Calories burned from Insanity...Over Estimating

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  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    Totally depends.

    What is your HRmax compared to everyone else giving their values?

    What does your HRM have as the HRmax?

    It probably defaults to 220-age as HRmax.

    But if you avg 150, and your HRmax is really 170, that is indeed a huge effort, and worthy of a high calorie burn.

    But if HRmax is actually 190, then that wasn't that high at all, and is really less of a burn.

    In addition to that, if the HRM is using your weight to decide if you are fit or not, it may decide that a high HR is expected for your fitness level (VO2max) and not give that many calories.

    But if you actually are very fit and reached a high HR, it should be a lot of calories.

    Way to many factors for a comparison of cheap Timex with cheap Polar's to know if it was right or wrong.

    In addition, the idea behind Insanity is work at the upper ranges, "intervals turned upside down!", so you are supposed to be working at a level that is actually incorrect for HRM calc's anyway.

    Plus, the calorie burn formula's are only intended for steady-state aerobic. Did you HR ever stay at one level within a few beats for 3-5 minutes? If not, inflated there too.

    So comparison is just about impossible and that's not even considering the effort.

    At least with a properly setup HRM, or in the case of that Timex that Brayburn site referenced above, with a known or calc'd VO2max, and an adjusted age to take into account your real HRmax, you can get decent estimate.

    Or use the HRM tab in the spreadsheet linked in this topic. Polar funded study formula, your personal stats and help getting them best they can be, and your personal calorie burn table. Just need workout time, and avgHR.
    Same potential inaccuracies mentioned above apply, likely inflated for Insanity.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/813720-spreadsheet-bmr-tdee-deficit-macro-calcs-hrm-zones
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    I used my HRM and my calories burned was a disappointing 249!

    It's possible that my body doesn't find Insanity challenging since I've been taking bootcamp classes for months.

    No, your body is burning the same number of calories if you are the same weight. You may have gotten a tad more efficient in your movements causing slightly less burn there.
    But your HR dropping a lot for the same effort is not related to that.

    Does the force (energy) required to lift 5 lbs from the clutches of gravity change for anyone? No.

    Your cardiovascular system isn't finding it as challenging if you have trouble getting the HR as high. So your heart and lungs aren't getting the workout they once were.

    Your body is.
  • bdunt2646
    bdunt2646 Posts: 99 Member
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    i had found an actual formula for how they figure out calories burned with heigh weight heart rate etc...and i plugged in numbers just to see out of curiosity and that sounds about right... even if you go to the insanity site, it says you can burn around 1000 calories in an hour!!... awesome job by the way lol
  • bbgughj
    bbgughj Posts: 219 Member
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    My best Burn was today's work out. Max Interval Circuit 60Minutes for 782 Cal Burned, Same work out last week was 764
  • docdriza
    docdriza Posts: 2
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    I am in my second week of Insanity and I am seeing some awesome results. I know the wife is happy. If you do not have a HRM and really dont have the money for one, how else could you calculate the calories burned.
  • Shelleben82
    Shelleben82 Posts: 483 Member
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    I am in my second week of Insanity and I am seeing some awesome results. I know the wife is happy. If you do not have a HRM and really dont have the money for one, how else could you calculate the calories burned.

    i use this- http://www.everydayhealth.com/food-fitness/exercise-activity/calories-burned-conditioning-exercises
    im sure obviously it is not dead accurate but a close enough range is all i need to get a general idea until i can afford
    to purchase and HRM
  • Eileen889
    Eileen889 Posts: 117
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    I always go by what my HRM says as far as calories burned during my Insanity workouts.
  • wealthychef
    wealthychef Posts: 5 Member
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    As a reality check, try wearing your heart rate monitor while sitting on the couch for an hour, then compute your calories. Take the difference and that will be more accurate. I usually subtract 400 calories from each workout. The main idea here is to meet your fat loss goals, so feel free to adjust numbers to get a result. To me, the heart rate monitor is just there to make sure I maintain intensity in my workout. It's not a result in itself. The REAL result is measured in millimeters of fat in my skin fold at my belly button, inches around my chest and waist. That's the main thing for me.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    As a reality check, try wearing your heart rate monitor while sitting on the couch for an hour, then compute your calories. Take the difference and that will be more accurate. I usually subtract 400 calories from each workout. The main idea here is to meet your fat loss goals, so feel free to adjust numbers to get a result. To me, the heart rate monitor is just there to make sure I maintain intensity in my workout. It's not a result in itself. The REAL result is measured in millimeters of fat in my skin fold at my belly button, inches around my chest and waist. That's the main thing for me.

    Sadly the formula's for estimating calorie burn based on HR are totally based on aerobic steady-state exercise.

    Sitting around on couch, shoot, simple walking, and lifting and intervals done right - none of those are aerobic exercise with steady-state HR.

    You are getting inflated values for that little test.

    Read Polar's own funded study on it, linked on this page.
    http://www.braydenwm.com/calburn.htm
  • Lizziebeth125
    Lizziebeth125 Posts: 5
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    Working out how many calories are burned always needs a combination of various things. You need to use your weight, how long you do the workout for, how energetically you do it - which is why sometimes the calculations are wrong because you may think you are being extremely energetic whereas someone else might put that intensity down as medium so you need to be really really honest about how hard you are working. Then you have to use something that calculates the energy involved in the particular workout. There is a calculator which will work it out for you but if your estimate of low, medium or high intensity is wrong it will not be accurate- you just have to consider that overall and say if it is really really hard for you but other people might put more energy in then it is probably still medium or you might be overestimating. The calculator is at http://insanitycalories.com/ you can try the various intensities and see which looks closest to you.

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