Strength Training Calories

ericcalaniz

When I have an entry for cardio exercises, it shows how many calories I've burned, or I can input the amount of calories the machine I was on shows.
Is there a good way to do this for weight lifting exercises? I do my weight lifting with little (about 45 seconds to a minute) of rest between sets so as to keep my heart rate up, and I know this burns some calories. I'd like to have something to show in my calorie counter for it, if possible. If not, I'll just keep putting it as high-impact aerobics haha.

taso42_DELETED

Yes, counterintuitively, if you log the strength training under cardio, you can log the calories there.

ericcalaniz

That's kind of what I've been doing (logging it as time spent weight training x.75 minutes of high impact aerobics) but I'm not sure realistically how many calories I'm burning. Advice on that?

0racle76

I add my strength training in as a circuit training when I am doing free weights or on a machine.

Windi38

I was just wondering that tonight. I don't think my heart rate monitor takes into consideration that I am strength training, and working muscle, so since my heart rate doesn't get over 120ish, put me down as only burning like 85 calories in the half hour that I did core exercises and free weights.... I really think I must have done better than that!!

h2onut

Pretty sure the only way to know what your burning for sure is to wear a HRM:)

BeeHummingbird

I asked this question myself to the contact us emails address and this is the response I got on the weight lifting side of it.........

Estimating the calories burned from strength training is very difficult because it depends on a variety of factors: how much weight you lifted per repetition, how vigorously you performed that exercise, how much rest you took between sets, etc. Because of this, we do not automatically calculate how many calories you burned from strength training exercises.

However, if you'd like, you can add "Strength training" as a cardio exercise to get a rough estimate of how many calories you burned. Please be aware though that this is definitely a rough estimate and can be fairly inaccurate.

We wish you all the success in reaching and maintaining all of your diet and fitness goals.

bikerbiz

...only burning like 85 calories in the half hour that I did core exercises and free weights....

That sounds about right, actually. It varies widely, depending on what you're doing. Weightlifting doesn't burn as many calories because you're generally focusing on few muscles at a time, as opposed to cardio, where you're generally working large muscle groups nonstop, and moving the weight of the whole body.

Windi38

...only burning like 85 calories in the half hour that I did core exercises and free weights....

That sounds about right, actually. It varies widely, depending on what you're doing. Weightlifting doesn't burn as many calories because you're generally focusing on few muscles at a time, as opposed to cardio, where you're generally working large muscle groups nonstop, and moving the weight of the whole body.

I'm going with it, and I'm not going to worry about it because I know that even if I'm not burning off so many calories, I'm making my body and muscles stronger, so it's worth it. I bicycle a lot, it's my main form of exercise, but I like to try and do something different at least once a week, and need to go to the gym to work my upper body...

taso42_DELETED

I use this site often to estimate or get second opinions on estimates: http://www.caloriesperhour.com/index_burn.php

Aps123

i asked this same question. now i log it under cardio but select "strength training". depressingly low calorie burn for the time put in but well worth the outcome.

bikerbiz

Strength training right before cardio is supposed to give the fat-burning a big boost. I find it does help me row a lot harder...seems to be working.