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Are the "calories burned" numbers on gym machines like the elliptical or rower complete rubbish?
Yes. Were you using the HR monitor? They use an algorithm based on your HR if it's available, and a bunch of generalised assumptions about the sort of people who might be using a machine. It's about as useful as you can imagine.
You can work out a rough calculation if you know your average HR and/or VO2 max for the session, but even that won't be completely accurate. Probably a bit closer to reality than the estimation of the machines, though. http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/heart-rate-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx
bothwell
@Lw.
Are the "calories burned" numbers on gym machines like the elliptical or rower complete rubbish?
Along with not eating a chocolate bar & packet of crisps with my lunch every day I've been going to the gym for the last couple of months in order to burn a bit of fat & tone my body up - all is working fine & body is certainly thinner/more toned but inevitably I've started reading online about workouts and calories end up being bought into the conversation all the time.
I normally do 2k on the rower to start as it's many muscle groups & cardio too for warm up - it says I burn ~150 calories to do it, by this point I'm a sweaty mess, similar if not worse than I am after a long climb on the bike (similar perceived effort too).
Today the rowers were all busy so I thought I'd give the elliptical machines a go - I've never used them before so I just did a similar amount of time as I would on the rower & hoped it'd do for warm up but wasn't really trying very hard as it's Friday & I was a bit sleepy to start with etc... At the end it said I'd burned ~110 calories.
This strikes me as odd as I was hardly even breathing faster & didn't feel any muscle fatigue at all - am I completely missing the point about calories or are one/both of the machine lying to me?