A question I often get asked is how much calories should be burned in a weights session or something like what burns more calories, strength or cardio training. Some gyms that will remain unnamed even base their sessions around an arbitrary number of calories they expect you to burn. It’s near impossible for a heart-rate monitor or fitness tracker to determine how much calories you burn in a session. So, for once and once only, I am saying pay zero attention to calories!
But first, my thoughts this week have revolved a lot around coaching, shock horror. However, it’s revolved around coaching in youth sports. Wednesdays are usually a pretty great day for me because it’s my afternoon off work. I get to train myself and Spend time with Jenny and her daughter who plays Camogie and Football. On Wednesdays they train, and I go up and watch. It’s great to see so many young girls taking part in sport and while they train there’s always about 3-4 other youth teams training too. These teams need coaches and the GAA is a volunteer organization. To their credit, parents step up and fill the role of manager/coach or whatever but many of these people shouldn’t be allowed on a sideline, let alone coach a team of children trying to figure out their skills and learn the game. Coaching is an art form that the majority of people don’t have, little Johnny knows he should kick the ball over the bar and he’s trying so maybe think before you shout something negative at him.
Back to the main topic, stop worrying about how much calories you should burn.
Energy expenditure is impossible for a gym or monitor to calculate. While products like MyZone, Apple Watches and Garmin’s give you calorie outputs based on your movement it’s more likely to be wrong. Too many factors go in to your body expending energy to be able to calculate, especially for a fitness wearable.
‘Burning calories’ is done through many different processes that include breathing, moving, digestion, brain activity, fidgeting… the list goes on and on. My Apple Watch can’t measure my digestion or respiration so how can it determine my calorie output? It doesn’t really.
What fitness wearables to measure is the amount they move. They use clever algorithms to give a number based on movement and movement alone.
What do we know about calorie expenditure?
Well we know men, on average, will burn more calories throughout the day vs women. Men are normally bigger, heavier and have larger organs than their female counterparts. Bigger engines, bigger outputs.
This is why an average male has a larger calorie recommendation than a female.
Taller people will also burn more calories vs shorter people due to the same theory.
So, tell me this, with all that in mind, how can a gym or coach judge their session or how hard you’re working in that session based on calories and calories alone? I actually heard a story during the week from somebody who was training in a gym in Dublin city and the trainer must’ve been trying to motivate everyone or something but went on to say the average person burns 500 calories in this session so get a move on… yet only one person was wearing a monitor? How is that useless information supposed to help the rest of the members? What I’m getting at here is that calorie-based sessions, to me, are a scam. I wouldn’t waste my time measuring them.
I’ve asked people why they’re worried about it before and the answer usually revolves around them wanting to know so they know how much calories they could consume later… it doesn’t work that way.
So, does that mean fitness trackers are useless? Not really. I really like using mine for different reasons, mainly to keep myself active. It will make me go for a walk or stand up or keep moving on days I don’t want to purely because I want to hit my movement goals. In an era where we have an obesity related disease referred to as ‘sitting disease’ anything that encourages us to move more is good in my books. Jen, her daughter and I also play a game to see who get’s the most steps each day, highest total wins, simple. They played it long before I came along but let me join in on the fun.
To sum up this week’s short post you should stop worrying about burning calories. It’s better to confront a problem at the source rather than try plaster over it. By this I mean start worrying about the calories you’re putting in, not putting out. You can’t out-train a bad diet.
So, the next time someone tries to tell you that doing 20 minutes of their spin 360 ultimate belly blast burns 950 calories turn and walk away.
Considering it’s masters weekend at Augusta, tune in Wednesday to read about all things Golf S&C.
Until then,
Rory.