calories burned during weight training?

[Vitamin S]

p,

any way to roughly gauge how many calories are burned during a workout. lets say back workout.

length 1 hour, sets 3-4 sets 8-10 reps, 4-5 exercises?

thanks.

[Praetorian]

You could look up calories burnd by activity and compare it to something like brisk walking etc...but wy would it matter anyway?
P

[philbiha]

i would suggest buying a hearth rate monitor that tracks calories burned
polar ft4 cheap and effective

[steve_d]

Old thread, but I'm with P - why would it matter? If you want to be mathematical about calories in vs. calories out, you'd have to measure way more than just the things people normally count as activity. Gym for an hour vs. sitting down for an hour, perhaps an extra 100-800 calories depending on what day it was and how much you rest and how hard you go (I know, quite the range eh? well, its just that - everyone really trains differently). But then what, you can't use that as a gauge for what to eat, otherwise you're just being too mathematical. And this coming from a guy with 2 degrees in math & stats who basically breaths numbers.

But try this... Diet hard, and once you're at a low bodyfat, video tape yourself walking around the house, or just trying to get to your car vs. when you're eating normal. Sure, that extra hour in the gym burned some calories, but you're body practically shuts down the rest of the day trying to conserve. You hear some guys say they got shredded with no cardio - then you find out they are on their feet all day vs. the other guy who works at a computer all day saying they had to do an hour.

And then someone like me - diets with cardio for about 6-8 weeks 30-50 minutes, and then decides I'd rather not be a zombie while not doing cardio, so cardio became acting as much like a 'normal' person as I could. Net result, likely same calories burned by the end of the day. You're body is an amazing thing, and by doing too much, it figures out a way to conserve elsewhere so you can carry on.

Best way to do it is to become so in tune with your body that you don't need to count calories in or out, and you just eat what you need to maintain, lose, or gain by instinct. So long as your choosing the right foods.

[TT Eric]

Yes ^. One thing important also often forgotten is that the BMR represent about 2/3 of our calories burned every day doing nothing, energy spent for maintenance, pumping blood, adjust the body’s temperature, digest, produces enzymes, hormones, grow hairs, nails, etc… and only the other third is the calories burned via our activities, moving, walking, working, exercising, etc. IMO people in general focus too much on spending more calories via more activities when the real deal is via raising the BMR on the long run (agreed on the short terms you can't do much beside controlling the impact of what you eat on your hormonal profile, controlling cortisol, insulin, etc), but over time the more muscle mass you have, the more your BMR will have a 'higher cost' of maintenance... Am not sure how true it is, but I often read that for each lbs of muscle you add, you 30 to 50 more calories per day for maintenance on this new addition to your body.

Eric

[RandyMadsen]

Let's not forget that unlike LISS, weight training & HIIT burn calories over an extended period of time during and following exercises from the chemical reactions that are caused. Therefore, despite being able to estimate/ballpark calories burned from incline walking (accounting for variables like weight/incline/speed/duration) - it is damn near impossible to measure caloric expenditure resulting from weights or HIIT (I put them together bc they're so similar in chemical reaction)