STRENGTH TRAINING AND CALORIE BURN
ngolden3320
Posts: 360 Member
Can anyone help! Is there a way to figure out how many calories you are burning when using the machines at the gym? I work on arms and abs every other day and then legs and abs on the opposite days. I work up a sweat using them, so I'm pretty sure I am burning some sort of calories.
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Replies
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Sweating has very little to do with calorie burn.
Feeling hard has very little to do with calorie burn.
Just enter the duration (under the cardio section of your diary) and you will get a rough estimate based on METS.
There's no practical way to be accurate for strength training but it's not a high calorie burner anyway (that's not the reason for doing it of course).0 -
I was wondering the same thing. The thing is that cardio burns calories while doing that exercise while weight training continues to burn calories afterwards, rebuilding muscle fibers. My thought is to use a heart rate monitor to see the percentage of increase while lifting. Look in the Store section here and see what will be compatible with MFP, like Garmin.0
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Thanks. I always do my strength after cardio0
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One, weightlifting, regardless or whether free weights or machines, doesn't burn all that much in the way of calories. I enter my lifting sessions under "cardio" "weightlifting" and the calorie burn of "1".
Two, a HRM is set up and calibrated for steady state cardio, not weight lifting. You'll not get an accurate calorie burn from lifting weights with a HRM.
Three, the amount of "after burn" from lifting weights is minimal.
Many, many topics on this around here with links to the information (research papers, journal articles, etc.)0 -
I do not log strength training, as there is no accurate way to do so.
Exercise for health, calorie deficit for weight loss.0 -
ngolden3320 wrote: »Thanks. I always do my strength after cardio
You probably want to do your strength training first because form is important there, whereas not so important for cardio.0 -
i dont log my strength training, its just part of my daily activity calories.0
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@SugarDarlin1959
Nope. Both strength and cardio have an EPOC effect - and it's so small it's insignicant.The thing is that cardio burns calories while doing that exercise while weight training continues to burn calories afterwards, rebuilding muscle fibers.
It would have to be a very sophisticated unit with specific mode for strength training. The vast majority of HRMs will give a hugely inflated number.My thought is to use a heart rate monitor to see the percentage of increase while lifting.0 -
piperdown44 wrote: »One, weightlifting, regardless or whether free weights or machines, doesn't burn all that much in the way of calories. I enter my lifting sessions under "cardio" "weightlifting" and the calorie burn of "1".
Two, a HRM is set up and calibrated for steady state cardio, not weight lifting. You'll not get an accurate calorie burn from lifting weights with a HRM.
Three, the amount of "after burn" from lifting weights is minimal.
Many, many topics on this around here with links to the information (research papers, journal articles, etc.)
Yep to this!!! +10 -
I wouldn't log it. I have tried to use heart rate monitors during lifting sessions and it gives me crazy numbers. I figure an hour of heavy lifting burns roughly 300-400 calories.0
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toughmudderMN wrote: »I wouldn't log it. I have tried to use heart rate monitors during lifting sessions and it gives me crazy numbers. I figure an hour of heavy lifting burns roughly 300-400 calories.
Which is a perfectly fine number. Not sure why so many people think it's a negative to say that.
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toughmudderMN wrote: »I wouldn't log it. I have tried to use heart rate monitors during lifting sessions and it gives me crazy numbers. I figure an hour of heavy lifting burns roughly 300-400 calories.
Which is a perfectly fine number. Not sure why so many people think it's a negative to say that.
True dat! Seems people encourage food logging of tiny amounts (despite them also being estimates) but another estimate of 200/300/400 calories expended gets frowned on.
If you are calorie counting, to me, it makes sense to have stab at both sides of the equation.0 -
ngolden3320 wrote: »Thanks. I always do my strength after cardio
You probably want to do your strength training first because form is important there, whereas not so important for cardio.
Not quite true. Bad form when running can just add easily lead to injury (chronic or acute) and decreased performance.0 -
toughmudderMN wrote: »I wouldn't log it. I have tried to use heart rate monitors during lifting sessions and it gives me crazy numbers. I figure an hour of heavy lifting burns roughly 300-400 calories.
