"Swimming, treading water, moderate effort" vs "Swimming, leisurely, general"

Tester1987
Tester1987 Posts: 18 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I searched and I didn't see a topic that specifically addressed this, if I missed it, apologies in advance.

I was looking at calorie burning for exercises, namely "Swimming, leisurely, general " (4 calories per minute) and. "Swimming, treading water, fast/vigorous" (9 calories per minute). Sometimes myfitnesspal overestimates and certainly I agree to be cautious... but I was wondering why such a large difference between these two exercises? It seems like at a glance too that "Swimming, treading water, moderate effort" should be MORE intensive and thus more burning?

Can someone explain what these two exercises mean, giving some kind of meaningful example, and if perhaps I should not count so seriously 9 calories per minute?

Replies

  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
    edited August 2015
    Are you swimming laps?
    If so, what is your pace?

    I have a Garmin that tracks my swimming, pace, strokes, laps, time, distance and gives me a calorie estimate. I always get the "swimming, leisurely, general" when it syncs to MFP.

    Before I had my Garmin, I always chose the lowest value and even that seemed high.

    9 calories a minute is A LOT. I would consider it to be a very fast paced, continuous swim.

    I'm a little confused about the "swimming, treading water, moderate effort"? Is i tnot more than the "leisurely, general" option? You listed the calories for fast/vigorous and leisurely general.
  • gdyment
    gdyment Posts: 299 Member
    For swimming, I found it UNDER estimates me, because I'm not very fast yet the effort is high. I will bang out 2000m and it will say "slow leisurely relaxing lazy swimming, you get 100 cals".

    So I've been using the 25cal/100m (that's 100 cals every 16 lengths) ratio which seems to be pretty good for most people. If you're a super efficient swimmer you would be less.
  • Tester1987
    Tester1987 Posts: 18 Member
    3dogsrunning wrote: »
    Are you swimming laps?
    If so, what is your pace?

    I have a Garmin that tracks my swimming, pace, strokes, laps, time, distance and gives me a calorie estimate. I always get the "swimming, leisurely, general" when it syncs to MFP.

    Before I had my Garmin, I always chose the lowest value and even that seemed high.

    9 calories a minute is A LOT. I would consider it to be a very fast paced, continuous swim.

    I'm a little confused about the "swimming, treading water, moderate effort"? Is i tnot more than the "leisurely, general" option? You listed the calories for fast/vigorous and leisurely general.
    My humble apologies... I got it backwards. Which could be guessed from the context but... I concede I should of proofread it. :smile: (I'm smiling but I am secretly feeling a bit embarrassed about the mistake)

    "Swimming, leisurely, general " (9 calories per minute)

    "Swimming, treading water, moderate effort" (4 calories per minute)

    But what I am doing. It is generally speaking just a relaxed to intensive random stroke/action near-constant motion tending to a sort of crawl/treading...
  • LLScho
    LLScho Posts: 12 Member
    Treading water is staying in the same place in the water and just keeping yourself afloat. You see water polo players and synchronised swimmers doing it a lot. I would expect it burn less calories than swimming as you aren't having to move through the water and you use a lot less of your muscles.
  • DavPul
    DavPul Posts: 61,406 Member
    It's because the leisurely pace assumes a lot of standing and playing and not actual swimming laps or treading and such. Think of playing in the pool in the summer with your kids
  • bkthandler
    bkthandler Posts: 247 Member
    I think it depends on how good of a swimmer/"treader" you are. Years ago I belonged to a gym with a pool and after reading an article about how many calories you burn treading water...I couldn't get my heart up at all.....but I am a pretty good swimmer...if you are afraid of drowning and are flailing you are going to burn a lot of calories but you also might die.

    In my experience you need to be a pretty good swimmer to get a decent workout.
  • luluinca
    luluinca Posts: 2,899 Member
    Treading water doesn't burn nearly as many calories as swimming laps does. If you don't use a HR monitor for swimming you might try this website for a better estimate of lap swimming than MFP, which exaggerates calorie burns for swimming by about 50% in my experience as a swimmer.

    http://www.swimmingcalculator.com/swim_calories_calculator.php

    It takes into account your stroke, your pace and your weight.
  • tomatoey
    tomatoey Posts: 5,446 Member
    DavPul wrote: »
    It's because the leisurely pace assumes a lot of standing and playing and not actual swimming laps or treading and such. Think of playing in the pool in the summer with your kids

    Oh, is that what it is? Ok, I've been using it, thinking it just meant going very slowly.
    gdyment wrote: »
    For swimming, I found it UNDER estimates me, because I'm not very fast yet the effort is high. I will bang out 2000m and it will say "slow leisurely relaxing lazy swimming, you get 100 cals".

    So I've been using the 25cal/100m (that's 100 cals every 16 lengths) ratio which seems to be pretty good for most people. If you're a super efficient swimmer you would be less.

    Ok so like just over 6 calories a lap in a normal pool.

    Thanks for asking the question, OP!

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