Why is strength training not considered calorie burning.

ninerbuff

It should be, wearing my HRM I burn more calories strength training than cardio... It is all cardio!

HRM's don't accurately read strength training burnt calories.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
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Been in fitness industry for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

While I understand and accept that, surely the estimates would be low rather than high if working from your stats and heart rate?

Since it's reading heart rate, that would entirely depend on how intense the session is. From my experience, most of the time it overestimates.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness industry for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Azdak

The American College of Sports Medicine and the "British Journal of Medicine" have put Polar's heart rate monitors to the test over the years. In these studies, the measurement of calories expended has a non-significant margin of error, meaning the difference between the control and the Polar monitor is not enough to skew your results. These studies revealed that entering your actual VO2 max and maximum heart rather than having it calculated by the formula, yields only a 12 percent overestimate of calorie expenditure versus a 33 percent overestimate. On average, Polar's heart rate monitors are 75 percent accurate.


like I said not 100% accurate,but certainly close enough for me.

There has not been extensive research on Polar HRM calorie estimates--for most exerciser researchers it is not a serious topic. The studies have been done with fairly small sample sizes. The studies have shown that, whatever the average accuracy, there is a rather large standard of error. This is to be expected, given the normal variation in HR response to exercise in the population. Accuracy can be improved by programming actual HRmax and VO2max into the HRM. However, the most common Polar models used--the FT4 and FT7 models--do not allow manual input of these variables.

And, lastly, these studies looked only at Polar HRM performance under carefully controlled conditions of select steady-state cardio exercises. They do not address interval training, circuit training, anaerobic training, resistance exercise, cardiovascular drift, thermal responses,etc. All of these can reduce the accuracy of Polar HRM calorie estimates even further.

hilts1969

If you search for "strength training" under cardio, it should come up.

Yep. This is what I use. It's a reasonable calculation. The research on HRM has demonstrated that they are wildly inaccurate for non-steady state workouts so unless you're doing HIIT or something along those lines, you're not really going to get accurate readings for lifting.

I don't get this MFP obsession with calories burnt through exercise either weights or cardio, why does anybody care? it baffles me

For those not using TDEE, it's important to get a rough idea of what is being burned through exercise, especially for those of us who eat back those calories. There doesn't seem to be anything baffling about that.

The problem is there doesn't seem to be an accurate way to count these calories so what is the point, i exercise to get fitter and that should really be the goal anyhow so how many calories i burn is not relevant as it will not alter my workout in the slightest, i just push myself as much as possible

If i lose weight or gain weight i adjust my food intake accordingly

Some people really do like to complicate things

yogicarl

The problem is there doesn't seem to be an accurate way to count these calories so what is the point, i exercise to get fitter and that should really be the goal anyhow so how many calories i burn is not relevant as it will not alter my workout in the slightest, i just push myself as much as possible

If i lose weight or gain weight i adjust my food intake accordingly

Some people really do like to complicate things

You know what - I reckon you're right.

jjjoeoeoe

I just signed up for this site, and some of this bothers me. The notion that I should be primarily interested in the calories I burn during exercise-- cardio or lifting-- is already an incomplete model at best-- as though the moment I step off the treadmill, I'm back to idle. All of this meticulous analysis of my calorie deficit is therefore a lark. And the suggestion that strength training isn't effective for cutting fat is actually just scary.

The food diary seems great. I'll be taking the associated analytics with a grain of salt or 20.

NKoz82

I wear a heart rate monitor and log my strength classes as cardio and put in those calories