Weight Lifting...why so few calories?
Replies
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You continue to burn cals all day after weightlifting. They are hard to quantify though, so you can just count them as bonus burns.
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use a polar HRM watch. then you will know
on a good leg day i can burn up to 500 calories wihtout any cardio machines at all
Under those conditions the number on the HRM is meaningless.0 -
This is not true. Calories burned are a direct correlation of your heart rate. So in your example of a scary movie raising your heart rate, you actually WOULD burn more calories then watching say a documentary that kept your heart rate lower. We are splitting hairs however as the difference between the two would be very minimal. Your calorie burn is related to oxygen intake and carbon dioxide exhaust. The faster your heart beats, the faster that process occurs therefore increasing your calorie burn.
Actually you are completely incorrect. Calories burned is a direct correlation to the amount of work (using the word in its scientific meaning) being performed by your muscles. *BY DEFINITION*
Heart rate monitors can approximate that amount for steady state cardio. However, even the manufacturers of HRMs will tell you that they are wildly inaccurate for interval activities like HIIT or weight lifting. Trying to use an HRM to estimate calories burned for anything OTHER than steady state cardio is a fool's game.
I don't really like to get into back and forth on here, but no.
Caloric expenditure occurs when you inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide.
So to estimate how many calories you burn you have to know how much oxygen you go through. Oxygen intake is loosely (and that is the part I agree with you on with HRMs not being exact) correlate with heart rate, so if you can monitor your heart rate, you are essentially monitoring oxygen intake/usage. VO2Max is something most HRMs take into consideration which measures how many milliliters of oxygen per minutes your body is taking in and transferring into the blood. So by tracking your Heart Rate, it can loosely track your VO2Max which is why you can track calorie expenditure watching that horror film regardless if you are sitting around or doing squats. Clearly doing the squats will increase your oxygen intake, therefore raising your heart rate and burning more calories.
so if you're holding your breath you can't burn calories?
Assuming you were able to hold your breath forever? yes that would be true...but you would eventually release your breath...if you didn't, you would be dead and there would be no calorie burn as there would no longer be oxygen exchange.
Several replies have occurred while I was at lunch and again, I'm not here to debate. If you don't believe me, read up on it. I never said I'm smarter than scientists who hold doctorates. As a matter of fact, the places I learned this from were those scientists.
The bottom line is that higher heart rate will burn more calories. Don't believe me? take 2 people running at the same speed for the same distance. Both are the same sex, height and weight but one is extremely out of shape while the other is a marathon runner. Because the runner is conditioned and able to run at that output with less effort, he takes in less oxygen, produces less carbon dioxide and therefore has a lower heart rate burning less calories than the out of shape person who is sucking wind and has a very high heart rate.
In a way, some of the things we are saying are very similar, but the fact you mention no scientist is able to identify calorie burn while lifting is silly to me. Is it easier to track constant state cardio? absolutely....is it impossible to track weight lifting calorie burn? not at all
Good try-- but still no.
There's more things to consider than just heart weight. I weigh 250 lbs and I'm 5'8, when compared to a smaller person, let's say someone who weights 140 and is only 5'4. If we run together at the same speed, I am burning more calories per second maintaining that speed then the person that only weighs 140. Why is it? There's a lot more of me to move and there's this thing called gravity.
Let's talk heart rate now. Let's say I'm running with a man that's my age and height and we're both on the same elliptical. We both are shooting for the same target heart rate, which is based on age and gender, let's say 155. I weigh 250 he weights 150. We both are working at the same target heart rate, who's going to burn more?
Up to now, I don't think anyone has talked about body weight, only about heart rate. But, yes, under almost every circumstance, a heavier person will burn more calories when workload is the same--regardless of heart rate, age, height, gender, or fitness level.0 -
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say most people here dont TRAIN like a bodybuilder[powerlifter,strongman,athlete], but since they feel tired and sweaty ect think they are burning a lot more than they actually are.
When I do 6 sets of squats leading up to a 5x3 of my working set around 90% of my 1rm, obviously I am burning some calories.
Agree with this. It all depends on how you workout. I see many people at the gym who in an hour are burning very few calories.
But, anyone who has done a multi-set squat, deadlift, power clean, knows how fully you are working your entire body. My squat routine right now is 15, 12, 10, 8 (before it was 20, 15, 12, 10). I'm 197 right now, and doing that 225 kills me. My HR is through the roof by the time I finish a set. Resting 60 seconds does not bring it down, so I'm guess the entire exercise my average HR is above 70%, and during exercise it's approaching max.
