deciphering between "moderate" and "light" effort

chelso0o

I suppose this would be easier if I used a HRM, but when you don't have one what is the best way to figure out whether it is moderate or light effort? I figured that hard effort was similar to my 2K effort, but what about that gray area?

BrianSharpe

HRMs can fool you too as different exercises will have variation in HR compared to perceived effort.

My triathlon coach loves to use your ability to talk as a measure of effort.........at a light or recovery effort you can sing, at a moderate effort you can speak in full sentences, approaching the top end of your aerobic threshold you can speak but would rather not & hitting your anaerobic threshold you're pretty much panting and can only sustain the effort for a brief period of time.

If your 2K pace is hard then probably moderate would be your 10K pace which has to be sustainable over a longer period.

mrspeterson

Someone asked a similar question below (see "Calculating effort" thread) a while back. I wear a HRM when I erg, and I find that even if I'm rowing fairly hard (sweating, HR 145-155, yelling at the kid NOT NOW when he asks how to build a ender portal in minecraft), my calories are generally 20% lower than what MFP gives me for "moderate" rowing. I have a PM4 and I switch display to calories (which shows average cal/hour), divide by 60, multiply by minutes. So I record moderate, then enter actual calories. I should probably just enter light, but I know I worked to hard to call it light!

Which is to say, I think MFP may overestimate calories burned.