HRM/weight lifting/accuracy

I think the HRM would only be accurate if you were doing circuit training and keeping your HR up for the entire session.

As far as whether strength training burns calories longer, there are some studies that show this but before you get excited about it, it is really a negligible amount and most likely you are not going to be able to reap what little extra bit of calorie burning there is unless you are lifting heavy and are already well trained. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't do strength training - it will help you retain your lean body mass while you are on a calorie deficit and help keep your metabolism from lowering. Also, you'll look better when you get to your goal!

As I heard from pros if every single set is done to failure or close then you burn 10cals/set. This no. is only informative because there are many many factors involved but it is a good one. In the case of 5 exercises 3 sets each you burn around 150 cals.

So, I decided today to put on my HRM while doing strength training just for the heck of it.. It said I burned 124 calories for the 30 minutes of circuit/weights I did.. I'm thinking, no way can that be possible.. Can it?

I've just incorporated weights into my cardio..so I don't know anything about it!

also, for those of you who lift...how long until you see results? I've also heard that weight/strength burns calories longer than cardio..thoughts?

Thanks for Info,
Dawn

I always wear my HRM, I have started logging my cardio warm up and my weight training together under strength training, meaning that I check my calories burned then and log it. Then I do whatever cardio I do after my strength training and log it as elliptical or bike or treadmill, what ever I use.

I think the HRM would only be accurate if you were doing circuit training and keeping your HR up for the entire session.

I don't agree with this. An HRM is designed to do one thing, and one thing only: READ YOUR HEART RATE. It doesn't make a decision on what type of activity you're engaged in to make your heart beat faster or slower. It simply measures that rate and reports it.

I may be way off target here, but in my experience using a HRM in the weight room is unnecessary. The HRM isn't really geared to figure out calories burned during bursts of intense anaerobic effort. The algorithms aren't set up for purely anaerobic effort, which weight training is. The calorie burning component of weight training kicks in after the training sessions are completed, in regards to an increased muscle mass and a higher BMR (basal metabolic rate) required to maintain the increase in muscle mass.

The HRM can be useful in ensuring that you are recovering between sets, a decrease in HR recover can be indicative of an increase in overall fitness.

I did look for articles to support my position and was not able to find any that weren't written by a truly credible source. This doesn't mean that they don't exist, it simply means that my brief, 2 page Google search didn't return any articles written by a source that chose to use citations to proper articles to support their claims. What I'm going on are the memories of 12 years spent as an elite athlete who had to opportunity to train with Olympic level athletes and pick the brains of their trainers.

I tried to find the link to what I read before I got my HRM. It seemed to be a well written, independent article that did not promote any specific brand. At any rate, it said that a HRM can be off by as much as 30%. Meaning if it says you burned 1000 calories, it is possible you only burned 700. Because of that, for the purpose of measuring my caloric intake and burn, I log half of what my HRM says. The heart rate monitor says I burned 700, I put in 350.

I did find this article from LiveStrong
http://www.livestrong.com/article/525657-can-you-tell-how-many-calories-you-burn-by-your-heart-rate/

Here is an article from Spark People that argues against HRM accuracy
http://www.sparkpeople.com/community/ask_the_experts.asp?q=75

I would say the problem with that article is that it assumes that you are only doing strength training on isolated muscles. I think most of us here are working large and many muscle groups.

And now for anecdotal evidence:
I was just doing about 20 minutes of weights and then heavy cardio before I got the HRM. The number on the scale was gong down fairly steadily. At the beginning of the year I switched to heavy lifting using New Rules of Lifting and not much cardio. I am not losing weight as quickly as before but I can tell you that most of my pants are getting uncomfortably loose. I know I have lost weight size in my waist and rear and my belly seems to be a bit smaller.

Hope that helps some.

ETA: I found this and it looked like it might have some answers but it is lengthy and I started daydreaming about rainbows and shiny objects before I got anything out of it.
http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article folder/caloricexp.html