I am running faster BUT...

Aaloo79

I have been running for a few months now and I have gotten a lot faster these last few weeks... today I ran my personal 5k best of 28:58. Now The real question here is...I am going faster..but burning LESS calories!

When I was running 10 min miles I was burning around 345 calories.

Now that I am running 8-9 min miles, I am averaging around 330 calories.

I use a Polar FT4 HRM and I even adjusted the user settings to meet my lbs lost thinking that May have been it...buuuut...

So advanced fitness gurus.. What Do I have to do (besides running further lol) to burn more calories?!?! I am not completely upset about it since I run for hobby now instead of strictly fitness, but I would still like to know whats going on here.

I am approximating this based on your ticker and your reported running times.

The decrease in calories is due to your decreased body weight. You have increased your speed, but not enough to account for the decrease in body wt.

Again, based on your numbers:

Running 10 min mile: 5K time 31:08, Intensity: 10.2 METs; Weight (est) 75 Kg (165 lb) --total burn 395 calories.

Running 28.58 5K : Pace ~9:20 per mile. Intensity 10.8 METs; Weight (est) 65 kg (143 lb) -- total burn 337 calories

It often happens that weight loss occurs faster than increases in fitness level. If you continued to train and improve, eventually you should speed up to the point where you will equal your previous burn.

Hi Azdak,

Does it mean that its a baseless argument when some people say that if you continue to do the same exercise, body gets used to it and burn less and less calories (given the same weight, and same intensity of exercises e.g. run). Just asking out of curiosity

Thanks.

GTI_Girl

well I sorta did a mix of everything today...lol I ran a totally different route..sorta made it up as I went. Had some good hills...stuck some sprints in there, and it was about .88 of a mile longer that my normal route. Bumped my calorie burn to 400+ lol

Azdak

I have been running for a few months now and I have gotten a lot faster these last few weeks... today I ran my personal 5k best of 28:58. Now The real question here is...I am going faster..but burning LESS calories!

When I was running 10 min miles I was burning around 345 calories.

Now that I am running 8-9 min miles, I am averaging around 330 calories.

I use a Polar FT4 HRM and I even adjusted the user settings to meet my lbs lost thinking that May have been it...buuuut...

So advanced fitness gurus.. What Do I have to do (besides running further lol) to burn more calories?!?! I am not completely upset about it since I run for hobby now instead of strictly fitness, but I would still like to know whats going on here.

I am approximating this based on your ticker and your reported running times.

The decrease in calories is due to your decreased body weight. You have increased your speed, but not enough to account for the decrease in body wt.

Again, based on your numbers:

Running 10 min mile: 5K time 31:08, Intensity: 10.2 METs; Weight (est) 75 Kg (165 lb) --total burn 395 calories.

Running 28.58 5K : Pace ~9:20 per mile. Intensity 10.8 METs; Weight (est) 65 kg (143 lb) -- total burn 337 calories

It often happens that weight loss occurs faster than increases in fitness level. If you continued to train and improve, eventually you should speed up to the point where you will equal your previous burn.

Hi Azdak,

Does it mean that its a baseless argument when some people say that if you continue to do the same exercise, body gets used to it and burn less and less calories (given the same weight, and same intensity of exercises e.g. run). Just asking out of curiosity

Thanks.

Yeah, pretty much. It's an argument that fails on two levels: One, we do not become that much more efficient mechanically--even professionals who train hours a day only achieve 5% or less improvements in efficiency over years of training. There might be more substantial changes over, say, 10 years of running, but that's not what people are usually referrning to.

Two, the assumption is that, even though you are training and exercising and improving, you will never increase you workload. From a practical standpoint, that's kind of absurd. I mean if you were running at 6 mph 4 times a week for 3-4 months, would you never increase to, say 6.2 mph? Of course you would--that's the whole reason you are exercising.

So the small increses in mechanical efficiency are easily offset (and more) by just increasing your workload.

What actually happens is that, over time, people gradually restore a balance in their lifestyle. They start eating more, doing less casual activity, etc. But they keep hearing Tony Horton and other goofs yelling 'muscle confusion" every 5 min and start to believe it.

Now you WILL see a calorie decrease if you lose weight, and if you lose a lot of weight relatively quickly, then you might not be able to increase your fitness level fast enough to compensate.

I lost 60 lbs in 5 months. Within the first month, I had gotten my endurance and fitness up to where I could run for 60 min on the treadmill. I was just starting to lose the weight. I set a "record" of burning 1000 in 51:45 running on the treadmill. After I lost a lot of weight, I found it a struggle to get 1000 calories in under 53 minutre, even though I was running a lot faster. It took almost a year to get my fitness level up to where I was running fast enough to break the 51 minute barrier--by then my running speed was at least 1.5 mph faster than when I had set the previous record.