Calories burned following YouTube workouts?

willsreb

Here in the UK it looks like gyms won’t be open for a while yet, so I am burning calories by walking every day and I have just started doing some YouTube workouts every morning. These are mostly no-equipment workouts, with the exception of resistance bands for glutes. The workouts are focused mainly on abs and glutes and last between 25-40 minutes. These aren’t ‘jumpy’ workouts.

How might I work out calories burned for this? Or is it so little that it’s not really worth it?

Thank you

Shortgirlrunning

There is so much variety of workouts on YouTube nobody could possibly answer this question for you. I’ve done YouTube workouts like you’ve described that leave me drenched in sweat and exhausted and I’ve done ones that aren’t challenging at all.

sijomial

You could log the duration as "strength training" (but in the cadiovascular part of your exercise diary) for a modest rate of burn. Clearly it's very imprecise but probably better than zero.

Whether it's worth it to you is your choice alone, those modest few calories may make little difference to you or make adherence easier.

DancingMoosie

Sounds like strength training or calisthenics. Log each exercise for what it is, not where you found it.

GeneralSTpower

Cant say much without knowing the exact routine. It mainly depends on the intensity and volume during those 40 minutes. But if youre doing a decent job, it shouldnt be too little that its not worth to be included.

Jacq_qui

I don't think you can log a set number for a work out because every day is different, even if you did the same work out every day. Also over time, it gets easier so you'll burn less, and of course lots of other factors - how tired you are, how hot it is, how much effort you put into it, and so on. (I've been doing Joe Wicks PE every day since it started and have been logging cals off my fitbit so the above opinion is only based on that! I was really worried when the gyms shut but the only thing I'm missing really is doing heavy squats and deadlifts And swimming.

I have a booty band and I do 5-10minutes every day and that burns usually 40-60 calories, and I do the exercises until I can't do them any more! My heart rate gets quite high though.

What youtube work outs do you recommend for resistance bands?

AnnPT77

I'd agree with those suggesting you log it in MFP under cardiovascular, as strength or calisthenics depending on what it seems most like, then monitor your weight loss results after doing that consistently for 4-6 weeks.

As long as the estimate isn't wildly off the map crazy, so crazy as to wipe out one's whole calorie deficit via exercise estimating error, then a consistent calorie estimate for exercise can work out OK for weight management purposes, even if it isn't strictly accurate.

jacqQ2017 wrote: »

I don't think you can log a set number for a work out because every day is different, even if you did the same work out every day. Also over time, it gets easier so you'll burn less, and of course lots of other factors - how tired you are, how hot it is, how much effort you put into it, and so on. (I've been doing Joe Wicks PE every day since it started and have been logging cals off my fitbit so the above opinion is only based on that! I was really worried when the gyms shut but the only thing I'm missing really is doing heavy squats and deadlifts And swimming.

I have a booty band and I do 5-10minutes every day and that burns usually 40-60 calories, and I do the exercises until I can't do them any more! My heart rate gets quite high though.

What youtube work outs do you recommend for resistance bands?

Welll, some of those factors, especially the bolded, really aren't very important.

How hot you are can raise your heart rate, but unless you work less intensely when you're hot, there's no reason to believe the heat per se would raise calorie burn (even though a heart rate monitor may suggest otherwise), or lower it (as long as you work at the same intensity despite being hot).

And the idea that we burn fewer calories because over time the exercise feels easier, or because over time the HR-based fitness tracker gives a lower estimate . . . that's mostly misleading. What burns calories is pretty much the work, in the physics sense of work. (As we lose weight, a bodyweight-moving exercise will burn fewer calories because we're moving less bodyweight, so doing less work, yes.)

But as we get fitter, our heart pumps more blood/oxygen per beat, so it takes fewer beats per minute to deliver the same volume of oxygen to muscles. That's a fitness adaptation (improvement). In cardio, it's the oxygen consumption that correlates best with calorie burn; the heartbeats are an indirect proxy.

And as we get fitter, it does feel easier . . . that's almost the definition of fitness adaptation. But it still burns roughly the same number of calories, at the same intensity and bodyweight. (We may even subconciously increase intensity without realizing it, because it feels so much easier. ).

For some exercise types, there can be efficiency improvements with practice (less wasted motion, basically), but even those don't necessarily mean burning fewer calories. It depends on the activity, and how the calories are estimated (because it's always an estimate, outside of a specialized laboratory with our body hooked up to machines).

Heart rate is a pretty inaccurate way to estimate certain things, such as HIIT and things with a reasonably big strength training component. And it's even less likely to be accurate in the (fairly common) case where a person's max heart rate differs signicantly from standard age-based estimates, but they don't know it. (Heart rate max is more about genetics, not mostly about fitness.)

I'm not dissing HR-based tracking devices: I have one, use it, like it. But it's useful, IMO, to try to understand what they do, and what the limitations might be. Frankly, any consistent but non-crazy exercise calorie estimate will tend to work out reasonably OK, in a context of calorie counting for weight management, as long as we watch the scale and adjust eating goals after 4-6 weeks based on actual results, to hit a sensible weight loss rate.

Oldies but goodies:

https://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/the-real-facts-about-hrms-and-calories-what-you-need-to-know-before-purchasing-an-hrm-or-using-one-21472
https://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/hrms-cannot-count-calories-during-strength-training-17698