HRM accuracy and walking

JamesBurkes

I'm feeling pretty confused right now.

I've been doing high intensity cardio for a while (Spinning/RPM), Insanity, running, Plyo X etc. But I've noticed my legs are often sore and my knees are starting to feel it, so I wanted to add some lower intensity cardio, something low impact I could do every day without digging into my reserves too much.

I usually burn around 750-800 cals in an hour doing these things (male, 205lbs, 6ft).

However, I've just been for a walk (3mph, some hills), and my AV HR (at 40 years old) was 123bpm, According to my HRM for 1 hour of what seemed like fairly easy walking I burned 600 calories. According to most online calculators I should be burning around 400, perhaps even less.

The 600 cal figure is also supported by this online calculator which uses Av HR as a factor ( http://www.triathlontrainingblog.com/calculators/calories-burned-calculator-based-on-average-heart-rate/) .

While I was panting at times (going up hill I got to 160bpm) it seemed a lot easier than the other activities I do and interestingly, when I put my Av HR for Insanity etc (155bpm) into the above calculator I also get the same figure as I got for my HRM - around 750-800).

Can something that is so much easier really only have a 200 cal difference per hour, or is the HRM and calculator wrong? 600 calories seems a lot for a 205 lb guy walking at 3mph......

monkeymouse74

Sounds a bit off to me too! I'm 207lb 5ft4 and I walk at level 5 for an hour and only get 400is cals burned on my HRM.

dad106

Depending on what HRM you have, the number could or could not be right. HRM's(when set up correctly age, weight, height, gender and Vo2max) and used in the correct conditions(steady state cardio-walking would count) are 80% accurate.

It's also a known fact that the less fit you are the more you burn, that males will burn more calories than females and that taller people burn more than short people.

I'm 5'9, 151, and I do a lot of walking as my exercise. I did an interval program on the treadmill yesterday(alternating between an incline of 2,8,10 and 12 and going about 3.0) and when I got done after the 45 minutes I want to say I burned an estimated 400-ish calories roughly.

Azdak

Part of the variation is: how hard were the hills? That can make a difference. The other thing is how much were the uphills offset by downhills?. Your average intensity per the HRM was a little over 5 METs. That would be equivalent of walking 3mph at a sustained elevation of approx 4% for the entire hour.

Obeg

You might make sure your HRM is not calculating cadence and measuring your distance based on this. If so - then it will need to be calibrated/adjusted to your step. For instance - out of the box my HRM and software said my 5.5 mile run with a max of 6.6mph to be 7.8 miles and a max speed of over 10mph. This made it estimate my calorie burn way higher than it should because it thought I went much further than I actually had.