Calorie expendititure - HR vs Distance - Triathlon Week

03-17-2005, 09:11 PM

I am looking for an explanation of calorie burn estimations based on HR.
How accurate are they? Having a good aerobic base, I can hold a decent pace
at a low heart rate. Does that result in a lower caloric burn per mile as
the HRM would indicate, or is the energy requirement the same and I am
simply using the oxygen more efficiently?

Here's an example:
200 lb 30 yr old male
10 miles in 80 minutes = 7.5 MPH
HRM says: 1200 calories, avg HR 150 = 120 cal/mile
Table says: 1500 calories = 150 cal/mile

Any opinions?

AJ

03-18-2005, 07:45 AM

Everything that I've ever read says that calories burned is directly
proportional to distance traveled, regardless of heart rate. I don't know
if this really helps you at all, but this is all I've got.
--
Frank W. Marrs III
Georgia Institute of Technology
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

"A. J." <[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]> wrote in message
news:[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]...
>I am looking for an explanation of calorie burn estimations based on HR.
> How accurate are they? Having a good aerobic base, I can hold a decent
> pace
> at a low heart rate. Does that result in a lower caloric burn per mile as
> the HRM would indicate, or is the energy requirement the same and I am
> simply using the oxygen more efficiently?
>
> Here's an example:
> 200 lb 30 yr old male
> 10 miles in 80 minutes = 7.5 MPH
> HRM says: 1200 calories, avg HR 150 = 120 cal/mile
> Table says: 1500 calories = 150 cal/mile
>
> Any opinions?
>
> AJ
>
>

03-18-2005, 08:10 AM

In article <[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]>, ajinsig99
@hotmail_ns.com says...
> I am looking for an explanation of calorie burn estimations based on HR.
> How accurate are they? Having a good aerobic base, I can hold a decent pace
> at a low heart rate. Does that result in a lower caloric burn per mile as
> the HRM would indicate, or is the energy requirement the same and I am
> simply using the oxygen more efficiently?
>
> Here's an example:
> 200 lb 30 yr old male
> 10 miles in 80 minutes = 7.5 MPH
> HRM says: 1200 calories, avg HR 150 = 120 cal/mile
> Table says: 1500 calories = 150 cal/mile
>
> Any opinions?
>
> AJ
>
>
>
I do not think your HR affects your calory expenditure rate.

The calory burning is related to distance and effort. Remembering back
my physics days the formula to calculate the work done was as follows:

Work = Force x distance

I am no physiologist but from my engineer's perspective I can say that
the more you work the more you burn calories. This means that if you do
the same pace more efficiently you would need less force. But this is
economy of motion not HR.

But again depending on the same formula, I think that you have to apply
more force to go the same distance when you are heavier than the other.
So weight, not HR, should be a factor.

Maybe if there is a physiologist reading these lines, we can get a
better opinion than this.

HTH.
--
Burak
please remove Dot NOREPLY Dot to reply

03-18-2005, 01:22 PM

Burak Ilter wrote:
> In article <[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]>, ajinsig99
> @hotmail_ns.com says...
>
>>I am looking for an explanation of calorie burn estimations based on HR.
>>How accurate are they? Having a good aerobic base, I can hold a decent pace
>>at a low heart rate. Does that result in a lower caloric burn per mile as
>>the HRM would indicate, or is the energy requirement the same and I am
>>simply using the oxygen more efficiently?
>>
>>Here's an example:
>>200 lb 30 yr old male
>>10 miles in 80 minutes = 7.5 MPH
>>HRM says: 1200 calories, avg HR 150 = 120 cal/mile
>>Table says: 1500 calories = 150 cal/mile
>>
>>Any opinions?
>>
>>AJ
>>
>>
>>
>
> I do not think your HR affects your calory expenditure rate.
>
> The calory burning is related to distance and effort. Remembering back
> my physics days the formula to calculate the work done was as follows:
>
> Work = Force x distance
>
> I am no physiologist but from my engineer's perspective I can say that
> the more you work the more you burn calories. This means that if you do
> the same pace more efficiently you would need less force. But this is
> economy of motion not HR.
>
> But again depending on the same formula, I think that you have to apply
> more force to go the same distance when you are heavier than the other.
> So weight, not HR, should be a factor.
>
> Maybe if there is a physiologist reading these lines, we can get a
> better opinion than this.
>
> HTH.
I think there may be an effeciency issue when you get to very high
expenditure. But then that'll affect the calories used, not burned.

