calories burned swimming?

ok ill be very specific-
i weigh 103
i was swimming for an hour and 5 min
in that time i did (w/ almost no breaks longer than  a few seconds):
30 butterfly
25 front crawl
20 sidestroke
15 breaststroke
5 backstroke
5 elementary backstroke
1= once across the pool (not there and back) and the pools abt 10 yds long
can anyone give me an estimate?

your best bet is to just look it up in the activity selector -- choose swimming (crawl) light to moderate effort -- that will cover all the strokes

I'm a competitive swimmer in college and here's what I think. Looking at your post initially I thought you would have burned ALOT of calories; however, you said the pool was only about 10 yards long. That means you really only swam 1000 yards which is not much (at least for me) - but you said it took you an hour. If you were swimming at a good pace for an hour, then I would log it as swimming laps, light effort. The only reason I disagree with the post above is because "crawl" is like old lady swimming (i.e. not real swimming). But if you did 30 "laps" of butterfly then that is definitely more calorie efficient in terms of burning than crawl is because it's real swimming and it's difficult swimming. It's hard to say for sure though unless you swim in a 25 yard pool. Hope this helps.

*By the way, I recently saw at my training facility a chart that said someone who weighs 130 pounds (the lowest weight on the chart) will burn 472 calories swimming freestyle with light effort for an hour. Obviously for you this would be less since you weigh a lot less than that, but again, 30 "laps" of butterfly might compensate somewhat. If I had to guess I would just round to 300/350 for you, but that's just my guess.

thanks! and while were on the topic of calorie burning (as if there's a post on this forum thats not), how much would you say i'd burn for 1/2 hr of stationary biking? (recumbent bike) cuz i checked on the activity selector and it didnt make sense- i do a consistent 20-22 mph & 115 watt but the activity thing called 115 "light" and >20 mph "very fast, racing"- maybe its dif cuz im using a recumbent? either way, neone have a more accurate count? (also taking into account that im 103)...
basically the whole reason for my original post was cuz i exercise 5 days a week intense, 1 day moderately and now that im swimming cuz its the summer, i dont want to burn too many more calories than on a normal day. so if someone could tell me how much 1/2 hr of biking burns compared to the amount i said i swim, would be appreciated

Original Post by thejabronisayz:

I'm a competitive swimmer in college and here's what I think. Looking at your post initially I thought you would have burned ALOT of calories; however, you said the pool was only about 10 yards long. That means you really only swam 1000 yards which is not much (at least for me) - but you said it took you an hour. If you were swimming at a good pace for an hour, then I would log it as swimming laps, light effort. The only reason I disagree with the post above is because "crawl" is like old lady swimming (i.e. not real swimming). But if you did 30 "laps" of butterfly then that is definitely more calorie efficient in terms of burning than crawl is because it's real swimming and it's difficult swimming. It's hard to say for sure though unless you swim in a 25 yard pool. Hope this helps.

As a swim coach, you should know that the front crawl is the stroke most commonly used in the "Freestyle" events (just because we call it Freestyle, does not take away from the fact that the stroke most commonly used is the FRONT CRAWL). Go look at a USA-Swimming progressions in teaching book before you call the front crawl "old lady" swimming.

I swam 5000 meters today -- 95 mins in the pool and burned about 900 calories. The effort and and the time will make the difference here. While the effort is probably high for a new swimmer, in the grand scheme of swimming and burning calories it is not really. Swimming, crawl light/moderate effort is looking at 3000 yards in 60 minutes -- that would give this swimmer about 405 calories, if she swam 3000 yards.

So, I was incorrect in suggesting she use the swimming light/moderate effort -- because that would give her too high of a burn -- given that it was less than 1000 yards, the burn was probably only about 250.

 

YOur second question -- 30 mins of stationary cycling is going to burn between 120-170 calorie

I'm not a very fast swimmer... so I use 'swimming laps - freestyle, light' for my swimming. (It takes me one minute to swim up and back down our 40-foot pool, and I swim laps for 45 minutes at a time, with one break in the middle.) You've got to be kidding if you think I should (or even possibly COULD) swim 3000 yards at a time!

Original Post by kajikit:

I'm not a very fast swimmer... so I use 'swimming laps - freestyle, light' for my swimming. (It takes me one minute to swim up and back down our 40-foot pool, and I swim laps for 45 minutes at a time, with one break in the middle.) You've got to be kidding if you think I should (or even possibly COULD) swim 3000 yards at a time!

Of course you COULD swim 3000 yards at a time -- just not right now, where you are in your level of swim fitness -- and you don't HAVE to swim 3000 yards.  But the point is -- "swimming laps -- freestyle light" and "wimming, crawl, 50 yards per minute, light moderate effort" -- are EXACTLY the same thing and the calorie burn vary only a little bit. 

If you are counting 80 ft in 1 minute the same as 150 ft in 1 minute -- then you are over-estimating your calorie burn.  Right now it may not affect you, later on, it will. 

The truest indicator of your burn in swimming will only be gathered from a heart rate monitor -- unless you are a trained swimmer, who is basically still training, and even then CC and I overestimated my burn by about 2%.  Normal, every day, lap/fitness swimmers will overestimate the calories burned almost every time -- by about 10-15%.

Look, I'm not saying you can't lose weight by swimming -- I've lost 60lbs by swimming -- or that you need to swim 3-5K to achieve this.  What I am saying is that there is a tremendous potential for overestimating calorie burn with swimming.