The problem with MFPs calorie tracker for calories burned during an exercise is that it doesn't take into account a persons weight and it's way too general when taking into account the amount of effort used during exercises. One person's sprint may be someone else's light swim.

Swimmingcalculator.com is better at determining calories burned because it takes into account your weight as well as your pace, distance, and which stroke you swim.

And according to swimmingcalculator.com, you burned 776 calories by swimming 2500 of freestyle in one hour so the calculator is comparable to your heart rate monitor.

Yep Yep, I was just about to say the same thing, but MS_J1 said it better

You can easily use more muscles swimming then running, and you can use a lot of big muscles too, actually, you pretty much use all your muscles if you are doing it right (arms, legs, back, abs, neck, core). The other thick is how hard you are working, in running usually calories equal distance covered.

In swimming it's more related to how hard you are pushing and how efficient (or inefficient) you are. Kind of like working with rubber bands and other progressive resistance training, the harder you push the medium, the more you burn, even if you are not moving fast in a particular direction. Every movement in water meets with some sort of resistance, up, down sideways

Also, swimming tends to lower your body temperature a tad (even in 80F+ water, its cooler then your body) and contact with water zaps heat out of your body much faster then air, so your body will work harder to stay warm, even when sprinting.

Thanks for the link. I may have been overestimating my calories just using MFP's estimate just using time since I'm so slow and inefficient. Guess I need to start counting laps and time. For now I might just not log the calories at all.

You can easily use more muscles swimming then running, and you can use a lot of big muscles too, actually, you pretty much use all your muscles if you are doing it right (arms, legs, back, abs, neck, core). The other thick is how hard you are working, in running usually calories equal distance covered.

In swimming it's more related to how hard you are pushing and how efficient (or inefficient) you are.



So to lose weigh swimming it helps to be an inefficient swimmer. GO THAT DOWN PAT! LOL:laugh:

Macstraw wrote: »

The problem with MFPs calorie tracker for calories burned during an exercise is that it doesn't take into account a persons weight and it's way too general when taking into account the amount of effort used during exercises. One person's sprint may be someone else's light swim.

Swimmingcalculator.com is better at determining calories burned because it takes into account your weight as well as your pace, distance, and which stroke you swim.

And according to swimmingcalculator.com, you burned 776 calories by swimming 2500 of freestyle in one hour so the calculator is comparable to your heart rate monitor.

^This. I was surprised that swimmingclculator.com actually showed me burning more calories for the same sets as MFP, so I have to say I'm REALLY happy with it :-)

crikey mac, if you burn more than mfp reports the rest of us are in big trouble keeping up !

only tongue- in- cheek , my friend.

don't know why there are so many doubters about both the calorific burn rates and benefits of swimming both in general forum and even by some on this forum.

even at a vastly reduced weight,i still " earn" more burn from swimming than i do any other exercise activity i am capable of ,at present.
as ever, ymmv, but i still credit swimming as being my lifesaver.

While I do track my exercise to make sure I am doing plenty, I am beginning to think all these calories burned estimates might be more accurate if we were to decide based on a coin toss or something!

My 30-40 minute swims are tracked by Runkeeper as being in the 400-500 calorie range, and I'm a pretty slow swimmer!

From my observations, calculations and seeing the burn rate while running as compared to swimming, my estimate is that swimming 5 km is equivalent to running a half marathon (21km) both in calories burned, and time taken to complete?

What do y'all think? Is 1 km/mile swum (freestyle) equivalent to 4 kms/miles running?

When I had my VO2max test, I learned a lot about calories burned and and there's only one variable that determines your calories burned given that all the other variables are equal (e.g., duration of exercise, body weight, percentage of lean muscle mass), and that is your VO2max which is uniquely correlated to your heart rate. It doesn't matter which muscles you use, how many muscles you use, or how fast you move them, heart rate is a measurement of the ratio between the exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen consumption and that ratio depends on the person's VO2max and is a measurement of calories burned. For example, my VO2max is 43.6 ml/kg/min and if I sustain a heart rate of 140 bpm for 60 minutes, I'll burn approximately 546 calories regardless of whether I'm swimming, running, or jump roping, But if someone who has the same physical characteristics as I have but the only difference is that their VO2max is 33.6, they'll burn 491 calories when they sustain a heart rate 140 bpm for 60 minutes regardless of what exercise they're doing. So heart rate is the most accurate way to determine calories burned if you know your VO2max but even if you don't know it, it's still way more accurate than relying on websites that just want to know your weight, age, duration of exercise, and level of intensity to figure it out.

There are two equations that calculate calorie burn fairly accurately. The second one is most accurate of the two. I found that the best way to work out the equations is to let Google do it for you - copy them and paste them into Notepad or whatever you use, replace the variables with the actual numbers, and then copy and paste them into Google's search engine.

If VO2max is unknown
Male: ((-55.0969 + (0.6309 x HR) + (0.1988 x W) + (0.2017 x A))/4.184) x 60 x T
Female: ((-20.4022 + (0.4472 x HR) - (0.1263 x W) + (0.074 x A))/4.184) x 60 x T

If VO2max is known
Male: ((-95.7735 + (0.634 x HR) + (0.404 x VO2max) + (0.394 x W) + (0.271 x A))/4.184) x 60 x T
Female: ((-59.3954 + (0.45 x HR) + (0.380 x VO2max) + (0.103 x W) + (0.274 x A))/4.184) x 60 x T

HR = heart rate in beats per min (use whatever your heart rate monitor says was your average heart rate)
VO2max = in ml/kg/min
W = weight in KILOGRAMS
A = age in years
T = duration of exercise in HOURS

This is a great website for learning about calories burned and it has lots of calculators. shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/heart-rate-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx

AquaticQuests wrote: »

Thanks for that helpful info MS _J1!
I really must plan to get an HRM. I think once I get my hands on the water music player,the HRM may be next.
So for the time being I'm stuck with the distance covered, time taken, weight calorie calculators, to give me an idea then input the MFP light moderate minutes which give me a lower calories burned figure which hopefully does away with any overestimation of calories burned.

i do the same now too,AQ.
calorie burn is another of the multiple tools i use on mfp in my weight loss journey,and after 4 months i seem to have a handle on my weekly net calorie deficit that matches kg lost forever.

that said,huge thanks to Ms_J1 for taking the time to produce a definitive answer for everyone.
i am sure it will be an oft used resource.kudos.

Except in that case it would be a Heinie Rate Monitor

I'm not sure it's a store I wanna shop in.....

AQ, I would guess that you'd probably end up burning more calories - I think the idea is probably a faster stroke rate but still getting as much resistance against the arm as possible. I've noticed with my swimmers (& myself) that when I try to "throw my hands" faster I end up not concentrating on getting that good grip on the water for the pull, so my hands & arms "slide" through the water without giving me much bang for the buck on the stroke. Throwing the hands fast AND getting that good pull is where the increased speed (& one would presume increased calorie burn) would come from. I'm not (nor was I ever) a good sprinter, so my focus has always been more on a powerful stroke & endurance. I try to get the kids to use a faster stroke but to not sacrifice the power to achieve the speed.....