Serious athletes

Hi 

I was wondering how many calories people who play sport at a serious level are eating and also if you can give an example of exercise you would do in a week? 

Hi! Well, I don't play sports at any serious level, however I was watching the analysis of the swimming at the Olympics and of course the subject of Phelps' diet came up. Of course, the majority of athletes don't eat 12000 calories, however the swimming expert talked about when he was swimming, he ate an average of 6000 calories a day.

It obviously depends on how serious you are about the sport, how long you're training, how good you are (if you are training faster, you'll burn more calories), what your sport is.

If you look at this link, all the Olympians are eating very large amounts of calories, but of course they are at the top of the range, I have no idea how they would compare to lesser athletes.

http://eatfeats.com/michael-phelps-other-olym pians-calories-per-day.html

Hi there!  In high school, I played water polo and we had practices consisting of 1 hr playing, 1/2 hr treading water with our hands above the water, 1 hr fast lap swimming, and 1/2 hr strength training exercises like squats, which burns about 1300-1500 calories total.  My maintenance is 1800 calories now (it was probably more then because I was a teen, but I don't know the number), so to make up for what I was burning (I didn't lose weight during this time, and in fact gained a little in muscle), I must've been eating about 3100-3300 calories, plus another 200 or so calories for the muscle gain.

Hope that helps!

Original Post by nevarren:

 practices consisting of 1 hr playing, 1/2 hr treading water with our hands above the water, 1 hr fast lap swimming, and 1/2 hr strength training exercises like squats, which burns about 1300-1500 calories total. 

 3 hours of working out, mostly in water, had to burn a lot more than that! The lap swimming is about 1000 alone and both the other water activities are about 1000/hour, too.

"Serious" means different thngs to different people, but anyone competing successfully at any level requires more than average training. As a high school basketball player on a very successful team, I practiced 2.5 hours/day, most of it pretty intense, so I bet even then as a girl weighing about 135, I easily burned 2000+ during those workouts.

Just browsing the activities on various sites, I would say that intense exercise burns AT LEAST 1000 cals/hour and "serious" athletes are training a minimum of 2 hours a day. 2000/day would be a minimum, then, and I bet most are burning 5000+ since they train longer and harder than any "average" athlete.

Hope this helps.

Just browsing the activities on various sites, I would say that intense exercise burns AT LEAST 1000 cals/hour and "serious" athletes are training a minimum of 2 hours a day. 2000/day would be a minimum, then, and I bet most are burning 5000+ since they train longer and harder than any "average" athlete.

 I wouldn't say intense exercise burns AT LEAST 1000 cals/hour. It depends on many things. I obviously don't work out as intensly as phelps but I doubt there's an activity at any intensity on CC that would put me at >1000cals/hour. The highest I've seen for me so far is around 750. I don't know what you weigh. Perhaps if you weigh considerably more than me that accounts for the considerably higher burn figures you're getting on various sites.

on my 50 mile huge incline rides on saturday's i burn 1,900 i eat about 3,000 calories that day.

I agree with ducklingerthank ^^^^

The number of calories you burn really depends on who you are, and your relation to the sport.

I'm a 13_? lb woman who is supporting a fair amount of muscle. That said, I burn less calories at an activity I do very frequently, and more at an activity I only do occasionally. Any activity that I burned even 750 calories an hour would put me to bed for a day since it would require so much effort.

 

A better question might be: "what are you training for?"

 

 

 

Original Post by ducklingerthank:

 I wouldn't say intense exercise burns AT LEAST 1000 cals/hour. It depends on many things. I obviously don't work out as intensly as phelps but I doubt there's an activity at any intensity on CC that would put me at >1000cals/hour. The highest I've seen for me so far is around 750. I don't know what you weigh. Perhaps if you weigh considerably more than me that accounts for the considerably higher burn figures you're getting on various sites.

Duh! Mea Culpa! I wasn't even thinking about weight when answering this.

 

I am a competitive runner and I eat about 3500 - 4000 calories a day to maintain my body weight.  I typically run 50 - 60 miles a week and bicycle 80 - 100 miles a week.  I do strength training twice a week, with sets of 20 reps and low weights.  I hope this helps.

I'm riding my bicycle 150-200 miles per week, training for hard centuries and time trials. I'm burning 350 kCal per hour on easy rides (recovery days) and anywhere from 600 kCal on up to 1000 kCal per hour on harder days (it takes me 13 hours to clock 200 miles in a week in the hills around here).

I eat enough to maintain a 500-1000 kCal deficit each day. On hard days, that means 3500-4000 kCal. On easy days, that's 2000 kCal. I'd eat more, but I'm taking off the results of years of good living. :-)

(You here that, all of you afraid-to-eat types? I'm losing 1 to 1.5 pounds per week, eating as described above.)