You are dreaming if you think you burned anywhere near 1160 calories for your stair climber work out. But if you want to believe that you can.
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Exercise/calorie accuracy
- Thread starter azfalcons
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You are dreaming if you think you burned anywhere near 1160 calories for your stair climber work out. But if you want to believe that you can.
Yes, all of the online calorie calculators are only giving approximations based on age, weight, height, sex, and pace. They cannot take heart rate into account that would be specific to an individual performing their actual activity. However, the AW calorie algorithms appear so flawed, that I think the static averages from online calculators are more likely to be accurate than the AW.
There are a number of algorithms that a device could use for calorie estimation. These have been scientifically defended and debated. Garmin licenses one called Firstbeat that seems well-defended in what I have read. Garmin aligns more closely with the estimates than it does my AW. Of course, YMMV, but I think that the AW is not reliable for calorie calculation in its current state.
In my humble opinion, Apple's treatment of the calorie calculation algorithms is analogous to their Maps app on the phone. There are plenty of proven calorie algorithms that Apple could have licensed or acquired. Instead, Apple decided to create its own version, and it sucks. Think how awesome mapping could have been, if Apple acquired Waze instead of Google... Same as with the watch and calories.
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like i said further down i meant the WORKOUT as being the weights workout not the stairs as being cardio.
2 hr gym session according to the numbers from the more accurate heart rate average of the 30 minute stair stepper would put a 2 hour gym session with similar heart rate readings at 1160. 290x4
I do not have much experience researching calorie consumption from weight lifting. But it is probably a stretch to equate weight lifting to a stair stepper. The amount of energy you expend lifting is probably dwarfed by a stepper. For example, I just did a two hour bicycle ride on a trainer that calculated I burned 1,732 calories and produced 1,554 kilojoules of energy at the wheel.
A kilojoule is just a unit of energy and is force times distance. So, if you lift 100 lbs of weight 1 meter (about an arm or leg length, for simplicity), you produced 445 joules of energy at your hands. (1 lb. of force = 4.45 Newtons of metric force.) So, let's say you lift a total of 100,000 lbs. during your workout across all of the stations, reps, and sets. That calculates to only 445 kilojoules. It is about a quarter of the energy from my example bike ride above and probably similarly fractional from your comparative stair stepper workout. Although it felt like a lot, you really did not produce much energy weight lifting compared to a similarly intense aerobic workout.
Caveat: forgive my math or conversion if I mixed something up. It has been a few years since I looked at these calculations.
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not sure you can figure out numbers that way. For a high level bodybuilder i can assure you that you will burn more calories weight lifting than a cardio session. Not just during the workout but well after
Harvard Medical School thinks we burn about 2x to 3x more calories/hour (depending on the intensity level of the workout) during aerobic activity compared to weight lifting. That ties in relatively closely with the expended energy calculations above.
It was not in the scope of the HMS study, but I suspect that if the same high-level bodybuilder engaged in a high intensity aerobic activity, he would burn crazy calories compared to the weight lifting due to the increased muscle mass and weight. Those are the same two factors that lead to high calorie burn during weight lifting. Now, a skinny runner probably does burn less calories/hour than a 250 lb. bodybuilder, but that is probably apples and oranges.
It was not in the scope of the HMS study, but I suspect that if the same high-level bodybuilder engaged in a high intensity aerobic activity, he would burn crazy calories compared to the weight lifting due to the increased muscle mass and weight. Those are the same two factors that lead to high calorie burn during weight lifting. Now, a skinny runner probably does burn less calories/hour than a 250 lb. bodybuilder, but that is probably apples and oranges.
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makes sense. too bad the watch seems super inaccurate for anything other than cardio.
It's super inaccurate for cardio too. Except for running, where it is just inaccurate.
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If you want some level of accuracy, just buy a HRM. Get a TICKR or Polar and link it to your iPhone or Watch. I use the Polar App with my TICKR X. The app will calculate net calories burned. I ran for 25 minutes and burned 296 calories. I use the heart rate to calorie calculator (don't know my VO2max) then I use the net calculator. Polar says I burned 296 calories, when I use my avg heart rate and the net calorie calculator based upon avg heart rate, It comes to 298 calories burned. I usually take 10% off of that number just to be safe.
The AW's heart rate measurement is not anywhere close enough to use in these calculations. If you want a good level of accuracy, just get a HRM.
