why don't you burn calories doing strength training??

wannabthin65

I don't understand why strength training dosen't burn calories if something like light housework does? Doesn't strength training take energy and expended energy burn calories? Please enlighten me!

flamegirl72

Search for strength training under cardio- it is there

CeloTX

Strength training does burn calories. It just doesn't necessarily burn as many as cardio does DURING the activity itself.

spacecase76

look up strength training under cardio as the previous poster suggested. The "weights" area is more to track how much you lift over time if you are working on increasing...not to log calories burned :-)

AZKristi

Any time you contract a muscle it requires energy - strength training falls into that category. During traditional "cardio" workouts you are contracting a lot of muscles many many many times, so you burn a ton of calories. Its also harder to estimate the number of cals burned because everyone lifts different amounts at different speeds, etc.

Also, beware of entering calories burned in cleaning. Unless you've indicated your sedentary, light activity like cleaning is already built into your BMR.

Tegan74

Yeah ~ annoys me too ~ it asks for 'how many min's' you do a certain exercise, instead of asking how many reps and how much weight. Would be nice if they would change that to count calories burned

kylakesgal

Oh it does but definately not as many as cardio but still a burn!!. Do what I do and search how many calories you burn for whatever strength activity and then add it under cardio with the amount you burned. It will save it for you next time. Strength training is as important as cardio so make sure you are logging it:) Good luck to you.

amjohnson1026

when i started on here i was puzzled by that too. I asked my boss who used to be a body builder and he said you do burn calories strength training and told me to list it as circuit training. I also bought a heart monitor watch that counts my calories. I set it at zero and start it when i start my circuit and end it when i am done. That way I can log my minutes and calories burned.

fightingforfiftyfive

Yeah ~ annoys me too ~ it asks for 'how many min's' you do a certain exercise, instead of asking how many reps and how much weight. Would be nice if they would change that to count calories burned

Calories burnt when lifting weights would be very different for everyone, it is too dependent on the energy YOU need to expend to lift weights. Put simply heavier weights are easier/harder for different people, and therefore calories cannot be tracked on MFP. The best thing to do is get a HRM...they are not the best for estimating calories burnt during strength training but better then nothing.