According to this list which is what comes up if you Google this question (just sayin') you'd have to either be on the larger (read: heavier/taller) side of 'weight lifting - general' , or fall into the 'weight lifting - vigorous' category to burn 300-400 calories an hour lifting. Which may be true for some people but not me. Womp womp. (Its all relative though I suppose.) Anyway, I still log it with the 'strength training' entry under cardio even though its only 82 calories for 30 minutes.
Whenever I see people questioning how many calories strength training burns my initially reaction is, "Not as many as you want it to."
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AlisonH729 wrote: »toughmudderMN wrote: »I wouldn't log it. I have tried to use heart rate monitors during lifting sessions and it gives me crazy numbers. I figure an hour of heavy lifting burns roughly 300-400 calories.
According to this list which is what comes up if you Google this question (just sayin') you'd have to either be on the larger (read: heavier/taller) side of 'weight lifting - general' , or fall into the 'weight lifting - vigorous' category to burn 300-400 calories an hour lifting. Which may be true for some people but not me. Womp womp. (Its all relative though I suppose.) Anyway, I still log it with the 'strength training' entry under cardio even though its only 82 calories for 30 minutes.
Whenever I see people questioning how many calories strength training burns my initially reaction is, "Not as many as you want it to."
I should clarify. I weight 230 pounds and am pulling some heavy weight ( 385 DL, 315 Squat and 255 bench for reps). In general if you goal is to be a caloric deficit any calories that you burn from weight training that are not logged are like a bonus towards your goal. ( assuming you are hitting your deficit goal)0 -
toughmudderMN wrote: »AlisonH729 wrote: »toughmudderMN wrote: »I wouldn't log it. I have tried to use heart rate monitors during lifting sessions and it gives me crazy numbers. I figure an hour of heavy lifting burns roughly 300-400 calories.
According to this list which is what comes up if you Google this question (just sayin') you'd have to either be on the larger (read: heavier/taller) side of 'weight lifting - general' , or fall into the 'weight lifting - vigorous' category to burn 300-400 calories an hour lifting. Which may be true for some people but not me. Womp womp. (Its all relative though I suppose.) Anyway, I still log it with the 'strength training' entry under cardio even though its only 82 calories for 30 minutes.
Whenever I see people questioning how many calories strength training burns my initially reaction is, "Not as many as you want it to."
I should clarify. I weight 230 pounds and am pulling some heavy weight ( 385 DL, 315 Squat and 255 bench for reps). In general if you goal is to be a caloric deficit any calories that you burn from weight training that are not logged are like a bonus towards your goal. ( assuming you are hitting your deficit goal)
Sorry @toughmudderMN, I didn't mean to imply you weren't getting those burns. Actually by posting your stats it drives home the point that you have to be putting in work to get those kinds of calorie burns. (And in reality, not everyone is. Average Joe off the street comes in to the gym, pushes some plates around on the Universal for awhile and wants to say he burned 400 calories, but its probably not true.) So it's good to see the chart, and be realistic.
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I use my fitbit to track my calorie burn since it has a heart rate monitor on it.0
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leticiafriend86 wrote: »I use my fitbit to track my calorie burn since it has a heart rate monitor on it.
Heart rate monitors were not designed to calculate calorie burn for strength training and non steady state cardio.0 -
An AHA moment: so maybe that's why I never lose any weight because I keep eating up those so-called strength training calories.0
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I had to Google, "how many calories would a 150 pound, 30-year-old woman burn weight lifting," to get a number. It said 200 calories an hour for weight lifting and the number seemed to be true for me.0
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Asher_Ethan wrote: »I had to Google, "how many calories would a 150 pound, 30-year-old woman burn weight lifting," to get a number. It said 200 calories an hour for weight lifting and the number seemed to be true for me.
except your BMR calories are roughly 50-100-ish calories an hour.... so...
In my opinion, because it is damn near impossible to get correct calorie burns while weight lifting (and weight lifting doesn't actually burn that many calories) you shouldn't count it at all.
Adjust your activity level selection accordingly or find out your TDEE by adjusting calories over time. It's way too easy to overeat because of "exercise calories".
