Heart Rate and Calories Burned

Ran across this site today that calculates calories burned as well as watts produced based on average heart rate for the duration of an activity.  I though some of you might find this to be a usefull tool. 

http://www.braydenwm.com/calburn.htm

Thanks for posting this.

 

Jeff

 

Tom: Interesting site.  However, I found that I as I change the age input from 25 to 65, for every 10 years, the Calories per hour increased by 20 and the watts increased by 9.  Total calories for a 42 minute bike ride (my morning commute) matched my HRM reading pretty close when I put my age at 45 instead of 65.  Does that mean my real age is 45?

Very interesting! According to these calculations, I'm burning more calories than I thought, because my heart rate tends to be on the high side.

For example, when I'm on the elliptical for an hour, my normal working rate stays at around 165-175. Yes, for an hour, no problem.

Most sites would tell me that I burn 100 calories per mile of walking, but with this calculation I burn 131 (based on a steady working HR of 150).

BTW, just do you don't think I'm completely out of shape, my resting HR is 60. :) 

Is this accurate, do you think? 

Yes, Joe, you have the heart of a 45 year old. lol. 

I think anytime a heart rate monitor or chart like this uses age as a factor it is making an assumption about maxium heart rate and converting your average heart rate into a percent of maxium heart rate to determine intesity.  This will result in a margin of error that is more pronounce in active adults like you that have maintain a maxium heart rate greater than what the age chart will normally suggest.  On the other hand, that extra 20 cals an hour won't put most peolpe too far off track if they are using the tool to determine how much too eat. 

I wonder how different the numbers would be for someone that knows their VO2 Max.  Some HRMs will estimate VO2 Max as well but again they're using heart rate and other factors like age, sex, weight, etc. to calculate their best guess.

My heart rate monitor died a premature death this summer and I have yet to replace it since I used it more as a curiosity than an actually training tool anyway.

fydruss, I would assume that you have a high maximum heart rate, higher that what most charts that are based on age would suggest.  Your actual heart rate during exercise as a raw number is not indicative of intesity. What is indicative of intesity is the percent of maximum heart rate at which you are working.  If I know a tool is using age to determine MHR by the formula 220 - age then I lie about my age so the tool is using the correct MHR.  I am 49 but my MHR has remained near 190 for many years now.

wait so.. like on an elliptical it says i burned 400 cal in a half hour ish when in reality that is incorrect bc its based on heartrate?

Great!  Thanks for sharing, this is really helpful.

Take care.

Original Post by trhawley:

fydruss, I would assume that you have a high maximum heart rate, higher that what most charts that are based on age would suggest.  Your actual heart rate during exercise as a raw number is not indicative of intesity. What is indicative of intesity is the percent of maximum heart rate at which you are working.  If I know a tool is using age to determine MHR by the formula 220 - age then I lie about my age so the tool is using the correct MHR.  I am 49 but my MHR has remained near 190 for many years now.

 I'm sure you're right! I don't hit the anaerobic "want to throw up" threshold until 200. I've never been tested fully, but I'd love to find out my REAL MHR.

Original Post by trhawley:

My heart rate monitor died a premature death this summer and I have yet to replace it since I used it more as a curiosity than an actually training tool anyway.

Just wanted to make a suggestion on heart monitors.  I have been using the "Nike triaxc3".  My husband got it for me for Christmas from Costco for only $32.00.  Last week they still had it there, but unfortunatley I do not see it on the costco website.  I can't tell you how much of a long term life it has, but so far I am very happy with it.

Also can you tell me a little more about MHR?  Is it mathmatical to figure out what your number is , or do you push yourself to the limit and see how high you can go?

