Crossfit - Calorie Intake?

megmo20007

Hi Everyone! I started working out at a Crossfit gym about two weeks ago. I'm really enjoying it. However, I'm struggling to get a good read on how many calories I'm burning. When I type in "crossfit" in the exercise tab it says around 646 calories burned in 60 minutes, which is how long the class is. Does that sound about right? It seemed really high. Thanks!

cmriverside

No way for us to know.

Use 300-400 per hour for a month or so and see what your weight does.

cwolfman13

Yeah, that's probably pretty high. A 60 minute hard session of steady cardio could maybe burn that for someone is very good shape who would be able to actually go that hard for that long continuously. I dabbled in CF for a bit years ago, and it's a pretty good workout, but there's also plenty of rest going on during those 60 minutes. I used to log is as vigorous calisthenics as there was no CF option in the database back then...as I recall, it would give me something along the lines of 350 calories or so which seemed to work as an estimate when I was following the MFP methodology of eating back calories. I get around 250 calories for 60 minutes of traditional weight lifting...so 350 for CF didn't seem too far off, but still could have been slightly high.

megmo20007

Thank you @cmriverside and @cwolfman13 for your insights. Helped a lot. I will monitor as I go and see how my weight goes. 646 seemed crazy high! I will go around 300 - 350 to begin with.

KarenSmith2018

I think its quite variable depending on what class is that day. Mainly heavy lifting or gymnastic skills will be less than a 45 minute chipper type workout. I'd go nearer 400 fir a long workout type class and nearer 300 when its a short wod and skill work

Onedaywriter

The 646 calories assumes that the “wod” lasts 60 minutes. But there is warmup, stretching included.

I agree with 300-400 cals. I do this type of workout about 5 times a week. Even though the class is one hour, there is some downtime and some stuff that might be good for you but not a big calorie burner.
On Saturday we often do “endurance” training so the WOD might be 35-40 minutes nonstop with running/rowing/ box jumps/jump rope/burpees. I put these at the higher end.
Sometimes we do static holds- planks, overhead dumbell holds etc. these are taxing and can be good for you but they don’t burn a lot of calories so these go at the low end.
A lot depends also on your size. I honestly believe that when I weighed >300 lbs I was burning nearly twice the calories I am now.