wearing a hrm while hiking?

laurahamm96
laurahamm96 Posts: 46 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
A group of friends and I are going hiking next weekend. Would wearing my HRM be useful to count the calories burned by hiking, or am I better off just counting it as a normal day?

Replies

  • alasin1derland
    alasin1derland Posts: 575 Member
    I went hiking on the weekend and wore my hrm to track my heart rate. (Hilly) Turns out I burned 404 calories in 65 minutes. Not the burn of a normal hour. Enjoy your hike.
  • 2dogzrule
    2dogzrule Posts: 245 Member
    I think you should wear your hrm. You'll be amazed at how greater of a burn you will get than a normal day. Last time I hiked I killed over 700 calories in less than 90 minutes.
  • Tomahawk3Niner
    Tomahawk3Niner Posts: 61
    Give it a try, especially if you've got a pack on with more than 10 lbs in it. You might be surprised!
  • ruthlesswr
    ruthlesswr Posts: 114 Member
    I guess it depends on how strenuous a hike and if you're carrying a pack and that sort of thing. I often wear my HRM when I hike. According to it, I burn something like 2000+ calories on a 3 or 4 hour hike. I failed to wear it either day this past weekend, though, when I hiked around 8.5 miles a day in the mountains. I wish I had!
  • laurahamm96
    laurahamm96 Posts: 46 Member
    WOW those are some good burns! I will be sure to wear it. Thanks guys!!
  • Samstan101
    Samstan101 Posts: 699 Member
    One thing to bear in mind that is more relevant for an activity lasting hours like hiking (compared to 30mins on the treadmill for example). I believe in most cases the calorie burn will include your BMR cals so if you would have burned 70cals in a in hour lay in bed doing nothing but go hiking for an Hour and your HRM says you've burned 400cals then you've actually 'only' burned 330cals extra so don't eat back all 400. So a 30min blast on the treadmill and your cals are out by 35cals but a 5hr hike and you could be over-estimating by 350cals so the longer the activity the greater the potential to over-record calories burned.
  • asciiqwerty
    asciiqwerty Posts: 565 Member
    before loggin the burn and eating it back you may want to run your hike in terms of cadence/speed climb/fall through an online calculator to check if hte burn is reasonable
  • ShannonMpls
    ShannonMpls Posts: 1,936 Member
    Alternative view:

    I've worn my HRM while engaged in recreational activities like hiking, and it detracts from my experience. I chose trails based not on where I wanted to hike but what would spike my heart rate. I was less likely to stop and enjoy views with my family because I wanted to keep my burn going. I got irritated when my HR was only 80bpm while on a relatively flat trail.

    I've learned that my HRM is a useful tool for certain forms of exercise, but it can be a hindrance to the *real* reason I'm grateful to be fit: enjoying activities like hiking, canoeing, kayaking, biking with the people I love for the sheer joy of being active outdoors, not to achieve a calorie burn.

    So, for what it's worth, my advice is to leave the HRM at home. Log the hike using MFP or don't log it at all, but have some trail mix while you're out and enjoy a beer (or two) when you're done.
  • scorpio516
    scorpio516 Posts: 955 Member
    Another thing to be wary of is battery life.

    Some times I'll wear a GPS watch while hiking. Battery on it only lasts about 6 hours.
    I tried with my phone a couple years ago with MyTracks. It only lasted 8:45 hours. It covered the first 16 miles I hiked, but not the last 10!
  • imaginaryplaces
    imaginaryplaces Posts: 123 Member
    For me, if I am hiking on a trail with little elevation gain, the intensity is too low for an HRM to be accurate when it comes to calorie burn, so I just record the hike as walking. If, on the other hand, I'm on a hike with decent elevation gain (say 1000' or so) then I use this hiking calculator: http://hikingscience.blogspot.com/p/calculate-calories-burned_22.html. It gives a conservative estimate of calories based on distance + elevation gain.

    The MFP database gives crazy high calorie burns for hiking, so I stay away from that.

    In general, I haven't found my HRM useful for estimating calories burned hiking. Actually, the only thing I use my HRM for is for cardio training at moderate and high intensity, and then I'm using it to just monitor to my heart rate.
  • ruthlesswr
    ruthlesswr Posts: 114 Member
    There's a lot of good information here! Samstan101, I have wondered about exactly what you describe, so I don't ever eat back all my calories from a hike, just some of them. I will definately check out the link imaginaryglac pointed out - sounds like that would be really useful!

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