Strength building and Calories Burned

2aycocks

On Wednesday I posted all the strength building weight exercises I had done on my exercise log. it didn't show ANY calories burned. The cardio I did showed calories burned. So why not the strength training? I did a lot of it and broke a sweat.

Mads1997

Because it is too hard to calculate burns from doing strength exercises. They will not be accurate even with a HRM. However if you must log them and get extra cals you can find it under cardio "strength training" be warned though it's very inaccurate.

weightingitout88

I log it under Strength training as well, and usually for a HARD 40minute (and thats stop watch for sets, actual 40 minutes of lifting) it will give me like 130calories burned. Way off.

ironmonkeystyle

Use a HRM and find a formula like this one:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/18303-calculate-calories-burned/

phjorg

Use a HRM and find a formula like this one:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/18303-calculate-calories-burned/

Or don't do this because your heartrate has zero bearing on weight lifting...

love4fitnesslove4food_wechange

Use a HRM and find a formula like this one:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/18303-calculate-calories-burned/

Or don't do this because your heartrate has zero bearing on weight lifting...

Or realize that EVERYTHING is merely an estimate and only trial and error will provide insight into your accuracy.

phjorg

Use a HRM and find a formula like this one:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/18303-calculate-calories-burned/

Or don't do this because your heartrate has zero bearing on weight lifting...

Or realize that EVERYTHING is merely an estimate and only trial and error will provide insight into your accuracy.

agreed. So why even bother with a HRM then? leave the dam thing at home and focus on this that are far more important like increasing weight on your sets every workout. If including calorie burn makes you feel better, then just say it was 200 and be done with it. Having a device that does not work for the activity you choose to spit a random number out is pointless.

2aycocks

Well that was a hard workout for me so I'd like some kind of credit! ha!

phjorg

Well that was a hard workout for me so I'd like some kind of credit! ha!

your credit is lifting more than you ever have before.

2aycocks

Use a HRM and find a formula like this one:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/18303-calculate-calories-burned/

Or don't do this because your heartrate has zero bearing on weight lifting...

Or realize that EVERYTHING is merely an estimate and only trial and error will provide insight into your accuracy.

agreed. So why even bother with a HRM then? leave the dam thing at home and focus on this that are far more important like increasing weight on your sets every workout. If including calorie burn makes you feel better, then just say it was 200 and be done with it. Having a device that does not work for the activity you choose to spit a random number out is pointless.

BTW, you rmisspelled (misspelt) damn.

ironmonkeystyle

"your heart rate has zero bearing on weight lifting." I am not sure what you mean by this. If you mean to say that your average HR/hour does not impact how much weight you can lift, or how successful a weight-lifting regimen you advance, then that sentence makes sense, but is non-responsive to the OP's question, based at least, on my interpretation of his intent.

If you're saying that you shouldn't bother monitoring your heart rate, or event attempting to estimate effort exerted (using the formula I listed or by other means), you might want to observe the irony of this statement being made on a website literally devoted to attempting to estimate calories in / and calories expended for some purpose of regulating (growing, shrinking, maintaining) one's overall size. So, yes, I think it's a good idea to use simple readily available measures to estimate as best we can exertion in an attempt to conservatively measure calories expended. There are clear limits to this. But guessing or not estimating at all seem woefully remiss as well, and could lead to unintended undesirable consequences as well. (One of the reasons why I am on MFP is that I am not good at guessing how many calories I ate, or how many calories I burned-- I routinely underestimate the former, and overestimate the latter.)

2aycocks

"your heart rate has zero bearing on weight lifting." I am not sure what you mean by this. If you mean to say that your average HR/hour does not impact how much weight you can lift, or how successful a weight-lifting regimen you advance, then that sentence makes sense, but is non-responsive to the OP's question, based at least, on my interpretation of his intent.

If you're saying that you shouldn't bother monitoring your heart rate, or event attempting to estimate effort exerted (using the formula I listed or by other means), you might want to observe the irony of this statement being made on a website literally devoted to attempting to estimate calories in / and calories expended for some purpose of regulating (growing, shrinking, maintaining) one's overall size. So, yes, I think it's a good idea to use simple readily available measures to estimate as best we can exertion in an attempt to conservatively measure calories expended. There are clear limits to this. But guessing or not estimating at all seem woefully remiss as well, and could lead to unintended undesirable consequences as well. (One of the reasons why I am on MFP is that I am not good at guessing how many calories I ate, or how many calories I burned-- I routinely underestimate the former, and overestimate the latter.)

Thank YOU!!!

kcaffee1

I looked at the link above, and would like to toss out a slightly different calculator. It's a LITTLE easier for me, since math and I usually can't seem to inhabit the same building.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/338469-how-to-calculate-calories-burned-weight-lifting/
How to Calculate calories burned weight lifting

I haven't compared the results of the two, but this is the one I use. Some days it results in a MONSTER burn. Other days, it's not so big.

ironmonkeystyle

I looked at the link above, and would like to toss out a slightly different calculator. It's a LITTLE easier for me, since math and I usually can't seem to inhabit the same building.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/338469-how-to-calculate-calories-burned-weight-lifting/
How to Calculate calories burned weight lifting

I haven't compared the results of the two, but this is the one I use. Some days it results in a MONSTER burn. Other days, it's not so big.

