question about activity browser

Hello all, I'm new to this forum/website (obviously) and was wondering something. In the activity browser, under "conditioning exercises" it lists weight lifting as either moderate, or vigorous.

I have always considered my self as working pretty vigorously when I lift weights (I try to use as much weight as I can manage and work to almost muscle failure with each set), but I am certainly no body builder like it says on the site! Does that mean I should be selecting "moderate" when I add it to my daily activities?

Also, does the amount of weight you are using determine whether it is moderate or vigorous? Or is it determined by the amount of reps you do? (Eg. someone using only 3lbs weight, but does maybe 30 reps or something like that) Or maybe it's just some other factor and I'm confusing myself with all of this...

Sorry if I'm not making any sense, but if anyone knows how to figure this out (or at least point me in the right direction) please tell me?

Thanks in advance! :)

 EDIT: Moderators, please feel free to post this in whichever forum is most appropriate. Sorry for the trouble :)

this is a good question to ask on the Fitness Forum.  Would you like a moderator to move your post for you?

Yes please!

bumping to the top!

Hi! I want to know also!  I use 5 or 8 lb handweights quite a lot, and very intesely, but don't know how to log it.  Help anyone??

Well, I think that it's partly a function of your work density, but if you're working to momentary muscular failure or near it that should probably be logged as vigorous.

 If you can do 30 reps with the weight you're using, you're doing general low-impact aerobic, you're not strength training at all. You need a weight that is challenging to your muscles. Though if you do 50-100 reps of the exercise you might get the lactic acid response and hGH-based muscular developement...

 Anyway - if you can lift your weights more than 12-15 times for a beginner, you're not challenging yourself properly. For optimal results you should be working in the 6-8 or 8-12 range, but beginners should start in the 12-15 range to get the movement patterns right before you start adding heavy weight.

 Learn how to do it from Krista of Stumptuous.com if you haven't already.

short_cake, i really don't know in terms of the logging.  i wondered the same things, and the "bodybuilder" part scared me too.  i ended up logging it as light/moderate and adding ten minutes to the amount of time i lifted.  that felt fair to me.

Thanks so much for the tips, melkor. Right now I'm using 8-10 lb weights with about 12 reps max, and I feel like I'm working hard so thats a good thing, right?

And wow, that Krista is awesome! I will have to spend the better part of my evening reading up on her website. Thanks again. :)

I log my weight lifting as moderate cuz my Heart rate monitor puts my calorie burn for the time spent lifting closer to the moderate range.  I tend to think vigorous more like circuit training going quickly from one set to the next.

I lift to the point of fatigue but I rest between sets so maybe that is why my calorie burn is for the lesser workout?? 

A heart rate monitor will underestimate your calories burned while lifting weights. Just saw a paper on that from UTexas - the conclusion there was that a HRM would underestimate your burn by up to 300%.

 Ideally there should be some some confirmation and followup studies done, but it does suggest that you should log your lifting as vigorous, Dbacker. And there's a few other considerations as well that leads me to think that most people should in fact use the higher of the two as long as they're working to failure.

 'Cause lifting to failure is where it's at for workouts - you may burn a little less lifting weights for an hour than doing cardio for the same time, but the post-workout elevated metabolism from lifting weights means you burn up to 700 calories more that day than you'd normally do. Because unlike steady-state cardio, your metabolism stays elevated for up to 38 hours after weights done right.

 This post-exercise burn isn't accounted for in the CC tools as far as I can tell, so logging your activity as vigorous is probably the right thing to do regardless.

 And yes, that sounds just about perfect, Short_cake - you're using a weight that's a proper challenge for your muscles. Just be prepared to go out and buy heavier ones soon - at least if you're smart and do like Krista tells you to :)