HRM calories still burning after kettlebells class ?

Any anaerobic exercise is not measured accurately with a HRM. The HRM uses your heartrate (and VO2Max if it is a good quality one, even though most do a "test" to find VO2Max, they aren't super accurate at that either) to come up with what zone you are working out in. The higher the zone, the more air required to do the work, more calories burned etc. With anaerobic exercises (weight lifting, or the after burn for example) the formulas break down and are no longer accurate. Assuming the class keeps your heart rate steady then it will be fairly accurate for the duration of the class but the "after burn" number would just be garbage.

ETA: I only eat back calories from the steady state cardio I do. I wear it to track all of my exercise but the calorie count would only be reliable during steady state cardio.

you should go with two hundred. try wearing your HRM all day long and see how many cals it says you burned. not accurate.


The 'after burn' effect should really be a part of your 'activity level' if your using the MFP model IMO.

for example:

If you have a desk job and you occasionally do cardio, you set your activity level at sedentary and just eat back calories burned DURING exercise

If you have a desk job and you do a lot of resistance or very intense cardio, then i'd set my activity level something higher and still just eat back what i burned durning exercise.

I have a desk job and workout 5-6 times a week alternating between strength (weights, kettlebells, bodyweight routines) and HIIT training. I have MFP set to lightly active as I also walk to and from work most days and have two kids so do a fair bit of running up and down after them. I also have a fitbit which I use to monitor my overall daily calorie burn.

What I have noticed from this is that on days when I don't workout my average hourly burn is around 83 calories just going about my daily business.

I use my HRM while working out and only log the calories burned DURING the workout. Sure if I keep it on it will keep clocking up calories - but most of these will be the calories that my body would have burned anyway (ie. the 83 calories as mentioned above) and maybe a little more depending on how long it takes for my heart rate to return to normal.

The "afterburn" referred to from these types of workouts is more to do with the slightly increased metabolic rate that you can get - some say this last from 24-48hrs after the workout has ended and can increase your metabolism UP TO 10% of your daily calorie burn - so if you normally burn, say 2500 cals a day, then you MIGHT burn UP TO an additional 250 cals over the course of the day due to the afterburn.

However this can't be measured using your HRM and the actual numbers will vary from person to person and depending on the type and intensity of exercise done so I would just stick with logging the calories burned during your workouts and take any additional burn as a bonus.

This link explains it briefly without going into too much detail - hope this helps :flowerforyou:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/437493-how-many-calories-can-you-continue-to-burn-after-a-workout/