new hrm & cals burned

MrsFelton2010

So today I tried out my new HRM. It is a PYLE sports model. Anyway, I did elliptical HIIT first then I reset the cals burned to start at 0 for strength. So in 1:05 it said I burned over 836 calories. Is this correct? Should I really believe that? I'm between 236 and 232. I'm 5'4 ad change lol. The HRM has all this info. The strength did include some walking between sets. I'm wondering if that's. To much or is it that high because I did cardio first. My heart rate for strength was between 140 &160. Or should I lift weights first and then do cardio?

ANewLucia

Oh HRMs are not as accurate on weight training. I use half the cals my hrm says. I hope DecemberNick responds because he sure did find some conflicting inf on that topic.

helened

This is an interesting read on this topic:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/76934-calories-burned-lifting-weights/

Calories burned during exercise are often measured by heart rate elevation. And it is a good measure. Usually the heart rate is higher during cardio exercise for longer periods than during weight lifting. So most cardio sessions give a bigger burn during the session.

However weight lifting is know to increase metabolism for up to 48 hours post exercise and it is very difficult to even guess how much you will burn afterwards. By contrast, most cardio (Hiit excluded) is generally considered to only elevate metabolism for 30-60.

DecemberNick

I've read a handful of things on it now that you may have found while looking around the internet yourself. I'll try to summarize what I know but I'm by no means the expert or authority on this. Take it with a grain of salt.

With an HRM, it's geared primarily to support cardiovascular activity. There's some expectation in its calculations of calories burned that you're in some state of motion. When you're running, your body is never resting.

When you're lifting, you elevate your heart rate but you're generally moving a single or small group of muscles and then you're probably resting longer than you actually lifted the weights.

To the HRM, it sees an elevated heart rate but it can't take into account what portions of your body are involved with the exercise. The amount of energy it takes to hold your core, pump your legs and swing your arms when you run for 30 seconds is most likely greater than the 30 seconds you may spend doing an isolated exercise like the bench press which engages far fewer and far smaller muscles.

I think the HRM gets tricked because your heart rate may be elevated but your effort is not as great. I was outfitted with a bodybugg (a more precise device for measuring energy expenditure) and what I found was that my 50 minutes to an hour in the gym amounted to about 200-250 calories of expended energy.

When I account for it now, I just ballpark a 125 calorie per 30 minutes of lifting (I'm 5'9" @ 182). It's not exact but I think it comes out in the wash.

On a side note, I just started using my HRM with my HIIT workouts which is a reasonable mix of cardio and strength training. It's giving me a big number that I don't know if I can trust. I'm going to be getting access to my bodybugg again soon so I will report back on what it says I'm really burning!

MrsFelton2010

Thanks for all the info, i really appreciate it and Decembeenick please keep me posted.