Methods such as heart rate monitors, activity trackers, etc. cannot calculate calories burned since they are only designed to capture during steady state cardiorespiratory exercise. You also have to factor in the fact that when lifting weights you are taking rest periods in between sets and even though you may have been "lifting for 45 minutes" you may have only been actively working for 15 of them.
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rainbowbow wrote: »Asher_Ethan wrote: »I had to Google, "how many calories would a 150 pound, 30-year-old woman burn weight lifting," to get a number. It said 200 calories an hour for weight lifting and the number seemed to be true for me.
except your BMR calories are roughly 50-100-ish calories an hour.... so...
In my opinion, because it is damn near impossible to get correct calorie burns while weight lifting (and weight lifting doesn't actually burn that many calories) you shouldn't count it at all.
Adjust your activity level selection accordingly or find out your TDEE by adjusting calories over time. It's way too easy to overeat because of "exercise calories".
Methods such as heart rate monitors, activity trackers, etc. cannot calculate calories burned since they are only designed to capture during steady state cardiorespiratory exercise. You also have to factor in the fact that when lifting weights you are taking rest periods in between sets and even though you may have been "lifting for 45 minutes" you may have only been actively working for 15 of them.
Must disagree with a couple of your points. Not allocating any exercise calories guarantees you are wrong, estimating gives you a chance of being in the ballpark. MFP database category gives me 235cals for an hour which is probably low as I mostly lift in a faster pace / higher total volume of weight style compared to most people.
I can also adjust on the day if required when I do something out of the ordinary.
Using TDEE includes an estimate for your strength training but it's even more vague than doing it on the day as it also makes an estimate of the frequency/intensity of your exercise. Fine if your routine is very regular but that doesn't apply to everyone.
There really isn't any need to be very accurate anyway - the common sense to adjust calorie balance based on results over time is all that's required.0 -
@SugarDarlin1959
Nope. Both strength and cardio have an EPOC effect - and it's so small it's insignicant.The thing is that cardio burns calories while doing that exercise while weight training continues to burn calories afterwards, rebuilding muscle fibers.
It would have to be a very sophisticated unit with specific mode for strength training. The vast majority of HRMs will give a hugely inflated number.My thought is to use a heart rate monitor to see the percentage of increase while lifting.
I thought resistance training has a fairly sizable epoc?
https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article folder/epoc.html0 -
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stop working on your abs every day or it will produce the exact opposite results you want.0
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rainbowbow wrote: »Asher_Ethan wrote: »I had to Google, "how many calories would a 150 pound, 30-year-old woman burn weight lifting," to get a number. It said 200 calories an hour for weight lifting and the number seemed to be true for me.
except your BMR calories are roughly 50-100-ish calories an hour.... so...
In my opinion, because it is damn near impossible to get correct calorie burns while weight lifting (and weight lifting doesn't actually burn that many calories) you shouldn't count it at all.
Adjust your activity level selection accordingly or find out your TDEE by adjusting calories over time. It's way too easy to overeat because of "exercise calories".
Methods such as heart rate monitors, activity trackers, etc. cannot calculate calories burned since they are only designed to capture during steady state cardiorespiratory exercise. You also have to factor in the fact that when lifting weights you are taking rest periods in between sets and even though you may have been "lifting for 45 minutes" you may have only been actively working for 15 of them.
Must disagree with a couple of your points. Not allocating any exercise calories guarantees you are wrong, estimating gives you a chance of being in the ballpark. MFP database category gives me 235cals for an hour which is probably low as I mostly lift in a faster pace / higher total volume of weight style compared to most people.
I can also adjust on the day if required when I do something out of the ordinary.
Using TDEE includes an estimate for your strength training but it's even more vague than doing it on the day as it also makes an estimate of the frequency/intensity of your exercise. Fine if your routine is very regular but that doesn't apply to everyone.
There really isn't any need to be very accurate anyway - the common sense to adjust calorie balance based on results over time is all that's required.
This was essentially my point. I personally upped my tdee calculation according to MFP (from 1.2x to 1.35x) and it fits my calorie balance with weight lifting 4x a week almost perfectly. I was trying to offer suggestions on how to do this easily, without weeks of trial and error.
