Question about calories burned during recovery

mel4bee
mel4bee Posts: 225 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi!

I'm currently doing cardio training (circuit training kinda but mostly cardio). I have a HRM and burn about 200 calories for 30 minutes of high intensity workouts (about 80% of my MHR most of the time) but I was wondering if it is accurate as I'm having recovery periods (ex: squats) in between my cardio intervals...

Thanks

Replies

  • HealthyVitamins
    HealthyVitamins Posts: 432 Member
    I'm no expert but I don't see why it wouldn't be accurate when you are doing squats inbetween the cardio, it goes off your heart rate, your heart rate would change during squats and it would adjust the calories burned accordingly.
  • irisheyez718
    irisheyez718 Posts: 677 Member
    You're still burning. Plus, squats really keep my heart rate up anyway.
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    Hi!

    I'm currently doing cardio training (circuit training kinda but mostly cardio). I have a HRM and burn about 200 calories for 30 minutes of high intensity workouts (about 80% of my MHR most of the time) but I was wondering if it is accurate as I'm having recovery periods (ex: squats) in between my cardio intervals...

    Thanks

    It's probably not accurate at all for the type of workout you are doing. HRMs are designed to measure heart rate during steady state cardio activities like running or biking and then to extrapolate a calorie burn based on your personal data entered. For other types of training including circuit training, they would be pretty useless as that is not what they were designed to do and with body weight or strength training like the squats, even less so.
  • mel4bee
    mel4bee Posts: 225 Member
    How could I measure calories burned then?
  • mcrowe1016
    mcrowe1016 Posts: 647 Member
    Hi!

    I'm currently doing cardio training (circuit training kinda but mostly cardio). I have a HRM and burn about 200 calories for 30 minutes of high intensity workouts (about 80% of my MHR most of the time) but I was wondering if it is accurate as I'm having recovery periods (ex: squats) in between my cardio intervals...

    Thanks

    It's probably not accurate at all for the type of workout you are doing. HRMs are designed to measure heart rate during steady state cardio activities like running or biking and then to extrapolate a calorie burn based on your personal data entered. For other types of training including circuit training, they would be pretty useless as that is not what they were designed to do and with body weight or strength training like the squats, even less so.

    What mmapags said. However, 200 burned in 30 minutes doesn't seem too high. Probably just assume it's between 150 and 200. There is no way to be 100% sure what the number is anyway.
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    IMHO, it is just not that critical to have accurate calorie burns. There is no real way to get them exact. The database here is a good/ bad a source as any. I don't measure my burns at all. I think it leads to an unhealthy way of "earning back" calories to eat. I set my activity level appropriately, mine is moderately active, I set my deficit conservatively at TDEE - 20% and the rest takes care of itself and I lose slowly and consistently at 3 to 4 lbs per month when in deficit.

    Honestly, there is no 100% accurate way to measure burns and it's useless to worry about. I don't agree with the whole design of that on this site. It only matters if your deficit is set too aggressively and you are at risk of not getting adequate nutrition.
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
    It's probably not accurate at all for the type of workout you are doing. HRMs are designed to measure heart rate during steady state cardio activities like running or biking and then to extrapolate a calorie burn based on your personal data entered. For other types of training including circuit training, they would be pretty useless as that is not what they were designed to do and with body weight or strength training like the squats, even less so.
    Agreed.


    IMHO, it is just not that critical to have accurate calorie burns. There is no real way to get them exact. The database here is a good/ bad a source as any. I don't measure my burns at all. I think it leads to an unhealthy way of "earning back" calories to eat. I set my activity level appropriately, mine is moderately active, I set my deficit conservatively at TDEE - 20% and the rest takes care of itself and I lose slowly and consistently at 3 to 4 lbs per month when in deficit.

    Honestly, there is no 100% accurate way to measure burns and it's useless to worry about. I don't agree with the whole design of that on this site. It only matters if your deficit is set too aggressively and you are at risk of not getting adequate nutrition.
    Also agreed.


    If you really want to get a feel for calorie burns, pick 1 method of estimating them (HRM, MFP, whatever) and use it consistently for a month or so. The compare your actual weight changes to your expected. If they aren't fairly close, tweak as necessary. You can use this method to figure out a reasonable accurate TDEE which you can base your calorie needs off of moving forward.
  • omma_to_3
    omma_to_3 Posts: 3,265 Member
    I think it's "accurate enough" LOL.
  • Stage14
    Stage14 Posts: 1,046 Member
    Your HRM will not be AS accurate for circuit training as it will be for a 3 mile jog, 30 minutes on the elliptical, etc. But it will still probably be MORE accurate than MFP or most general online calculators. I wouldn't stress over it to be honest. If you're really worried about it, just eat back 3/4 of your exercise calories instead of all of them to be on the safe side.
  • FrnkLft
    FrnkLft Posts: 1,821 Member
    I think this has been said, but heart rate monitors don't measure calories burned, they only measure your heart rate. The calculation for calories burned comes from an equation they use once your HR, weight, gender, height, and weight are entered.

    And what's missing here? The activity. So that means it's making an assumption about the kind of activity you are doing while your heart rate is up. The assumption is for steady state cardio unless maybe the device or program has options to change that. It *may* work reasonably well for sprint intervals, but not for squats or anything else.

    For example though, high heart rate running on flats, or same high heart rate running up stairs... you're doing more work going up the stairs = burning more calories... but the HRM doesn't know that.

    Also, I'm not sure you're using "recovery" correctly. Typically recovery refers to the rest period after a workout is completed, but I might be mistaken within the context of HIIT. Just found it confusing when reading this.

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