Weight Training

SJCon

the more muscle you have the more calories your body will burn in a rested state
I think it's somethign like 50 cals per pound of muscle or something lol

40 to 120 depending on muscle and person is a reasonable estimate from a few years ago. Another reason the calorie in out thing is not a very precise accounting problem LOL

Not sure where you are coming up with this but see the link to a Livestrong article that references Exercise Physiology: Energy, Nutrition, and Human Performance"; William McArdle; 2001 He is one of the originators of the Katch McArdle BMI index and connsidered authoritative. He says 6.5 calories per hour.

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/310070-how-many-calories-does-a-pound-of-muscle-burn-per-day/#ixzz28Qd2lo8Y

Sorry did not realize we were talking about an hour my number is for a day and I am senior so I may not remeber right but think fat was around 6 cal burn per day. Sorry If i misunderstood the 50 calorie context.

ArroganceInStep

Although the calorie burn from weight training is not insignificant, I don't think calorie burn from exercise really matters that much when compared with diet.

This is highly dependant on how much you exercise and how much weight you have to lose.

100 lbs to go and 20 minutes of walking and it doesn't matter.

5 lbs to go and 2 hours of moderate-high intensity exercise, and it matters A LOT. Ignore your exercise calories or miss very low and you're going to plateau and/or lose muscle mass.

My point is that, although you are right, the issue of precision often outweighs the difference. You burned 300 calories lifting weights? Chances are the nutrition post for that subway sub was off by a lot because the server put a little more meat on it than the average and those are just averages anyway. People are FAR more likely to overestimate calorie expenditure and underestimate calorie intake than to get it right. With that taken into consideration, unless you are vigorously training for multiple hours a day on a very regular basis (and at that point just up your activity level in the TDEE calculation), I don't think it plays as large of a role.

It's a matter of preference at the end of the day. Whatever works. Either way resistance training is good for you.

mmapags

It doesn't burn that many calories so I'm confused.

This is flat out false. Anyone that has ever tried to put on muscle mass knows that for the most part people grossly underestimate the calorie burn of strength training.

Yes you don't spend long doing it, most of the time is rest. However the chemical reaction that creates the usable energy from fuel is 18x less efficient at producing energy than it is when doing cardio exercise (this is basic science, look it up). Plus the small bursts of when you go, you use quite a bit more energy than a comparable time doing cardio, assuming you are actually using difficult weights.

Someone above said EPOC. That is incorrect, EPOC is oxygen demand making up an oxygen deficit, as what happens with high intensity cardo intervals. In general it is a short lived and small phenomenon, bordering on irrelevant. However the calorie cost of recovery from all the muscle damage is significant (though likely highly partitioned to protein, hence the need for elevated protein), bordering on a 10-15% raise in your measurable resting metabolism every day your body is recovering (my personal data indicates this, others have validated this with their own info).

Just because MFP's strength training # is laughable doesn't mean it is in reality. The circuit training or high effort calisthenics entries are much better estmates of the real strength training calorie burn than the strength training one. And ditch your HRM, it is designed to measure the calorie burn of steady state aerobic exercise, they do a poor job of measuring periodic anaerobic exercise burn (miss low).

And science doesn't have much to say about this either. Its just as impossible to measure in a lab. About the only way to measure it is indirectly. Eat maintenence for a while and strength train, measure how much weight you're losing and calculate the calorie burn from that. Given how long that method takes and the virtual impossibility of getting good data from the average population (the average population is not accuracy and data obsessed), that's more a dieter/bodybuilder with a great personal dataset thing than a research thing.

Awesome post waldo! I was the one who mentioned EPOC I think and thanks for the perspective on that. I always thought it odd when someone like say, Lyle McDonald, would refer to EPOC in regard to weight training. It did seem like a term more geared for cardio.

mmapags

Although the calorie burn from weight training is not insignificant, I don't think calorie burn from exercise really matters that much when compared with diet.

This is highly dependant on how much you exercise and how much weight you have to lose.

100 lbs to go and 20 minutes of walking and it doesn't matter.

5 lbs to go and 2 hours of moderate-high intensity exercise, and it matters A LOT. Ignore your exercise calories or miss very low and you're going to plateau and/or lose muscle mass.

My point is that, although you are right, the issue of precision often outweighs the difference. You burned 300 calories lifting weights? Chances are the nutrition post for that subway sub was off by a lot because the server put a little more meat on it than the average and those are just averages anyway. People are FAR more likely to overestimate calorie expenditure and underestimate calorie intake than to get it right. With that taken into consideration, unless you are vigorously training for multiple hours a day on a very regular basis (and at that point just up your activity level in the TDEE calculation), I don't think it plays as large of a role.

It's a matter of preference at the end of the day. Whatever works. Either way resistance training is good for you.

So how do you factor in increased calorie demand for recovery. And strength training intensity? Believe me, I get where you are coming from. There is little defintive data showing the overall calorie cost of strength training over a week. I wish there was. I know it is just anecdotal but my personal experience jives with what waldo said.

Big_Daddy6

Lifting heavy crap DOES burn alot of calories. I burn from 500-1200 5 days a week with weight lifting according to my HRM but it has to be intense. If it's light weight and easy it will not burn alot.

mmapags

Sorry did not realize we were talking about an hour my number is for a day and I am senior so I may not remeber right but think fat was around 6 cal burn per day. Sorry If i misunderstood the 50 calorie context.

It was never defined as a day or an hour and I was going with the default in the memory bank. I am also a senior at 61 but, even though the memory back isn't as good as it used to be, denial of age impaiment still is working just fine!!