Thanks for your help, really appreciate this great post. 

my vo2max is 55 (or so my polar f11 heart rate monitor tells me). this site estimates my calorie burn as less than my heart rate monitor. its estimates are about 50 calories less per hour less than my heart rate monitor. i don't know which is more accurate--or maybe they're both wrong. but i thought i'd share my results.

musictchr: here is link to a site that you might find helpful.

http://www.howtobefit.com/determine-maximum-h eart-rate.htm

Wait...I thought bigger people burnt more. As I've lost weight my burn according to CC has gone down and down for the same things but I tried upping and downing my weight on that tool. At my actual weight of around 130lbs it gave me a burn of 840. At 120 it said 865 and when I tried 300lbs it said 700 per hour. I left all the other factors the same.

:s

http://www.howtobefit.com/determine-maximum-h eart-rate.htm

 

This link did not work for me.

 

Jeff

 

ducklingthank, I just tried changing weight only and the higher weight gave me more calories burned.  I wonder if age or gender makes a difference?  For non-weight baring activities like stationary cycling, it doesn't seem like weight would make a difference.

Hey!  This is just a tool for helping us guess at calories expended.  I agree with Tom about 20 calories more or less not making a huge difference.  I see two advantages to this tool.  One is that it uses more information than CC database.  The CC database always gives me a much higher calorie burn than my HRM -- partly because my HRM ignores my basic keep alive calories but CC includes them in the calculation.  But partly because I just don't fit the averages that well.  Secondly, I should be able to get estimates for stuff that my HRM doesn't handle well at all -- my strength training sessions and walks.  (The last time I checked my HRM registered 0 calories for a 2 mile walk at approximately 4 mph.)

Jeff: If you know your calories expended for some activity, you can calibrate the website to give you good results.  I'll just put my age in as 45.  I do something similar with my BF scale.  I tell it I'm 31 and we are both happy.

Jeff, I don't know what to tell you about the link, it's working for me.  You could google "Sally Edwards Maximum Heart Rate" and find the article.

This tool gives me results that are waaay too high compared to what Polar F11 tells me.

A 60 minute BodyPump class is usually between 320 and 360 kcal with the avg heart rate 142-146. This tools tells me I burn 560-585 with no VO2max set, and  468-495 with VO2max = 45 (that's my OwnIndex from Polar, but I'm not sure it would be equal to vO2Max). The difference is 150-225 per hour, which is HUGE.

 

  

It seems like this site estimates a VO2 Max of ~50 if you leave it blank (I tested the numbers a few times).  I had my VO2 Max tested (suboptimally), and I was given a VO2 Max result of 43.1, which for my age range was in the 90th percentile.  I consider myself to be a very fit individual, so I was okay with the results - I know it's not perfect, but may be close enough (and better than nothing, I guess).  My preliminary assumption would be if you're very fit, this calculator is close, but if you're not, it estimates too high.

I tried some specific examples to test this out:

Using this site I put in an average heart rate of 150, duration of 30 minutes and VO2 Max of 43.1 and was given ~284 cals.  If I leave the VO2Max blank, the tool estimates 303 cals for the 30 same minute period.  The CC site gave me 274 cals for 30 minutes of "moderate" activity on the elliptical (what I used to designate an avg heart rate of 150).  After a couple tries, this site matched CC's estimate of 274 cals for "moderate" elliptical activity when I entered a VO2Max of 39, which is still on the high end of "Excellent" according to the test results I was given (perhaps 88th percentile?).

When entered "vigorous" activity for the elliptical on the CC site, I was given 384 cals for 30 minutes.  I estimated this would be a heart rate of 185 (220-my age (35)).  With my VO2Max it estimated 397 cals.  With VO2Max of 50 (or if left blank) it estimated ~415 cals.  With a VO2Max of 39, it estimated 386, so pretty close to my first test results.

Has anyone else tried this?  I wonder if CC's calorie burn numbers match this site when you input VO2Max of ~39 based on my age (35) and weight (120), or if this rule applies across the board. 

Based on my VO2Max test results and what I tested on this link, I personally think this tool estimates calorie burn too high for the general, sedentary population (assuming, of course, my suboptimal VO2Max test was even close to accurate).  I'm always more inclined to take the lowest calorie burn estimate, just to be on the safe side.