From squats it's into walking lunges (15-20 reps per leg) which is superset with 2 minute jump rope sessions (200-260 jumps each). I do that 4 times. Guarantee again my HR is not dropping below 70% the entire 4 supersets, and approaches max through much of it (I consider it HIIT).
Then it's onto the next thing. High work rate, short rests, for 90 minutes, I'm sure is burning more than MFT says.
But, I don't worry about it. I'm in weight loss mode, so I just figure whatever it is off is helping my deficit.0 -
The benefits for resistance training should be the reason for doing them, not just as a way to burn calories. Same with cardio. The calories burned is nice but you are doing it for physiological reasons that go beyond simple tallying up your calories burned for the day.
Don't worry about how many calories you burn weightlifting.0 -
But if you lift weight, you will burn calories at rest as well.
And weight loss is not the only thing. You have to tone your body if you want to look great.0 -
Standing still doing a bunch of biceps curls = very little calories burned *during* the exercise, but a potential light calorie burn during the repair cycle.
Doing squat to Arnold Press or something that actually uses full body, adds some calorie burn during the exercise +repair cycle burn.
There are indeed some "strength" exercises that have a longer-term calorie burn after the exercise is complete.
However, MFP calculates the burn *during* the exercises - therefore the burn is very little.
A proper mix of cardio PLUS compound full-body exercises PLUS resistance = calorie burn, muscle gain/definition.0 -
This makes me laugh:
Weight lifting burns as many calories as MINI GOLF???? yeah...not if you weight lift like i do.
Still though, too many variables involved for MFP or any of you to know what anybody else burns during a weight lifting session.0 -
wait- are you meaning to say people think that being sweaty = a good workout??
say it isn't so!!!!
For me a good workout is when you cant barely move your arms or legs at the end.0 -
I got my 30 day check in last night, and i have lost 2 1/4 inches around my hips, 3/4 inch around waist, 1 inch around my chest, gained an inch on my calves and lost 3% fat mass Im happy with that! I really appreciate all the feedback, it has been helpful...clearly i should not worry about calories shown for training and go by results.
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I don't know the exact calorie burn for weight lifting and the experts argue about it all the time. I do know that the person who said 400 reps = 100 calories is very likely wrong.
That said, the studies show lifting weights alone will cause you to lose more weight than just doing cardio or more than just doing interval training. That is, for the exercise portion you are better with weights than the others (only taking weight loss into account). I dropped 60 pounds in 4 months, of course on a calorie deficit (the main reason), but the primary exercise I do is weights. I only do 20 minutes of cardio two to three times a week and do weights four times a week for about an hour to and hour and fifteen minutes each day.
My wife has been trying to lose weight off and on for the last ten years and usually got frustrated after 6 or 7 months. She is doing weights with me now and has lost more weight than any other past attempt and she looks so much better than she has after other diet/exercise routines.
Same exact thing happened with me. Lifting weights did more for my body than anything else I ever did and I saw progress much faster as well. I am not a cardio fan so it works for me in that aspect as well!0 -
The benefits for resistance training should be the reason for doing them, not just as a way to burn calories. Same with cardio. The calories burned is nice but you are doing it for physiological reasons that go beyond simple tallying up your calories burned for the day.
Don't worry about how many calories you burn weightlifting.
Truth. But, I do worry about how many calories I burn lifting weights, because I want to make sure I'm not undereating. And maybe this is a subject for a different thread, but if there's no real way to estimate caloric burn from weightlifting, then how do you accurately eat back those calories to feed those poor muscles? And yes, I have looked at the TDEE method, but for large chunks of the year my workout schedule is too sporadic (i.e. 6x/week one week, 1x/week the next) to use that reliably.0 -
Heart rate monitors do not accurate produce burned calories from weight lifting. Heart rate monitors monitor heart rate. The monitors convert heart rate to calories burned using specific equations. These equations are only valid for continuous steady state cardio vascular activities. They are not valid for weight lifting or even HIIT. Furthermore, having a high heart rate alone does not burn calories. For example if you are sitting on your butt watching a scary movie you might have a high heart rate but you certainly aren't burning any more calories than you would be if you were watching something boring. It's the actual activity that burns the calories. The activity also raises your heart rate. So in some circumstances high heart rate can be correlated with calories burned but not in all of them. When you lift weights your heart rate remains high during your rests even if you are sitting on your butt. The heart rate monitor doesn't know you are sitting on your butt and still thinks you are moving enough to produce that heart rater so the calories burned it produces will be inaccurate.
