Golds Gym Equipment Calorie/Weight

TheRealSlim_Shelly
TheRealSlim_Shelly Posts: 66 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I used to know the answer to this but I own a Golds Gym stationary bicycle 390R (bought years ago from Walmart - so it’s cheap but efficient for a home calorie burn) and the machine doesn’t allow you to enter your weight but it does show calories - I’m wondering if anyone knows what weight the calories are based for this manufacturer? If it’s under my current weight, that’s awesome, I will just record what it tells me and consider anything extra an unrecorded win, but if it’s well-over my current weight, I’ll only record maybe a half or three quarters each time. Does anyone have any insight into this particular manufacturer (other than buying a HRM)? I think I remember reading once Golds Gym uses a weight of 150lbs as their standard but I’m not sure if that’s accurate. Thanks for the help!

Replies

  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    As stationary cycling isn't a weight bearing exercise for net calorie estimates your bodyweight shouldn't be taken into consideration.

    The calories burned are in relation to the power you produce not how much you weigh. As a budget bike it would be unusual for it to have a power meter (the gold standard for cycling calorie estimates).

    There may be a rough correlation between a heavier person as a generalisation being able to produce more power than lighter people but that's very individual and varied. A large and untrained/unfit person won't be burning significantly more than a small and untrained/unfit person. Those skinny and light pro cyclists put out phenomenal amounts of power and burn huge amounts of calories that a "mere mortal" simply can't aspire to.

    Unfortunately HRMs also have a wide range of inaccuracy as exercise HR is very varied, unless you actually want to know your HR I wouldn't recommend buying one just for what might be very rough calorie estimates.
  • TheRealSlim_Shelly
    TheRealSlim_Shelly Posts: 66 Member
    I do vary between different levels of resistance while I’m using it, so I assumed my burn at a level 2 would be less than a burn at level 10 or 15. The machine reads more calories burned faster when I’m at a higher resistance and pedaling at a faster speed, and I assumed that correlated to whatever weight the machine is programmed to. What is a better way to track calories burned from a bicycle? Any insight is helpful, thanks!
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    TheRealSlim_Shelly wrote: »
    I do vary between different levels of resistance while I’m using it, so I assumed my burn at a level 2 would be less than a burn at level 10 or 15. The machine reads more calories burned faster when I’m at a higher resistance and pedaling at a faster speed, and I assumed that correlated to whatever weight the machine is programmed to. What is a better way to track calories burned from a bicycle? Any insight is helpful, thanks!

    Yes to overcome more resistance you need to produce more power and so burn more calories.
    Same if you kept the resistance the same but increased your cadence you would need to produce more power and therefor burn more calories, power is a function of torque X revs.
    It's the how much power and how many calorie that is the problem when you don't have good or verifyible data to work with.

    Best way is a power meter - but they cost a load of money.
    HRM's can be OK if you happen to be roughly average in term of HR, they tend to estimate gross cals though.
    In your situation I'd be inclined to purely guess based on perceived exertion.

    If you do another form of cardio such as running, or indoor rowing, or can use a higher spec bike you can get a rough but usable idea of your personal capabilities.

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