Garmin Vivosmart HR and HIIT workouts

Options
superflashphoto
superflashphoto Posts: 30 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi!

I just picked up a Garmin Vivosmart HR yesterday, and I was hoping it would give me some insight on the *actual* calories that I'm burning with a HIIT workout. This morning, I did a 10 minute workout, where my heart rate got up to 130, and my legs were jello by the end of it - and it told me that I burned 22 calories. That's it?! Can that actually be true, or is it not calculating correctly? (My workout involved squats... so many squats... with 12 lb weights..., burpees, weighted knee raises, etc) and I was going ALL out.

Then I was puttering around the house, loading my dishwasher, fixing my bed, basically doing nothing, and it told me I burned 120 calories.

What gives?! Anyone have any experience with this particular tracker, and this type of exercise?

Replies

  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    Options
    You can't tell how many calories you've burned weight lifting from a heart rate monitor. Scientifically, it doesn't work.

    Any kind of HIIT workout involves working hard for short periods of time, and rest. So a 10 minute session might be 5 minutes of hard work, or less, depending how you do it. Short workouts with lots of rest don't really burn that many calories. If you want that, longer, steady, moderate workouts are the way to go; they burn way more calories, and don't leave you feeling like jelly.

    How much time did you spend puttering around the house to burn 120 calories? Probably much longer than your HIIT workout? Calorie burn is a function of time and intensity.
  • KatzeDerNacht22
    KatzeDerNacht22 Posts: 200 Member
    Options
    The brilliance of HIIT is the EPOC, ( http://www.myzone.org/blog/trainers/epoc-explained/ ) , that's it's greatest benefit as I see it, best of luck
  • superflashphoto
    superflashphoto Posts: 30 Member
    Options
    @NorthCascades - I'd say at least 7 of the 10 minutes were spent at a high intensity... and puttering around, was maybe 15 minutes max, and I only have a 750 square foot apartment, lol, it wasn't like doing big laps around a mansion or anything... that's why it didn't make sense to me!

    @KatzeDerNacht22 wow! I had never heard of EPOC before! That's super neat. Thanks!
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
    Options
    superflashphoto wrote: »
    Anyone have any experience with this particular tracker

    I have one, and as a step tracker it's perfectly reasonable. You need to take what any step tracker is telling you with the proverbial pinch of salt. It counts steps, and based on an assumption about a standard step length calculates how far you've walked and gives a calorie estimate based on that. You'll get spurious steps, from movement and you'll get periods that it's missing steps, if you're pushing a shopping trolley or something. My partner is in a wheelchair, so with pushing that around and missing lots of steps, and the additional weight, any calorie estimate I get at that point is a bit random.

    As far as the workout setting is concerned, it's the same as any other Heart Rate Monitor. If you're using it for the type of thing it's designed for then it's reasonably capable, if you're not then it's going to be wrong. They're not designed for circuit training type activities.
    ....and this type of exercise?

    For a circuit training type session as you describe, I've done lots although rarely as short as ten minutes. The point of that type of session is not to burn calories.

    In ten minutes, 30 or so calories is not unrealistic. EPOC may give you an extra 1 or 2 calories as well.
  • superflashphoto
    superflashphoto Posts: 30 Member
    Options
    Thanks so much! That's actually very helpful... I've never really had any sort of tracker before, so it's all brand new to me.

Categories