This is not true. Calories burned are a direct correlation of your heart rate. So in your example of a scary movie raising your heart rate, you actually WOULD burn more calories then watching say a documentary that kept your heart rate lower. We are splitting hairs however as the difference between the two would be very minimal. Your calorie burn is related to oxygen intake and carbon dioxide exhaust. The faster your heart beats, the faster that process occurs therefore increasing your calorie burn.
Actually, he is accurate. I'm not going to get into the argument about scary movie vs. documentary cause that's pretty dumb. But regarding HRM use for weight lifting he's right. HRMs do not accurately measure calories burned for anaerobic activity. HRMs are designed only for aerobic activity. The increase in your heart rate during weight lifting (anaerobic activity) is, for lack of a better term, a "false heart rate." You feel your heart pounding out of your chest after a really heavy squat or deadlift set but it's due to the build up of pressure in your arteries and veins during the period of time your body has significantly more resistance added to it. It's not because your aerobic (cardiovascular) system is working.0 -
And to answer OPs original question regarding why weight lifting doesn't burn a lot of calories even though you feel like you've done a lot of work... it pertains to the two different systems your body uses for weight training and for cardio activities. For weight lifting your body is using an anaerobic system for energy. For cardio activities your body is using the aerobic system. These two systems use two completely different energy stores for the work performed which is going to effect calorie burn, which is also known as energy burn.
But don't worry, you are doing a lot of work!! And as some people have already said, you burn a lot of "extra" calories in the 24 hour period after a weight lifting session because your body is repairing and rebuilding. This is also the case with HIIT and steady state cardio but studies have shown the after burn is higher for weight lifting and HIIT than with steady state cardio.0 -
Caloric expenditure occurs when you inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide.
So to estimate how many calories you burn you have to know how much oxygen you go through. Oxygen intake is loosely (and that is the part I agree with you on with HRMs not being exact) correlate with heart rate, so if you can monitor your heart rate, you are essentially monitoring oxygen intake/usage. VO2Max is something most HRMs take into consideration which measures how many milliliters of oxygen per minutes your body is taking in and transferring into the blood. So by tracking your Heart Rate, it can loosely track your VO2Max which is why you can track calorie expenditure watching that horror film regardless if you are sitting around or doing squats. Clearly doing the squats will increase your oxygen intake, therefore raising your heart rate and burning more calories.
Actually, the part about burning calories correlating to the amount of oxygen you're taking in is right. Too much back and forth b/w you and whoever that other person was disagreeing with you I didn't wanna quote all that...0 -
However, weight lifting involves a whole lot of variables: how much weight you're lifting,
This one matters for caloric expenditure.how long you're resting,
This one doesn't matter for caloric expenditure.the current strength of your muscles in relation to that weight,
This one doesn't matter for caloric expenditure.which muscles specifically are being used,
This one doesn't matter for caloric expenditure.are you lifting with explosive or slow movements,
This one does matter - the slower you go, the more you burn.are you concentrating on slow eccentric movements, etc.
Doesn't matter for caloric expenditure.
All those factors will affect how much weight you can move, and for how many reps. But for any individual rep most of them just don't matter. There's no great mystery here - weightlifting is just exerting a specific force across a specific distance - physics tells us the energy cost with considerable precision.
Like the FunnyPants guy posted earlier- it's really not rocket science.
Actually, a fair number of those variables you excluded do matter.
You're failing to take into account the relative efficiencies (or should I say inefficiencies) of the lift. Moving 100lbs for 3 ft takes the same amount of energy every time if it is moved with the same degree of efficiency. But if one lift is more efficient than the other, then the more inefficient lift will take more energy and burn more calories. Kind of like driving a car with the emergency brake partially on - takes more energy to move the car 100ft than with the emergency brake off.
I can guarantee changing the muscles used changes efficiency. (type of lift matters)
I would be willing to bet that a tired muscle is less efficient than a fully rested one. (rest period matters, and likely slow vs. explosive as well)
Muscles that are trained to perform a given lift will be more efficient than those that have not been trained. (form matters)0 -
This is not true. Calories burned are a direct correlation of your heart rate. So in your example of a scary movie raising your heart rate, you actually WOULD burn more calories then watching say a documentary that kept your heart rate lower. We are splitting hairs however as the difference between the two would be very minimal. Your calorie burn is related to oxygen intake and carbon dioxide exhaust. The faster your heart beats, the faster that process occurs therefore increasing your calorie burn.
