How accurate are the calorie counts on gym machines?
Wednesday July 19, 2006
"I worked out for 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer yesterday and it said I burned 850 calories!" This is what one of my clients told me excitedly when I showed up for a session recently. She looked so thrilled, I didn't want to tell her the truth...that she probably burned a lot less then 850 calories. In fact, I thought about letting it go completely but realized the problem with that right away. She would no doubt be disappointed by her results if I let her believe she was really burning that many calories.
Which leads to the question...how accurate are those machines when it comes to calories burned? This client's machine wasn't very accurate (for her weight, age and general intensity, she was probably burning more like 200-300 calories), but does that mean all machines are wrong? Learn the truth about machine calorie counts in my latest FAQ.
Comments
850 sounds at least 3x as high.
I (185 lbs) jog the treadmill @6 mph for 12 minutes; machine says calories burned ~ 170 which sounds about right.
The treadmill is probably the hardest/most strenuous of the 3 (bike = easiest , elliptical (sp) = middle)
20 Minutes on a rowing ergometer is about 150-160 Calories. Rowing rate about 22-23 Strokes per minute. The calorie per hour sometimes varies depending on how hard one strokes (450~470 cals/hr).
I found the elliptical a harder workout.
Of course I’m just starting out again.
Age of 73 I am doing an avg pulse rate of 110-120.
Burning 850 might be some what true. A person loses 200-300 calories on a treadmill going 45 min-60min. On an elliptical a person sweats constantly in the face there for losing mich weight in the face as well as the lower body. I use to use the elliptical and alot of calories are burned. I lost weight. Now here the truth. I lost more weight on the treadmill than the elliptical going 60 minutes 5 times a week at 3.5-3.7 speed. Now tell me why this is??
I always thought that they understated it! It seems I can work out for about 20 minutes on the treadmill at a slight incline at as fast a pace as I possibly can and the machine will announce that I’ve burned 53 calories! Is this actually more of an accurate count?
I have owned a small company http://www.physicalfitnessconsultants.com that specializes in the sale of home and gym grade exercise equipment for the past twenty-five years.
In terms of accuracy issues with respect to caloric output readings I can tell you this.
1. Some of the more reputable brands of exercise equipment have utilized the services of such credible organizations such as the American College of Sports Medicine(ACSM) and those manufacturers readouts actually stack up quite well against Basal Metabolic Rate Testing. Typically most equipment found in a gym will have accuracy within a plus minus factor of 5-10%.
2. The equipment that you might find at a mass merchant discount supply house will be way of the charts in terms of accuracy. For the simple reason that they have not paid a credible organization to write the software programs.
Most times you will find that the estimate is much higher that actually burned. My theory on why the caloric count is predicted to be higher is because if a customer goes shopping to purchase a treadmill they may walk on the machine for a few minutes. The perception that the customer has is that if “I walk on this machine for 5 minutes and burn calories, it has to be better than the other machine that I only burned 30″
Seems like a crazy theory but again, I owned a retail store for two decades and often found a difficult time understanding the purchasing logic of many clients.
Hope this helps.
Doug
I noticed my stationary bike at home massively under counts the calories. I have to bike for an intense 60 mins for the readout to indicate 300 calories burned. I later noticed the counter didn’t take into consideration the tension that the bike was set at. It was simply linked to the amount of revolutions I did no matter at what tension or speed.
they are accurate, you’ll burn more calories on a treadmill with incline than the elliptical
I have a decent and relatively expensive Tunturi rower. The theoretical calorie burn after 40 mins is about 320 at approx 40 strokes per minute, but it doesn’t alter depending on the resistance setting at all, so I guess that means a minimum theoretical burn. If you exert yourself more, you will be burning more than the readout shows.
By the way, someone mentioned sweating in the face and therefore losing fat in the face. i.e. spot fat removal. This is one of those myths that helps sell useless products and magazines.
You cannot choose where to remove fat and simply by sweating in a certain area doesn’t mean fat is coming off in that area. It’s biologically impossible. Genetics decide where to deposit fat and usually the first place it goes on is the the last place it comes off. You have no option to workout a certain part of your body and get fat off from that part; you simply have to eat correctly and do “good” cardio every day for a minimum of 20 mins (preferably 40-60 mins) until the fat eventually comes off everywhere.
mm. interesting )