I use a modified formula that discounts the Livestrong reported method. I like being a little extra conservative in the calculations. One can also add precision by being careful to accurately report weight and age (fractions of years)

falcon367

"your heart rate has zero bearing on weight lifting." I am not sure what you mean by this. If you mean to say that your average HR/hour does not impact how much weight you can lift, or how successful a weight-lifting regimen you advance, then that sentence makes sense, but is non-responsive to the OP's question, based at least, on my interpretation of his intent.

If you're saying that you shouldn't bother monitoring your heart rate, or event attempting to estimate effort exerted (using the formula I listed or by other means), you might want to observe the irony of this statement being made on a website literally devoted to attempting to estimate calories in / and calories expended for some purpose of regulating (growing, shrinking, maintaining) one's overall size. So, yes, I think it's a good idea to use simple readily available measures to estimate as best we can exertion in an attempt to conservatively measure calories expended. There are clear limits to this. But guessing or not estimating at all seem woefully remiss as well, and could lead to unintended undesirable consequences as well. (One of the reasons why I am on MFP is that I am not good at guessing how many calories I ate, or how many calories I burned-- I routinely underestimate the former, and overestimate the latter.)

Thanks for your comments!!

Not to sound confrontational to phjorg, but;
Unfortunately there are those in the forum that feel its their duty to throw water on everyone's fire by providing science to make a point that we all "don't understand what a HRM is". While I understand the science, but I also understand that by monitoring HR while strength training, I can increase the intensity of my workouts. Does it give me an accurate rate of calorie burn? No, because the science says it's not. However, when you really look at the science behind the whole HRM, it's ALL an estimate (yes, cardio too) unless you know your VO2 and can enter that as a profile parameter. I like to use my HRM as a measure of knowing I had a intense workout and did indeed burn calories. And since this isn't bodybuilding.com (thank God), most here will forgive me for using estimated an calorie burn based on my HRM knowing that my intent isn't to deceive anyone here or look macho ... it's just to let me know I've done what I set out to do ... work hard. And since I eat well below my TDEE daily, I don't think it will have a bearing on weight. Yes, HR does not directly coincide with calories burned during weight training ... but I don't care ... I still use it and think its a great way to gauge a workout. My $.02

kcaffee1

I looked at the link above, and would like to toss out a slightly different calculator. It's a LITTLE easier for me, since math and I usually can't seem to inhabit the same building.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/338469-how-to-calculate-calories-burned-weight-lifting/
How to Calculate calories burned weight lifting

I haven't compared the results of the two, but this is the one I use. Some days it results in a MONSTER burn. Other days, it's not so big.

I use a modified formula that discounts the Livestrong reported method. I like being a little extra conservative in the calculations. One can also add precision by being careful to accurately report weight and age (fractions of years)

Makes sense. On the days I have horribly low nets, I might look into that one. But, since the scale and tape measure are still in agreement, I'm content to just muddle through with the problem of having the low numbers. But, I'm also still a noob when it comes to calculating/estimating lifting burns.

Huffdogg

I count it as 500 calories every time I have a solid lifting session. But that's largely because I'm willing to end up with a small surplus on lifting days.

phjorg

if you use heartrate and not the weight on the barbell to measure resistance training intensity then you're doing lifting laughably wrong. here's the truth. the energy system your body used to do resistance training has nothing to do with heartrate. sure wear one if you want. or just make up any random value around 400. that has just as much value as your hrm number..

MercenaryNoetic26

Thanks for your comments!!

Not to sound confrontational to phjorg, but;
Unfortunately there are those in the forum that feel its their duty to throw water on everyone's fire by providing science to make a point that we all "don't understand what a HRM is". While I understand the science, but I also understand that by monitoring HR while strength training, I can increase the intensity of my workouts. Does it give me an accurate rate of calorie burn? No, because the science says it's not. However, when you really look at the science behind the whole HRM, it's ALL an estimate (yes, cardio too) unless you know your VO2 and can enter that as a profile parameter. I like to use my HRM as a measure of knowing I had a intense workout and did indeed burn calories. And since this isn't bodybuilding.com (thank God), most here will forgive me for using estimated an calorie burn based on my HRM knowing that my intent isn't to deceive anyone here or look macho ... it's just to let me know I've done what I set out to do ... work hard. And since I eat well below my TDEE daily, I don't think it will have a bearing on weight. Yes, HR does not directly coincide with calories burned during weight training ... but I don't care ... I still use it and think its a great way to gauge a workout. My $.02

I agree. It helps me gauge my intensity. My HRM has the fit test and gives VO2. I like seeing when I do low rep/heavier vs high rep lighter what the differences are. I'm getting very familiar with my heart-rate during workouts and where it stands for intensity. Right now I prefer the higher fat-burn. So all in all, it's a great tool to use during weight training, IMO.

phjorg

you guage intensity by the amount of weight on the bar... and how many times you move it. i mean this is the basics of resistance training.. I'm still baffled how people think their heartrate means anything.. you do know the energy systems used in lifting dont use oxygen right?

freebirdjones

Under Cardiovascular search for:

Calisthenics (pushups, sit-ups), vigorous effort

you can put in he time for your work out and see a little result with this. just make sure you know you are only lying to yourself so if you feel you have not burnt as many calories at it says reduce the time so he calories burnt is less.

