Accuracy of calories burned, golf

plm209

Just wanted to kind of get a consensus opinion here. According to MFP as well as other calorie calculator websites, golfing using a power cart burns over 1000 calories in 3 hours. I honestly don't feel like I'm expending that kind of effort while golfing using a cart. Should I try to estimate the amount of time I'm actually swinging the club? Just not sure how the calorie expenditure can be that high.

lilmissy2

My opinion (and it is just an opinion because I don't know exactly how this site works) is that when they provide estimates of calories burnt it includes the calories you would be burning just to be alive at that time. 3 hrs is quite a long time so if they've counted some arm activity, some walking and 3hrs of generally being alive and on your feet it would make more sense. Most 'calories burnt' estimates from exercise will include the amount of calories you were using just to be alive during that time because when they do the calorimetry studies, obviously the people are also burning that amount.

I hope that makes sense.

lilmissy2

Oh, I forgot to mention that usually this doesn't skew your amounts by too much if your exercise is in shorter periods. E.g. running for half an hour will burn a lot more than just living for half and hour and the extra of the just living for half an hour that is included won't really be enough to be significant.

erickirb

That is probably close if you are not using a cart, but what you will have to do is back out the calories you would have burned at rest that are already taken into account by your MFP goal.

You may burn around 1.5 cals per minute at rest so you will have to take your 3 hours, 180 minutes times that by 1.5 cals this gives you 270 cals that you would have burned watching TV during those 3 hours. What you should enter in MFP is the extra calories burned through exercise not the total calories burned as I mentioned prior you would have burned some of the 1000 regardless if you played golf or not. So in MFP you could enter 730 (1000-270) or so.

iplayoutside19

Just wanted to kind of get a consensus opinion here. According to MFP as well as other calorie calculator websites, golfing using a power cart burns over 1000 calories in 3 hours. I honestly don't feel like I'm expending that kind of effort while golfing using a cart. Should I try to estimate the amount of time I'm actually swinging the club? Just not sure how the calorie expenditure can be that high.

I don't have any of my own evidence of this, but considering takes the same amount of time to play with a cart, as it does walking I would beleive this. But I just read an article in Golf Magazine that said taking a cart only cuts the number of steps you use to play golf by 20%. If you think about it, instead of always walking directly to the ball....you walk to the cart, then drive to the ball, then walk to the ball. So even though you're riding, you're very in-efficeint with your steps.

That's why I walk, carts are just a money maker for the golf course...statisticly. And of course it's better excersise.

Azdak

I don't care what MFP says, or HRMs, or anything. The actual aerobic/caloric effort invoved in golf is minimal--whether using a cart or walking. Most golfers, even if they walk, are not moving that fast, and the activity is too intermittent to have much exercise effect. I tend to walk very fast and, if on a course by myself, motor around pretty good. By myself on a clear course, I can play 18 holes walking in 2.5 hours--and it has precisely zero effect on my conditioning or weight. Golf is an excellent recreational activity, but it is mostly irrelevant when it comes to either exercise conditioning or weight loss.

drscheck

Wolkodoff found eight male volunteers, ages 26 to 61 with handicaps between 2 and 17, strapped them into some state-of-the-art equipment and took them out for a few rounds of golf on the hilly front nine of Inverness Golf Club in suburban Denver.

Wolkodoff discovered the subjects burned more calories when they walked and carried their clubs (721) than when they rode in a cart (411). When they walked, they traversed about 2.5 miles, compared to 0.5 miles when they rode, but the 500 percent increase in mileage corresponded to only a 75 percent increase in calories burned.

The conclusion was that the act of swinging the golf club could actually be considered good exercise -- a theory many on the "not a sport" side of the golf debate have long questioned.

"As far as physical exertion, it's not the same as boxing, but it's definitely more than people thought," Wolkodoff said.

But before all you golf addicts cancel those gym memberships and turn the treadmill into a permanent coat rack, consider this: While the 2,884 calories the average player might burn by walking 36 holes a week is considered good for health (studies have shown that those who burn 2,500 calories a week improve their overall health by lowering their risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer), it will do little to improve fitness -- meaning it won't increase your overall aerobic capacity.