Actually you are completely incorrect. Calories burned is a direct correlation to the amount of work (using the word in its scientific meaning) being performed by your muscles. *BY DEFINITION*
Heart rate monitors can approximate that amount for steady state cardio. However, even the manufacturers of HRMs will tell you that they are wildly inaccurate for interval activities like HIIT or weight lifting. Trying to use an HRM to estimate calories burned for anything OTHER than steady state cardio is a fool's game.
I don't really like to get into back and forth on here, but no.
Caloric expenditure occurs when you inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide.
So to estimate how many calories you burn you have to know how much oxygen you go through. Oxygen intake is loosely (and that is the part I agree with you on with HRMs not being exact) correlate with heart rate, so if you can monitor your heart rate, you are essentially monitoring oxygen intake/usage. VO2Max is something most HRMs take into consideration which measures how many milliliters of oxygen per minutes your body is taking in and transferring into the blood. So by tracking your Heart Rate, it can loosely track your VO2Max which is why you can track calorie expenditure watching that horror film regardless if you are sitting around or doing squats. Clearly doing the squats will increase your oxygen intake, therefore raising your heart rate and burning more calories.
so if you're holding your breath you can't burn calories?
Assuming you were able to hold your breath forever? yes that would be true...but you would eventually release your breath...if you didn't, you would be dead and there would be no calorie burn as there would no longer be oxygen exchange.
Several replies have occurred while I was at lunch and again, I'm not here to debate. If you don't believe me, read up on it. I never said I'm smarter than scientists who hold doctorates. As a matter of fact, the places I learned this from were those scientists.
The bottom line is that higher heart rate will burn more calories. Don't believe me? take 2 people running at the same speed for the same distance. Both are the same sex, height and weight but one is extremely out of shape while the other is a marathon runner. Because the runner is conditioned and able to run at that output with less effort, he takes in less oxygen, produces less carbon dioxide and therefore has a lower heart rate burning less calories than the out of shape person who is sucking wind and has a very high heart rate.
In a way, some of the things we are saying are very similar, but the fact you mention no scientist is able to identify calorie burn while lifting is silly to me. Is it easier to track constant state cardio? absolutely....is it impossible to track weight lifting calorie burn? not at all
No.
Higher heart rate correlates to higher calorie burn in the same individual doing the same steady state activity. You can't compare across individuals or the correlation breaks down. You can't compare across activities or the correlation breaks down. And you can't compare during non-steady state because the correlation breaks down. To use your example, the person watching the movie does burn more calories per minute when frightened during the horror movie - relative to being calm and watching a movie. NOT relative to walking but keeping their heart rate below when they were frightened.
Also, people don't become all that more efficient at steady state cardio over time. Certainly not as much as their decreased heart rate seems to indicate. As an example, look at Lance Armstrong. Over his entire career, his efficiency independent of changes in body weight is estimated to have improved only 8% <Journal of Applied Physiology. 1 October 2005. 99:1628-1629. DOI: 10.1152/japplphysiol.00507.2005>. Yet his heart rate, if it's anything like other elite endurance athletes, should be very, very low.0 -
Lifting is complicated to track. When you do cardio, the calories are burned immediately. When you strain your muscles with heavy loads, they tear and need to be rebuilt. The energy you expend doing the lifting is small, but then your body spends lots of calories repairing fibers and building additional ones to prevent future damage. Its not consistent how much your body spends doing this, very hard to track. Also depends on how much "building material", a.k.a. protein, is available to repair with. If you have a team of masons, but no bricks, no work gets done on building that house.
So yes, it does burn more than you think. Also, muscle requires calorie upkeep. The more muscle you have, the more energy your body expends just sitting trying to nourish your muscle cells. Hence, why bodybuilders eat something along the lines of 4000 calories a day. Having lots of muscle can help you get really ripped, because it will burn up fat all day while you are just sitting at work or on the couch.
The excellent feedback in this feed is greatly appreciated. Many thanks to all who have contributed from a newbie who is in much need of education. You guys rock! :glasses:0 -
When you are weightlifting for an hour you spend the majority of your time resting between sets, even if you are trying to minimize rest periods, so you are only doing short bursts of exercise and then stopping for a relatively long time. But on the elliptical you are working the entire time.
If you're weightlifting wrong, this is true. most people lift too many lifts a day, mess around with them too long, and rest more than needed. You can see significant strength gains/aesthetic results if you just do two opposing compound lifts a day, 5x5 or so on the sets, with a moderate amount of weight, short rests of no more than 60 seconds between sets, and take no less then 5 seconds a rep. You do have to learn slightly more complex lifts to pull it off, though, like the squat.
People are way to worried about following some program they got from Men's Fitness that uses ten isolated lifts a day for some silly number of sets/reps.0
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