The AW's heart rate measurement is not anywhere close enough to use in these calculations. If you want a good level of accuracy, just get a HRM.
seems pretty spot on for the stair master. i keep my arms up so they don't move much and the heart rate seems always right when i check it. gives me the average around 125-135
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how off is the watch's numbers based on what else you have found?
Apple Watch has been very accurate for me compared to Fitbit, Polar chest strap and now a Fitbit Charge HR. Felt ridiculous having 4 things going but at one with my Apple Watch and daughters Fitbit on my left arm and charge on the other arm and polar tied to my old treadmill but at the end, they all were within, 1-2 bpm for an hour run. Apple lost the heart rate 2 times in the hour. Polar spiked to 200bpm 5 times. Both Fitbit's never lost the heart rate. One was 133bpm average while the other was 129 average. Apple Watch was 131 and polar was 130.
When I had my V02 tested a few months back now, the calorie burn on the Apple Watch was 101 I think and the VO2 testing equipment had me at 125 for the short testing. My score was 42.
Are you comparing and asking about heart rate accuracy or calorie consumption accuracy? HR can be pretty accurate most to all of the time, per BlueMoon's experience with weight lifting. It can be dodgy running on cold days, but usually tightening the band one notch solves that. Same for bicycling. All of this is HR accuracy and consistency.
Calories is something else entirely.
Yea those cold workouts were definitely a problem for me. The only way I fixed it was to warmup on the treadmill for 10+ minutes before going outside and then it was fine.
Calories is definitely true as well. Not as bad as some say, but I would say 20% minimum or depending on which choice you use it could be even more off. When someone says they ran 6 miles on the treadmill and they normally burn 1500 calories and the watch says 500, we can't possibly know which one is more accurate without all the stats about the person.
There's no doubt your efforts alone have proven the watch is not accurate. Maybe by 2.0 they will add GPS and their fitness hires get it right. Maybe then it could replace dedicated fitness devices. But, if someone's first concern is fitness and accuracy, the Apple Watch isn't the choice. I love the Apple Watch because I don't care about accuracy of distance or exact calories. It's everything it can do and still look good on my arm in a suit or jeans or sweats or swimming and only needs Bluetooth headphones for all of the above and even when digging in the yard sweating and getting it all dirty I can still listen to music and add reminders and notes and tasks and tack my workout and heart rate.
my weight lifting heart rate is very bad. usually averaging 80-90 and usually shows 50's and sometimes 130's but the higher numbers are rare. i move around too much and superset a lot/ circuit style training too.
Thats why my weight lifting numbers are super low for calories but higher for the stair master because heart rate average for that is 125-135 usually. Should be similar heart rate numbers for weight lifting but the watch can't get a good reading with all the movement I'm doing.
The calories burned are based on heart rate measures it seems because of the higher calories burned for cardio showing me that.
Your only likely fix will be an external HR chest strap or a forearm strap like the Rhythm+. You can pair the device to the AW, and then the watch will get better HR input.
yea i might do it for a few workouts to get a baseline. don't really care in the whole picture really because ill still be doing just as much activity anyway. would be nice to know a better, more accurate numbers just to know.
I feel so lucky that I don't have a problem with the Apple Watch and Weightlifting. At most, I lose my heart rate a few times and it is usually when I am doing something crazy with bending of the wrists. Since my most common workout is weightlifting (4-6 times per week for 10 months now), I can say without a doubt, that the apple watch has far exceeded in this area for maintaining my heart rate. I always wear the sport band, I wear it one notch tighter and about and 1-2 inch esor so above the wrist. Any higher also works but it starts to move down the wrist and then it is too loose.
Walking is by far the most accurate for heart rate readings. Running an hour for me is usually good for 1-4 losing the pulse.
I've uploaded many times my graphs for the AW Weightlifting workouts and it has been perfect or 98-99% accurate. I think I am just lucky and it likes my skin.
Jogging and walking are way different. If you did as you say, and was jogging for 39 min I'm sure you are at about 3+ miles so yes more then likely you would burn 300 calories.
Not exactly. Caloric burn is heavily influenced by body weight and effort. For example when I first began my fitness journey at 320 pounds it was quite normal for me to burn 4500 calories in a day based off 10k steps and about 90 minutes of intense workouts. Now I am 190 pounds and it would take an immense amount of hard exercise to burn that many calories. Kinda explains the reason that those of us who lose a lot of weight manage to drop weight so quickly in the beginning when putting a big calorie deficit in effect and working out.