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Microscopes wrote: »@SugarDarlin1959
Nope. Both strength and cardio have an EPOC effect - and it's so small it's insignicant.The thing is that cardio burns calories while doing that exercise while weight training continues to burn calories afterwards, rebuilding muscle fibers.
It would have to be a very sophisticated unit with specific mode for strength training. The vast majority of HRMs will give a hugely inflated number.My thought is to use a heart rate monitor to see the percentage of increase while lifting.
I thought resistance training has a fairly sizable epoc?
https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article folder/epoc.html
Define sizeable?
A small percentage of a small number I would call insignificant not sizeable...
Your article does make that point repeatedly.
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rainbowbow wrote: »rainbowbow wrote: »Asher_Ethan wrote: »I had to Google, "how many calories would a 150 pound, 30-year-old woman burn weight lifting," to get a number. It said 200 calories an hour for weight lifting and the number seemed to be true for me.
except your BMR calories are roughly 50-100-ish calories an hour.... so...
In my opinion, because it is damn near impossible to get correct calorie burns while weight lifting (and weight lifting doesn't actually burn that many calories) you shouldn't count it at all.
Adjust your activity level selection accordingly or find out your TDEE by adjusting calories over time. It's way too easy to overeat because of "exercise calories".
Methods such as heart rate monitors, activity trackers, etc. cannot calculate calories burned since they are only designed to capture during steady state cardiorespiratory exercise. You also have to factor in the fact that when lifting weights you are taking rest periods in between sets and even though you may have been "lifting for 45 minutes" you may have only been actively working for 15 of them.
Must disagree with a couple of your points. Not allocating any exercise calories guarantees you are wrong, estimating gives you a chance of being in the ballpark. MFP database category gives me 235cals for an hour which is probably low as I mostly lift in a faster pace / higher total volume of weight style compared to most people.
I can also adjust on the day if required when I do something out of the ordinary.
Using TDEE includes an estimate for your strength training but it's even more vague than doing it on the day as it also makes an estimate of the frequency/intensity of your exercise. Fine if your routine is very regular but that doesn't apply to everyone.
There really isn't any need to be very accurate anyway - the common sense to adjust calorie balance based on results over time is all that's required.
This was essentially my point. I personally upped my tdee calculation according to MFP (from 1.2x to 1.35x) and it fits my calorie balance with weight lifting 4x a week almost perfectly. I was trying to offer suggestions on how to do this easily, without weeks of trial and error.
Sorry but I read your comment you shouldn't estimate and count them and then go on to advocate TDEE (which includes both a vague estimate and a calorie allowance for the training) as a bit contradictory.
Do agree there's many ways to be successful at finding your calorie allowance, different techniques suit different people and different routines.0 -
I'm actually surprised that with all the apps, and "smart" machines that someone hasn't come up with some type of more accurate calculator for lifting. It might be a little cumbersome for free weights, but far from impossible. I'd imagine some testing time in a lab could nail it down fairly quick really. It would take a bit more effort to set up, but lots of people are already using apps to track their workouts, so just a confirmation could allow the calorie calculation.
I know some of the weight machines already track reps, sets, and weights per user. With a few more sensors converting to pound feet or watts, and thus calorie burn, wouldn't be all that hard to do.
There is no reason not to take a stab at an estimate, but just like cardio you have to make an informed guess. I don't bother as the error in my logging and other activities can be adjusted to account for it. I figure that even a smaller error in my cardio based stuff would quickly bury the calorie error from lifting anyway, so I focus more on getting that right.0 -
Microscopes wrote: »@SugarDarlin1959
Nope. Both strength and cardio have an EPOC effect - and it's so small it's insignicant.The thing is that cardio burns calories while doing that exercise while weight training continues to burn calories afterwards, rebuilding muscle fibers.
It would have to be a very sophisticated unit with specific mode for strength training. The vast majority of HRMs will give a hugely inflated number.My thought is to use a heart rate monitor to see the percentage of increase while lifting.
I thought resistance training has a fairly sizable epoc?
https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article folder/epoc.html
The article you referenced cited a total EPOC range of 51-127 calories--that's not per hour or per day, but the total EPOC for the entire time metabolism is elevated.
You can decide for yourself whether that number is significant to one's overall program (certainly doesn't hurt), but I don't think that can be described as "sizeable".
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