Can scultpting/weights count as cardio?

dalila747

I do a 30 minute workout of ab work, wall squats, pushups, bridges, etc, done with a medicine ball, weighted ball, and a resistance band. I get somewhat winded because i do it circuit style where I do as many reps as I can for 1 minute and move on to the next esercise, with a few 1 minutes breaks as needed thorughout the workout. But I'm not completely out of breath. would you qualify this as cardio or weights?
Do you even get calories taken away for weights?

cunfewzed1

You most definitely are burning extra calories during resistance/circuit training! However, I wouldn't log these calories. Hard to calculate especially if you're trying to eat them back.

Just know that you're burning extra and feel good about it

dlwyatt82

Hard to tell where you're coming from on this question. Do you mean for the purposes of the exercise library on MFP, where only "cardio" has any effect on your daily calories? In that case, yes, you do burn calories during strength training, and if you wish, you can add a "cardio" exercise for it in your library. It can be difficult to estimate the actual calories burned while lifting, though, because it depends on the intensity of your workout (which can't be easily estimated just by reading a heart-rate monitor, as is the case with a true cardio exercise).

Taking MFP's diary out of the equation, cardio exercise is defined as raising your heart rate and keeping it elevated for some amount of time. How high and for how long is really up to you. Your lifting workout may get those kinds of results as well, though it doesn't really matter if it does or not. I know that when I finish lifting and walk over to a cardio machine, my heart rate is usually within 20bpm of what the machine sets my cardio target to be, much higher than my resting rate.

waldo56

Weight lifting burns a ton of calories. Every bit as much as any other form of exercise.

The chemical reaction that creates energy for anaerobic work like strength training is 17x less efficient at producing energy than than the aerobic chemical reaction. Which means to burn a particular amount of energy, you have to burn 17x more glucose to get that much energy via anaerobic pathways. This is just basic science.

When you feel the burn in yoru muscles, that is pretty much the same thing as dumping raw fuel into a jet engine a la the afterburner. You are able to greatly increase your power output by burning up your fuel in an extremely inefficeint manner.

What this means, lotsa calories are burned.

And for as brialliant as science is, it is pretty much impossible to measure the calorie burn of anaerobic exercise. When you really hunt for values you find a lot of circular cross referencing with no original sources. Frankly noone has a clue as to how many calories strength training burns. But my personal experience is that it is a lot more than people think. The circuit training entry in MFP's cardio database is if anything a "safe" lowball estimate (safe and lowball is fine if you are trying to lose weight, but gives you problems when you are trying to bulk, since you need to eat more than you think you need to eat).

wellbert

What you're doing is definitely in the cardio box.

dalila747

Weight lifting burns a ton of calories. Every bit as much as any other form of exercise.

The chemical reaction that creates energy for anaerobic work like strength training is 17x less efficient at producing energy than than the aerobic chemical reaction. Which means to burn a particular amount of energy, you have to burn 17x more glucose to get that much energy via anaerobic pathways. This is just basic science.

When you feel the burn in yoru muscles, that is pretty much the same thing as dumping raw fuel into a jet engine a la the afterburner. You are able to greatly increase your power output by burning up your fuel in an extremely inefficeint manner.

What this means, lotsa calories are burned.

And for as brialliant as science is, it is pretty much impossible to measure the calorie burn of anaerobic exercise. When you really hunt for values you find a lot of circular cross referencing with no original sources. Frankly noone has a clue as to how many calories strength training burns. But my personal experience is that it is a lot more than people think. The circuit training entry in MFP's cardio database is if anything a "safe" lowball estimate (safe and lowball is fine if you are trying to lose weight, but gives you problems when you are trying to bulk, since you need to eat more than you think you need to eat).

I don't know how to bold here, but your last sentence cleared it up for me. I'm trying to lose weight, so I didn't want to log it in as cardio and have it give me more calories when I wasn't really burning any extra ones. Thank you!

jealous_loser

There are a few choices in the MFP library to mark down strength training.

It doesn't really give you a whole lot if you just log strength training though. Like 242 calories for an hour. The class I do, I mark as circuit training because it is about half cardio/half muscle.

waldo56

Weight lifting burns a ton of calories. Every bit as much as any other form of exercise.

The chemical reaction that creates energy for anaerobic work like strength training is 17x less efficient at producing energy than than the aerobic chemical reaction. Which means to burn a particular amount of energy, you have to burn 17x more glucose to get that much energy via anaerobic pathways. This is just basic science.

When you feel the burn in yoru muscles, that is pretty much the same thing as dumping raw fuel into a jet engine a la the afterburner. You are able to greatly increase your power output by burning up your fuel in an extremely inefficeint manner.

What this means, lotsa calories are burned.

And for as brialliant as science is, it is pretty much impossible to measure the calorie burn of anaerobic exercise. When you really hunt for values you find a lot of circular cross referencing with no original sources. Frankly noone has a clue as to how many calories strength training burns. But my personal experience is that it is a lot more than people think. The circuit training entry in MFP's cardio database is if anything a "safe" lowball estimate (safe and lowball is fine if you are trying to lose weight, but gives you problems when you are trying to bulk, since you need to eat more than you think you need to eat).

I don't know how to bold here, but your last sentence cleared it up for me. I'm trying to lose weight, so I didn't want to log it in as cardio and have it give me more calories when I wasn't really burning any extra ones. Thank you!

Except that the circuit training entry in MFP's cardio database gives an energy burn pretty close to running for the same amount of time. If you are doing it a lot you are really underestmating your calorie burn.

Remember, plateaus and stalls are caused by eating too much OR too little. It is always better to estimate right than it is to estimate safe.

dalila747

Weight lifting burns a ton of calories. Every bit as much as any other form of exercise.

The chemical reaction that creates energy for anaerobic work like strength training is 17x less efficient at producing energy than than the aerobic chemical reaction. Which means to burn a particular amount of energy, you have to burn 17x more glucose to get that much energy via anaerobic pathways. This is just basic science.

When you feel the burn in yoru muscles, that is pretty much the same thing as dumping raw fuel into a jet engine a la the afterburner. You are able to greatly increase your power output by burning up your fuel in an extremely inefficeint manner.

What this means, lotsa calories are burned.

And for as brialliant as science is, it is pretty much impossible to measure the calorie burn of anaerobic exercise. When you really hunt for values you find a lot of circular cross referencing with no original sources. Frankly noone has a clue as to how many calories strength training burns. But my personal experience is that it is a lot more than people think. The circuit training entry in MFP's cardio database is if anything a "safe" lowball estimate (safe and lowball is fine if you are trying to lose weight, but gives you problems when you are trying to bulk, since you need to eat more than you think you need to eat).

I don't know how to bold here, but your last sentence cleared it up for me. I'm trying to lose weight, so I didn't want to log it in as cardio and have it give me more calories when I wasn't really burning any extra ones. Thank you!

Except that the circuit training entry in MFP's cardio database gives an energy burn pretty close to running for the same amount of time. If you are doing it a lot you are really underestmating your calorie burn.

Remember, plateaus and stalls are caused by eating too much OR too little. It is always better to estimate right than it is to estimate safe.

Ok, now you confused me again. So you're saying that the circuit training on MFP is equivalent to running. I'm pretty sure I would've burned more calories with the running (based on how tiring running would be vs. my "circuit training"). So maybe I shouldn't log it in at all.