Swimming really that good?

Peanutmanak47

So I went to the pool today and did some leisure swimming and at the minimum I was treading water the whole time for the 80 minutes I was there. I'm 352lbs. I put it into MFP exercise thing and it said I burned over 1,200 calories.

As a guy my size is this a real amount I could have possibly burned?

onefortyone

It sounds a little high - unless you were super out of breath the whole time, and your effort was high. For lap swimming for 80 minutes, it sounds accurate though. Treading water is a difficult one because it's actually easier if you have more fat! Whereas if you're solid muscle you have to work harder to stay afloat.

999tigger

Depends how good you are at treading water. Slower you do it the more efficient and it would be down to 540. Were you completely exhausted and treading very fast?

Iys certainly good exercise and water has the bonus of supporting your body weight. Keep going.

cwolfman13

I would cut that in about half. With your size, it might be more than 600 calories but I doubt it was 1200 calories unless you were really cranking out laps like Michael Phelps or something.

Using the MFP method, you want to be as conservative as possible with your burn estimates.

FitPhillygirl

Swimming is great exercise, but I doubt you burned that many calories. MFP really over estimates the number of calories burned from what I've seen.

afortunatedragon

Swimming is really great.
You move your whole body and your joints thank you too :-)

But.
Unless you where swimming like a dolphin all the 80 min you are not anywhere close the 1200.
Specially as you described it yourself as leasure swimming.
If I swim for 45min and I am considering my swimming as training not leasure AND 45 min Aquafit I burn around 500 cals. (HRM)

Sorry love, but apps, no matter which one always give a very very optimistic burn, unfortunately nowhere close reality.

Juliarosemary66

Unfortunately I think the calories burned has been over inflated, but given that you'll burn more calories given your weight don't be downhearted! I swear by swimming it is my go to exercise of choice! - I just love the whole body stretching and gliding through the water! I had a swimming lesson recently and I was told that if I improved my core strength I would swim better! It worked! It probably looks stupid but walk up and down the pool holding pool weights over your head in a very straight line- the improvement doing that to my swimming was amazing, you get your legs up higher in the water and swim better,harder,faster and burn more calories!