$0.02,

Steve

03-18-2005, 01:55 PM

Did you calibrate your watch? Does it have your correct weight, or is
it assuming that you weight 150 lbs?

If you have a Polar, somewhere on their site they have a paper that
describes how they calculate Calories from heart rate. As I recall they
had some empirical equations that they had derived from a fairly large
popultion, and the fits were pretty good for most activities, including
running, but not so good for male cyclists.

This comes up fairly frequently. I need to save that link, but I cannot
find it right now.

03-18-2005, 02:12 PM

All things being equal, if your heart beats more, it does more work. It
isn't just your body moving through space, it is also your heart
pumping the blood through your body.

That said, I don't think that there is a simple answer. If we weigh the
same and my heart is beating 150 times per minute and yours is beating
140 times per minutes I can think of scenarios where I either of us was
burning more Calories than the other.

1) Your heart is pumping more blood per stroke and so doing exactly the
same amount of work. We are burning equal Calories.
2) You are a more efficient runner than I am. You aren't tensing your
muscles or bobbing up and down. I am burning more Calories than you
are.
3) I am a more efficent runner than you, but our maximum heart rates
are wildly different. Your Max is 150, mine is 200.

The Maximum Heart Rate is one of the factors that is incorporated into
the Polar Calories from HR calcualtion I think. Perhaps as part of
VO2Max.

Ray

03-19-2005, 07:46 AM

Leafing through rec.sport.triathlon, I read a message from
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ] of 17 Mar 2005:

> I am looking for an explanation of calorie burn estimations based on
> HR. How accurate are they? Having a good aerobic base, I can hold a
> decent pace at a low heart rate. Does that result in a lower caloric
> burn per mile as the HRM would indicate, or is the energy requirement
> the same and I am simply using the oxygen more efficiently?
>
> Here's an example:
> 200 lb 30 yr old male
> 10 miles in 80 minutes = 7.5 MPH
> HRM says: 1200 calories, avg HR 150 = 120 cal/mile
> Table says: 1500 calories = 150 cal/mile

There was some interesting discussion on this in rec.running
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

However, nothing related to HR.

Phil M.

03-19-2005, 09:27 PM

Following up my own post, here is a page from the Polar site that
discusses the accuracy of the Calorie calculation (they call it Energy
Expenditure, EE)

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
881B?OpenDocument

and here is the relevant bit:

"OwnCalS estimates EE from exercise heart rate and individual HRmax and
VO2max (measured or predicted values). The development group consisted
of 105 20-59 year old men and women (data collected in collaboration
with the Cooper Institute, Dallas, Texas). The developed model was
further validated on 101 men and women (data collected in collaboration
with the UKK Institute, Tampere, Finland). All subjects went through a
maximal treadmill test with continuous heart rate measurement and
respiratory gas analysis. In the validation data, the error of estimate
(mean+SD) for OwnCalS was -0.7+1.3 and -0.3+0.8 kcal/min and standard
error of estimate 1.4 and 0.9 kcal/min in men and women, respectively
(Kinnunen et al. 2000). Thus, good accuracy for EE estimation was
obtained in OwnCalS."

The bibliography on this page is not so clear, but I believe that this
refers to
Kinnunen H, Nissil=E4 S. Estimation of exercise energy expenditure from
heart rate and aerobic capacity. Proceedings of 5th Annual Congress of
the ECSS, Jyv=E4skyl=E4, Finland, 19-23 July 2000, p 395. This is a
conference presentation not a peer reviewed paper, although some of the
other papers on this page (referring to walking, the unfit, etc) are,
so it is not definitive research.

Note the first sentence: OwnCalS assumes that you have done a fit test
(or entered accurate Max HR and V02max) and have entered your weight.
Unless you have done both of these things, you have no reason to expect
that your results are accurate.

03-21-2005, 07:34 AM

In article <1111180354.852073.206670@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups .com>,
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ] says...
> All things being equal, if your heart beats more, it does more work. It
> isn't just your body moving through space, it is also your heart
> pumping the blood through your body.

