Calories burned from strength straining

1Timothy4v8

I'm gonna start at the beginning...

Essentially when you do strength training, you are creating microtears in your muscles. That's why you get sore. Over the course of the following few days, your muscle cells are multiplying to fill in those microtears, thus creating greater muscle mass. In order for the muscle cells to multiply, you need protein, which is the building blocks for the muscle cells, you also need water, and plenty of vitamins. The vitamins make it so your body can synthesize the protein you've eaten and turn it into muscle cells. I think of it as paying the workers in vitamins to build a building - or in this case SICK GUNS.

As far as calories burned, there are three parts to this process that involve calories being burned. First, it does take energy for your body to create the new muscle cells, energy means calories, so what your physical trainer said is true enough. Second, upon having increased your muscle mass, that muscle mass is able to carry out work, thus burning calories. (Increased muscle mass means higher efficiency at burning fat.) Third, keep in mind that our body burns a typical amount of calories in a given day simply from existing, circulating blood, breathing, all that. Having extra muscle mass increases this typical amount of calories burned per day from simply existing.

Since there are so many factors involved in this process, even if I could somehow measure or calculate the calories being burned due to just the replication of muscle cells, I honestly wouldn't log them and eat back those calories simply because I wouldn't trust the accuracy of the measurement or calculation.

I mean, under this logic, even a normal heart rate monitor isn't going to be perfect, because a fraction of the calories burned in a workout is due to "existing" and not the actual workout, because you are burning a steady amount of calories over time. That's why I don't eat ALL of my excersize calories back, just MOST of them.

Okay I have no idea if any of that made sense. I did my best though. I guess if your interested in seeing it how I see it give me a message or whatever.

- Mary

Thank yoou, yea that made a lot of sense, thank you for explaining it to me, I should have figured it would be to hard to find out how much it burns =(

Azdak

What they meant is that muscle mass increases your metabolism. So you are burning more calories at rest then you would if you were to only do cardio.

Others know much more than me but I didn't want to leave you hanging. The point is that having lean muscle mass is important. Try to have a healthy mix of cardio and resistance training.

no He told me that your body will burn cals after weight lifting for a couple days cause it needs energy to repair the muscles

There is often a misunderstanding about this. People think "oh, if I burn more calories for 36 hours after finishing exercise, that's better" without ever asking exactly how many calories that is.

Answer: not a huge amount. Or at least, not likely a huge amount. Research is all over the board on this subject and I don't think anyone really knows for sure. But let's say you burned 200 calories in a strength session and that raised your resting metabolism 10% for 36 hours (an unrealistically large number BTW, but I'm trying to prove a point). If you weighed 100 kg (220 pounds), that extra 10% would be 360 more calories over the next 36 hours. Sounds pretty f-ing awesome, right? That would be a total of 200 + 360 for the workout --560 altogether.

At 220 pounds, doing 45 min of cardio at a decent pace, you could easily burn 600-750 calories. And, you could do it again the next day, which you can't do for weight lifting.

This is not meant to be a knock against strength training. Strength training is absolutely critical for long-term weight loss. I can't think of any study that hasn't shown that strength training enhances any weight loss program.

My point is: don't get hung up on the calorie numbers, don't get sucked into all the goofy explanations you'll get about "raising metabolism", etc.

Just lift. We know it works.

1Timothy4v8

What they meant is that muscle mass increases your metabolism. So you are burning more calories at rest then you would if you were to only do cardio.

Others know much more than me but I didn't want to leave you hanging. The point is that having lean muscle mass is important. Try to have a healthy mix of cardio and resistance training.

no He told me that your body will burn cals after weight lifting for a couple days cause it needs energy to repair the muscles

There is often a misunderstanding about this. People think "oh, if I burn more calories for 36 hours after finishing exercise, that's better" without ever asking exactly how many calories that is.

Answer: not a huge amount. Or at least, not likely a huge amount. Research is all over the board on this subject and I don't think anyone really knows for sure. But let's say you burned 200 calories in a strength session and that raised your resting metabolism 10% for 36 hours (an unrealistically large number BTW, but I'm trying to prove a point). If you weighed 100 kg (220 pounds), that extra 10% would be 360 more calories over the next 36 hours. Sounds pretty f-ing awesome, right? That would be a total of 200 + 360 for the workout --560 altogether.

At 220 pounds, doing 45 min of cardio at a decent pace, you could easily burn 600-750 calories. And, you could do it again the next day, which you can't do for weight lifting.

This is not meant to be a knock against strength training. Strength training is absolutely critical for long-term weight loss. I can't think of any study that hasn't shown that strength training enhances any weight loss program.

My point is: don't get hung up on the calorie numbers, don't get sucked into all the goofy explanations you'll get about "raising metabolism", etc.

Just lift. We know it works.

yea that was something I wondered about, he said you will burn for longer but I thought how much though?

so yea I think I will do both, thank you for your reply

warmachinejt

i burn about 500 calories in an hour. I weight 145lbs and i am 5'9". Just helping you...I find this out because I always wear my HRM in the gym.

1Timothy4v8

i burn about 500 calories in an hour. I weight 145lbs and i am 5'9". Just helping you...I find this out because I always wear my HRM in the gym.

thank you, maybe I should look into getting a HRM