Hope this is a good temp solution

cwolfman13

You do not burn a ton of calories lifting. The benefit of lifting in RE to calorie burn is that building and/or maintaining LBM requires the body to burn more calories all of the time, not just during your session.

HRMs are inaccurate for calories burned during actual lifting...there are some formulas out there...there's one on livestrong.com. I use the TDEE method so I don't worry about it, but really I wouldn't give myself anymore than 100-150 calories for an actual lift session.

Azdak

I understand the need for people to create specificity where none exists, and to quantify that which cannot be quantified, but at some point facts and science should be part of the discussion.

And the fact is still that: due to the high number of variables involved, there is no way to accurately and consistently estimate calories burned during strength training.

Once again, this does NOT mean that there are no calories being burned. It just means there is no monitor, table, equation, etc, that can provide an accurate or consistent estimate. You are welcome to choose any of those numbers. Or you could make one up. Whether they do or don't match your actual expenditure is pretty much random chance.

I understand the argument that "this is a site that is based on quantifying intake and output", and I understand how that could seem to be a justification for using one of these methods.

However, at some point, there has to be SOME factual or scientific support for a method.

In the case of heart rate, there is none--at least when it comes to traditional weight lifting. There is no relationship to calories burned, and there is very little relationship to intensity. Heart rate during weight lifting can be affected as much or more by breath-holding as by intensity of weight lifted. It's like using the CD player in your car to monitor gas mileage.

If you want to post of calorie number for weight lifting, then 250-400 for an hour would be a pretty safe number. You don't have to fool around with HRMs or other equations that provide no more accuracy.

Azdak

"your heart rate has zero bearing on weight lifting." I am not sure what you mean by this. If you mean to say that your average HR/hour does not impact how much weight you can lift, or how successful a weight-lifting regimen you advance, then that sentence makes sense, but is non-responsive to the OP's question, based at least, on my interpretation of his intent.

If you're saying that you shouldn't bother monitoring your heart rate, or event attempting to estimate effort exerted (using the formula I listed or by other means), you might want to observe the irony of this statement being made on a website literally devoted to attempting to estimate calories in / and calories expended for some purpose of regulating (growing, shrinking, maintaining) one's overall size. So, yes, I think it's a good idea to use simple readily available measures to estimate as best we can exertion in an attempt to conservatively measure calories expended. There are clear limits to this. But guessing or not estimating at all seem woefully remiss as well, and could lead to unintended undesirable consequences as well. (One of the reasons why I am on MFP is that I am not good at guessing how many calories I ate, or how many calories I burned-- I routinely underestimate the former, and overestimate the latter.)

Thanks for your comments!!

Not to sound confrontational to phjorg, but;
Unfortunately there are those in the forum that feel its their duty to throw water on everyone's fire by providing science to make a point that we all "don't understand what a HRM is". While I understand the science, but I also understand that by monitoring HR while strength training, I can increase the intensity of my workouts. Does it give me an accurate rate of calorie burn? No, because the science says it's not. However, when you really look at the science behind the whole HRM, it's ALL an estimate (yes, cardio too) unless you know your VO2 and can enter that as a profile parameter. I like to use my HRM as a measure of knowing I had a intense workout and did indeed burn calories. And since this isn't bodybuilding.com (thank God), most here will forgive me for using estimated an calorie burn based on my HRM knowing that my intent isn't to deceive anyone here or look macho ... it's just to let me know I've done what I set out to do ... work hard. And since I eat well below my TDEE daily, I don't think it will have a bearing on weight. Yes, HR does not directly coincide with calories burned during weight training ... but I don't care ... I still use it and think its a great way to gauge a workout. My $.02

How is providing correct information "throwing water on everyone's fire"?

mustgetmuscles1

MFP gives me about 225 calories/hour when entered under "strength training" in the cardio section. This has been pretty accurate for me for over a year now. By accurate I mean that my weight loss and/or gain has been consistent with my goals by using this. I have no accurate way of calculating the actual amount of calories burned.

When I lift weights I am doing a strength or body building program where I lift my weights for a number of reps and take enough rest time to complete the next set. I count total time lifting including rests.

If you are doing a program or additional work between sets where you are "keeping your heart rate up" then you most likely need to enter it under "circuit training" to get a more accurate estimate.

This is usually where people get confused as to why MFP gives them such a low amount of calories burned with its calculator.