Did I really burn 915 calories??

I recently bought an HR monitor (polar F6). I entered in all of my info (height - 5'3", weight - 172 lbs). I played Dance Dance Revolution today for 1 hour on light mode, but playing the faster-pace songs.

I've manually taken my pulse before, and compared it to the HR monitor. It seems to be very accurate.

My question is, is the "calories burned" really accurate? As I said, I exercised for 1 hour and it said that I had burned 915 calories. This just seems like a lot, to me. (but, I'm not complaining!)

If you are unsure, why don't you do something a little more obvious, like jogging or riding a bike.

Or use a machine if you have one and compare what the monitor says to what the machine says.

1h and 915 seems kinda high, but you never know..

Depends on your condtioning.

I've burned around 750 calories riding the excercise bike.

Things to look out for. Did you enter all the your info correctly? At any time did the numbers spike for no reason? Some times some thing interferes with the HRM and you'll get wierd numbers for short periods.

I don't know if the F6 does any sort of fitness testing. If it does then it'll be a little more accurate.

thanks for your replies.  Yes, I did enter all of my information correctly. the numbers never spiked for no reason and I never get weird numbers.

I'd say I exercised pretty vigorously, though. During the workout, my average HR was 174. (my max HR was 206)

I read in another post that a few people were burning 400-450 cals with only 1/2 hour of exercise. So, maybe 915 in 1 hour is correct ..?

Sounds legit. My Polar says I burn about 750 Kcal/hr. bicycling @125 heartrate. 

umm....I don't think so, no offense. DDR is great and all, but not THAT much exercise. Sorry. -_____-;;

I have a polar F11 and depending on my VO2 test some weeks I'll burn 750 cals on my 4 mile walk some times I'll only burn 600.  Does the F6 have the VO2 test?  Like zeke said depending on your current physical condition your calorie burn will vary.  Does the F6 also tell you how long you are in a specific "zone"?  I mean did you average a hard zone the whole time or did you maybe do peaks and valleys - If you did peaks and valleys you may have been doing a bit of HIIT to a certain degree and thereby bumping that burn.

I had also heard several years ago that the polar HRM models sometimes can register high reading of cal burn for females by as much as 20%  but when I compare my HRM with this site and other sites my HRM is usually the same or lower.

As you get in better shape you will probably find you'll have to work harder than you do now for the same burn.

Thats weird.  I have a Polar F4 and I rarely ever get over 500 calories burned in an hour, and I workout pretty intensely.  For example, yesterday I ran 5 miles in 52 minutes with an average HR of 154 and max HR of 174, and I only burned 425 calories per my monitor.  I WISH I could burn 915 calories an hour!  No matter what I do, I rarely break the 500-calorie mark per hour.  Wonder if there is an accuracy problem.  Do you all think that is too low of calories burned for what I am doing?

tasham - how much do you weigh and height these also effect cal burns.  The less you weigh and better shape you are in will make it hard to burn alot of calories.  So for me I weigh 170 5'6" 47 yo so I would probably burn well over 900 cals if I ran 5 miles but if you are young and thin 500 cal burn is proably about right.  The heavier the less you have to work out to burn the same calories.  Not fair I know 

I'm 31, 5'5" and about 120 lbs.  It does suck that the better shape you get in, the less calories you burn, but it makes sense.  Part of why I love my HRM is that it is a reality check as far as how many calories I am actually burning versus what say my treadmill or bike say.  I wish I burned what my treadmill says.  When I do a workout on it, it says I burn about 875 calories, but HRM says about 450-475.  I was just having wishful thinking when reading the above posts that maybe my monitor was underestimating calories burned a bit, but it's most likely accurate.  *sigh*  ;-)  LOL!

i dont know.  ive played ddr for 2 and a half hours on light and standard and i burned about 1200 calories.  i went by the calories they give you and and a general calorie calculator for low-impact dance and they were give or take the same.

tasham - usually the standard the exercise equipment uses if you can't plug in your own weight is a male at 175 lbs

dbackerfan - the f6 does have a VO2 test. I'm not really sure what the VO2 is, though. :/  The f6 does show how long I'm in my "fat burning" zone (which is supposedly when my HR is between 153 and 171).

