But I have to say that I use a Myzone HR monitor (for motivation) and I log its calorie estimates. I also log my food intake. Over time my finding is that the HR monitor is giving me a reasonable assessment of the calories I have burned, in that my weight loss has been broadly in line with what I would expect.

I don't rely 100% on the HR monitor just as I don't rely 100% on my logging efforts. There is always room for error and it is simply not possible to work things out to one calorie or even ten calorie accuracy.

Boxing will not bulk you but as a huge devotee of it myself I say if you love it, then do it. I get so involved that I actually use the HR monitor to help me make sure I recover enough between bouts. During a PT session of 45 mins (5 mins warm up, 20 mins pad work at fairly high intensity and 20 mins calisthenics my typical calorie burn as per my HR monitor is 350 cal.

With a previous trainer a typical session would be 15 mins warm up and stretch, 30 mins crazy high intensity pad work (HR consistently at 80% of max or above for the whole time) and 15 mins calisthenics type cool down. My HR monitor would register about 500 cals.

Thank u for your perspective. My heart rate monitor definitely motivates me especially since it has a training program for how many calories I should burn in a week, if I have a incomplete training weeks I feel like my monitor is judging me lol. & thanks for the perspective on boxing. My boxing workout is 5min warm up, then I do 2 30min videos that are 1min on high intensity (heart rate is usually 170-180) 30 sec low intensity (1hr total)Then 10min+ cooldown. I do enjoy it its fun to see im getting stronger & some of my combos are getting better & noticing what im good at (right jab & left hook are pretty strong).

And definitely just like u said there’s always room for error, will definitely take that into account.

MikePTY

tequierosince06 wrote: »

Sorry one more thing. Is boxing w a heavy bag not helping with my goals one way or another (Whether its helping me burn fat or build muscle) ? @magnusthenerd

Personally I think boxing with a heavy bag is a great choice for a number of reasons. It will help you "burn fat" in the sense that you burn calories while doing it, so it will contribute to your overall calorie deficit, and allow you to eat more food while still hitting your calorie goal. There is a resistance aspect to it, so even though it will not build muscle at the same level as weight lifting, it will still provide some muscle development. Whether that is maintaining your existing muscle, or building a small amount over time. It will also help overall athleticism and cardiovascular fitness. And finally, I think that pretty much everybody could benefit from knowing how to throw a proper punch. So there's a practical element of training in it.

Siberian2590

I had a heavy bag for years and I thought it was a great fitness tool, but it took up so much room that I finally gave it to the local boxing club. I took a few "white collar boxing" classes there, and watching those kids pound each other scared me!

emmamcgarity

I’d agree that 600 calories per hour for Zumba sounds inaccurate (depends on your body weight). I use my Fitbit to estimate my calorie burns and only trust the calorie estimates because over time I have tested them by logging my calories in and comparing my weight loss based on the results. The calorie burn estimates on my Fitbit dashboard include my BMR. Out of curiosity I looked back at a 10k run which was a little over an hour and was estimated at 635 calories for that run. I weighed approximately 135 at that time. This weeks 5k at an 11 minute mile pace and a similar weight was a 338 calorie estimate. My recent 33 minute Zumba class was a 230 calorie estimate for 33 minutes. All of those estimates include my BMR. I like the heart rate monitor only because I find it interesting to see the data.

As some have suggested, strength training would be a helpful addition to your routine. Since you workout at home, you might check out HASfit of FitnessBlender on YouTube.

I can understand the reluctance to count calories since you don’t want to long term. But since you also have short term goals, you might consider doing so as a tool to meet those goals.

tequierosince06

emmamcgarity wrote: »

I’d agree that 600 calories per hour for Zumba sounds inaccurate (depends on your body weight). I use my Fitbit to estimate my calorie burns and only trust the calorie estimates because over time I have tested them by logging my calories in and comparing my weight loss based on the results. The calorie burn estimates on my Fitbit dashboard include my BMR. Out of curiosity I looked back at a 10k run which was a little over an hour and was estimated at 635 calories for that run. I weighed approximately 135 at that time. This weeks 5k at an 11 minute mile pace and a similar weight was a 338 calorie estimate. My recent 33 minute Zumba class was a 230 calorie estimate for 33 minutes. All of those estimates include my BMR. I like the heart rate monitor only because I find it interesting to see the data.

As some have suggested, strength training would be a helpful addition to your routine. Since you workout at home, you might check out HASfit of FitnessBlender on YouTube.

I can understand the reluctance to count calories since you don’t want to long term. But since you also have short term goals, you might consider doing so as a tool to meet those goals.

I would like to point out my Zumba class isnt the typical zumba, its Zumba Strong, theres no dance style cardio in it at all. With that being said Yes I understand the calorie estimation is not exact and is not fully accurate and does not take BMR into account, im not sure if my Polar ft60 is capable of automatically reducing bmr calories but Im trying to research that.

I actually do use fitness blender. I purchased FB Strong, FB Sweat (I switch between programs, I finish the 4weeks on one program & then switch to the other which actually takes me longer than 4weeks because I use the videos only twice a week since I mix in boxing and/or zumba the other 2days a week) & I just purchased FB Flex for upper body which im now switching over to. And yes I just started counting calories & weighing my food last week to see if it helps for this next month.

My starting weight is 185 as of Friday i am 177. According to MFP My daily calorie intake should be 1700, which I actually think is maybe a little high? I mean not by much I just figured maybe 1500 is usually a good number and what Ive stuck to when calorie counting in the past. But based on diff calculators my BMR is roughly 1550-1580 so I guess 1700 is better than I thought. My maintenance calories are in the upper 2200 range.

tequierosince06

Siberian2590 wrote: »

I had a heavy bag for years and I thought it was a great fitness tool, but it took up so much room that I finally gave it to the local boxing club. I took a few "white collar boxing" classes there, and watching those kids pound each other scared me!

Lol yes that’s intimidating! I took 1 class and my bf gifted me a heavybag as an early Christmas present. Its one that stands by itself. It moves around the garage as i use it which forces me to move around. But when I need to actually move it, its like geez this is heavy.