Walking at an Incline

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Caroline523
Caroline523 Posts: 32
in Fitness and Exercise
After my run, I walk at an incline everyday. I typically set the incline at 15 and walk at 4.0, and it says I burn a pretty big amount of calories per hour. However, I hold on to the bar thing when I walk, so does this decrease how many calories I actually burn? Because I tried walking today without holding on, and it was sooo much harder!! Should I not believe how many calories the treadmill is telling me if I am holding on the whole time?

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  • fitgirl232
    fitgirl232 Posts: 17
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    Holding the bars when you are on the treadmill, even when not at an incline does decrease calorie burn. I would try maybe putting the incline down some until you are able to do it without holding on.
  • mworld
    mworld Posts: 270
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    you know you bring up a good point that reminds me of an old mens health article that actually demonstrated that walking 3.5mph at the 15 incline burned as many calories as running at 7 - 7.5 mph (8.5 - 8 minute miles). I used to throw in a mountain climb and it was simply to see how fast i could run/walk up to 1,000 ft on the treadmill...boy was it tough and mostly walking/slow jogging.

    but to your real question - yes holding on to the bars definitely sabotages your workout and is bad on your form. The other thing to remember is that treadmills are notorious for overestimating how many calories you actually burnt....a recent runners world article that I don't have on hand estimated that they were 15-20 % higher than actual calories burned if i remember right.
  • Caroline523
    Caroline523 Posts: 32
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    ahh shoot I was really afraid of that!! I'll definitely just decrease my incline and speed and slowly work my way back up so I can train myself to do it without holding on. I'm scared to even think how many calories I THINK i've burned that I actually haven't! but with the whole overestimating thing, I typically take what the treadmill says and subtract about 50 calories, which I know still isn't accurate but it makes me feel a litttlleee more confident that i'm not overestimating. and thank you both SO MUCH for your help!!
  • mworld
    mworld Posts: 270
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    no worries :)

    found a couple links that talk about what I was mentioning after I posted. Here they are in case you are interested:

    http://www.consumersearch.com/blog/no-surprise-cardio-machines-overestimate-your-calorie-burn

    http://running.about.com/od/treadmillrunning/f/treadmillcaloriecounter.htm
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
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    ahh shoot I was really afraid of that!! I'll definitely just decrease my incline and speed and slowly work my way back up so I can train myself to do it without holding on. I'm scared to even think how many calories I THINK i've burned that I actually haven't! but with the whole overestimating thing, I typically take what the treadmill says and subtract about 50 calories, which I know still isn't accurate but it makes me feel a litttlleee more confident that i'm not overestimating. and thank you both SO MUCH for your help!!

    You can still burn quite a few calories walking up an incline. My recommendation would be to keep the incline as high as possible and reduce the speed to as low as necessary to walk the incline unassisted. You will burn more calories than trying to maintain 4.0 mph and reduce the incline. Maybe not 15%, but keep the incline at 12% and work the speed down. You may find you adapt more quickly than you think. I doubt you will get back to 4.0/15, because that is a really high workload, but incline walking can be very beneficial.

    Oh yeah, I forgot--of course that means doing the incline walking without holding on. That's a given. If you are holding on, esp at the level you are working at, you are overestimating the calorie expenditure by at least 35%.
  • Caroline523
    Caroline523 Posts: 32
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    mworld- those articles are so helpful!! thanks for sharing :):)

    and thank you azdak! tomorrow i'm going to try to do 12.0 at maybe like 3.5? hopefully i can handle that. i don't know why it never crossed my mind before that I was really hurting my workout!

    thanks so much to everyone who posted- you guys are so helpful and i don't know what i would do without all the wonderful people on MFP!!

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