Lifting- How many calories burned?

CoderGal

I'd love to see Haybales wade in here as he is very knowledgeable about the design of HRMs but the bottom line is they are not designed to measure calories burned from anything but steady state cardio. There is nothing else you measure with one that will be accurate at all. Heybales can explain why better than I can but it has to do with factoring the HR to the energy burned in an aerobic actvity. As mulitple posters have pointed out, strength training is an anaerobic activity and HRM are pretty much useless.

Those that want to dispute this, help yourself. You are probably sincere and genuine but you are still sincerely and genuinely wrong . The reasons have been laid out in detail.

Yes, he showed me a nice doc that showed some of the science behind how the polars work...apparently there was a problem with one of the models for females? Polar S410 maybe? It give a 33% inaccuracy for female cardio burns or something? They pin pointed the problem so I'm assuming it will be fixed in the new models that will come out? Anyway, that polar one research paper specifically said the polars were based on cardio burns, not weight training.

edit: the study has been removed from public viewing on the university of illinios website but the link remains for anyone interested:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/459580-polar-hrm-calorie-burn-estimate-accuracy-study
Abstract:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15292754

Double edit: found it!
"Polar Electro, Inc., is a leading manufacturer of HR monitors. Their instruments have been shown to provide
valid measurements of HR when compared with electrocardiograms"

"When the predicted values of V˙ O2max and HRmax are used, the Polar S410 HRM provides a rough estimate of EE during running, rowing, and cycling"

"The advantage of using HR is that it is a physiological parameter that can detect changes in exercise intensity even when the movement patterns differ greatly. Thus, the HR monitor is able to estimate EE in activities such as rowing and cycling, which do not elicit vertical displacement of the trunk, where pedometers and accelerometers would fail (4,13)."

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/8417411_Accuracy_of_polar_S410_heart_rate_monitor_to_estimate_energy_cost_of_exercise

There's probably some other stuff in there too, that's what I got from a skim. I read a better article along with that one and I cannot for the life of me find it...

Shrelana

I just track it on here under cardio as "strength training"