Someone said that DDR isn't that much exercise.. Well, for someone who very rarely exercises, it is a LOT of exercise :) I'm sure it doesn't seem like much exercise to someone who is very fit (and can run for 4 hours straight)  I can't even run for 10 minutes.

I suppose I was doing a little bit of HIIT? I would alternate between really upbeat songs and get my heart rate over 180, and then cool down for a minute or two with a slower song, and do it again.

panda- here is something taken right from the polar website:

Polar Fitness Test There are numerous ways to test your aerobic fitness, ranging from sophisticated lab tests to simple field tests. All are designed to measure or predict maximal oxygen uptake. The easiest way to test your own fitness level is the Polar Fitness Test?.

You can perform the Polar Fitness Test easily and reliably in the privacy of your own home. All you need is your Polar Heart Rate Monitor with Fitness Test feature and five, short minutes to get a measure of your current fitness level. It is a safe test, even if you are unfit, as it does not require any physical exertion whatsoever. In fact, you should perform the test at complete rest. The test is based on several variables (heart rate, heart rate variability, age, body weight, gender and level of physical activity).

The result of the Polar Fitness Test is OwnIndex®. This is a value that is comparable to your maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max), a commonly used descriptor of aerobic fitness. OwnIndex rises as you get fitter, and can range from about 25 for sedentary or unfit persons to 95, a level reached by some Olympic-level endurance athletes.

Progress in your OwnIndex will gradually occur over time. Testing yourself once or twice a month will give you a good picture of these changes, making the OwnIndex an excellent yardstick to track the way your aerobic fitness is improving.

ive burned a 1000 on the elliptical before in a few mins over an hour..totally possible

This is the same experience I've had with a HRM, and I'm at comparable stats (same height, ~10lbs heavier than you, approximately the same HRs for max and average). So I'd say it's probably pretty accurate. If you're overweight/out of shape, your body will burn more calories when doing exercise.

One caveat: I have heard that if you're a woman, the HRM can overestimate calories burned by something like 20%, so what I usually do is subtract 10-20% from what the HRM tells me just to be sure I'm not overeating when I go to eat my expended cals back. It still turns out to be a ton of cals burned though.

when you play DDR you can put it on workout mode and see exactly how many calories you burn. 

Is it all that accurate? I've played workout mode many times. When I compare my HRM results with the workout mode results, the HRM seems to  always have a higher number. 

I wouldn't trust the DDR counter. I play on heavy mode and and it tells me that I burn something around 30 calories per song. I really think as you move from light to standard to heavy it gets more and more innacurate. I normally cut the calories it tells me in half in order to get something that sounds about right. If someone could prove me wrong that would be awesome though! 

Hi guys. I'm like the OP I also do DDR. I don't agree with the person that says DDR isn't any good for fitness. It also grows with you..as things gets easier you move to harder songs, more steps, harder levels, etc..

I'm in the same situation but I happen to have a F6 Polar that i've used for 3 months. On average for about 55 minutes of DDR I was burning about 400-450 calories.

I then lost my HR monitor so I bought a new F11 ..it has more features, the fit test all the bells and whistles. Today suddenly I'm burning 650 calories in the same 55 minute session so now I'm wondering which monitor was accurate.

I'm female, 5'4 191 so yea I am over weight. I started DDR and portion control in October at a start weight of 226 if that helps any.

synergi - be sure when you first start on the F11 to do the test weekly.  After a couple tests it will start to register calories more accurately.  I know last week my HRM (f11 too) said I burned 750 cals for my 4 mile walk - yesterday since I had retested myself I only burned about 500 and I really pushed myself yesterday.  I've had my monitor for over a year and depending on your health and stress levels during testing can affect the number.