How accurate is the calories burned scale on here? (Read 1133 times)

I would guess that most of these calculators are just an approximation as there are so many variables but for a 10 stone (140lb) male expect to burn around 100 calories per mile. You can put your own figures in here - http://www.runningahead.com/tools/calculators/calories

his site has the most accurate calculator for me (usually within 10 calories of HRM) that I have found yet.

Based on what gold standard? All calculators are estimates. Period. The only way to know for sure how many calories YOU burn in a given activity is through medical exercise testing. The primary determinants of your calorie burn rate are your activity and your weight. But other things, such as pace, efficiency, wind, surface quality, surface grade, percent effort also impact your burn rate. Your heart rate monitor, this website, the number on the treadmill, etc, those are all best guesses that may be wildly off. I usually use 120-150 cals per mile for my 155 lb body, but this may be hogwash. All the different devices I use give other numbers, also possibly hogwash. I run. I restrict my calories. I try to maintain my weight. That works for me.

Based on what gold standard? All calculators are estimates. Period. The only way to know for sure how many calories YOU burn in a given activity is through medical exercise testing. The primary determinants of your calorie burn rate are your activity and your weight. But other things, such as pace, efficiency, wind, surface quality, surface grade, percent effort also impact your burn rate.

The environemental factors such as wind and grade would only affect calories burned if it caused you to work harder, which would in turn increase your heartrate. A HRM that has your age, weight, height, RHR, and MHR is going to be close enough for most purposes.

The environemental factors such as wind and grade would only affect calories burned if it caused you to work harder, which would in turn increase your heartrate. A HRM that has your age, weight, height, RHR, and MHR is going to be close enough for most purposes.

Yes and no. When running down a big hill, your HR tends to drift downward. However, your muscles expend more energy through eccentric contractions that they would on a flat grade. This means you are burning more calories than can be explained just through perceived effort or HR. I agree though that we probably do not need much precision. For must of us, just a basic rule of thumb is probably enough. 100 calories per mile for 140 lbs, 125 for 160 lbs, that is fine.

Thanks for all your answers. I just asked it in a general since. If its within 10-30 then thats fine by me. I weight approx. 202 lbs. and I think it says 460 or something like that for 3 miles. I just wondered if this was even close because I never had a clue how much you burn when you do any activity. Trent I notice that you seem to have the most scientific answers to people's questions. Where does all the knowledge come from?

Calories are the unit for measuring energy consumption, your running efficiency has a lot to do with your energy consumption. Say there was zero friction on the ground except for your first foot step. You would basically glide forever without spending much energy. So we spend a lot of energy making up for friction which breaks our forward motion us at every step. A lot of the energy you burn is spent gaining forward kinematic energy. We also need some vertical motion while running, that is, bouncing up an down. We need to clear the ground to be able to leap forward. So we also spend energy clearing the ground at each step. Also, our body is not 100% efficient either in producing motion. We loose energy through heat. And there is our metabolism which will use energy just to keep us alive. All to say that most your energy is spent through the inefficiencies of running. Cycling or skating are much more efficient means of motion because you loose much less energy through friction. You would need to bike a much longer distance to spend as many calories as you would running. If your goal is solely to loose weight run less efficiently . If you want to run faster or further without running out of gas - I do - there are a few things you can do: 1- Improve your running efficiency This means break less at each step and stay as close to the ground as possible. Shorter steps, landing your feet below, and not in front of your center of is the best way to achieve this. If you take longer steps, you need to jump higher. Just as when you throw a ball further, you need to throw it higher. Also, if your forward foot lands ahead of your center of gravity, your adding more breaking force on your stride and waste more energy. Landing below your center of gravity will make you break less at each step. 2- Train more The more you train, the more efficient your body will get at producing mechanical energy through muscles. 3- Weigh less The energy one uses to to push up vertically or to push forward are directly related to your mass. The less you weigh the less energy you will use. (which also means the less weight you will loose through exercising ) So most calculators are just guesses on how much energy you spend, they take weight into account but since it's hard to measure your efficiency of your running technique or the efficiency or your body they assume some average. Better methods are measuring the quantity of oxygen used and carbon dioxide produced. They are still estimates, but more accurate. It's a bit like figuring out the gas consumption of a car by measuring it's emissions. Car emissions and gas mileage are closely related. SUVs burn more gas and hence pollute more because they weigh more and because their engines, transmissions and tires are less efficient. Efficient hybrid cars weigh less, have more efficient engines and tires and reuse their braking energy.