You are right.
>
> That said, I don't think that there is a simple answer. If we weigh the
> same and my heart is beating 150 times per minute and yours is beating
> 140 times per minutes I can think of scenarios where I either of us was
> burning more Calories than the other.
>
Right again.

> 1) Your heart is pumping more blood per stroke and so doing exactly the
> same amount of work. We are burning equal Calories.
> 2) You are a more efficient runner than I am. You aren't tensing your
> muscles or bobbing up and down. I am burning more Calories than you
> are.
> 3) I am a more efficent runner than you, but our maximum heart rates
> are wildly different. Your Max is 150, mine is 200.
>
> The Maximum Heart Rate is one of the factors that is incorporated into
> the Polar Calories from HR calcualtion I think. Perhaps as part of
> VO2Max.
>
> Ray
>
>
One more (possible) scenario:
Let's say both of us run at the same heart rate and the same distance.
And again let's assume both of us weigh the same. But if one of us have
a more muscular body composition, since the muscles will require more
oxygen (am I correct?) the heart will pump more blood with each beat
resulting in burning higher calories.

--
Burak
please remove Dot NOREPLY Dot to reply

03-28-2005, 06:27 AM

I'm not sure where these estimates are from, but I suspect they are fairly
accurate.

Forumulas
%VO2max = (Avg. HR - RHR)*100 / (MHR - RHR)
Calories burned/hour = 106.4 * exp (2.7486 * %VO2max/100)

--
Steve Dannenbaum
"Phil M." <[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]> wrote in message
news:Xns961E63B7337Eseilogramp@216.77.188.18...
> Leafing through rec.sport.triathlon, I read a message from
> [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] of 17 Mar 2005:
>
>> I am looking for an explanation of calorie burn estimations based on
>> HR. How accurate are they? Having a good aerobic base, I can hold a
>> decent pace at a low heart rate. Does that result in a lower caloric
>> burn per mile as the HRM would indicate, or is the energy requirement
>> the same and I am simply using the oxygen more efficiently?
>>
>> Here's an example:
>> 200 lb 30 yr old male
>> 10 miles in 80 minutes = 7.5 MPH
>> HRM says: 1200 calories, avg HR 150 = 120 cal/mile
>> Table says: 1500 calories = 150 cal/mile
>
> There was some interesting discussion on this in rec.running
> [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
>
> However, nothing related to HR.
>
> Phil M.

03-30-2005, 10:21 PM

"Burak Ilter" <[Only registered and activated users can see links. ].tr> wrote in message
news:[Only registered and activated users can see links. ].net...
> In article <[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]>, ajinsig99
> @hotmail_ns.com says...
>> I am looking for an explanation of calorie burn estimations based on HR.
>> How accurate are they? Having a good aerobic base, I can hold a decent
>> pace
>> at a low heart rate. Does that result in a lower caloric burn per mile
>> as
>> the HRM would indicate, or is the energy requirement the same and I am
>> simply using the oxygen more efficiently?
>>
>> Here's an example:
>> 200 lb 30 yr old male
>> 10 miles in 80 minutes = 7.5 MPH
>> HRM says: 1200 calories, avg HR 150 = 120 cal/mile
>> Table says: 1500 calories = 150 cal/mile
>>
>> Any opinions?
>>
>> AJ
>>
>>
>>
> I do not think your HR affects your calory expenditure rate.

HR is a dependent variable. It reacts to demands placed on the body.
It is not like when your HR increases that you starting running faster; it
is the other way around.

The problem is that the relationship between HR and O2 consumption in the
real world is not as neat as it is in a lab setting.

>
> The calory burning is related to distance and effort. Remembering back
> my physics days the formula to calculate the work done was as follows:
>
> Work = Force x distance
>
> I am no physiologist but from my engineer's perspective I can say that
> the more you work the more you burn calories. This means that if you do
> the same pace more efficiently you would need less force. But this is
> economy of motion not HR.
>
> But again depending on the same formula, I think that you have to apply
> more force to go the same distance when you are heavier than the other.
> So weight, not HR, should be a factor.
>
> Maybe if there is a physiologist reading these lines, we can get a
> better opinion than this.
>
> HTH.
> --
> Burak
> please remove Dot NOREPLY Dot to reply