{"id":833,"date":"2009-01-21T20:12:03","date_gmt":"2009-01-21T18:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/?p=833"},"modified":"2014-06-25T17:48:12","modified_gmt":"2014-06-25T21:48:12","slug":"exercise-machines-calories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/exercise-machines-calories\/","title":{"rendered":"Exercise Machines and Calories"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I ran across <a href=\"http:\/\/featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com\/features_julieshealthclub\/2009\/01\/q-im-trying-to-lose-weight-and-want-to-know-many-calories-im-burning-while-on-cardio-equipment-which-provides-the-most-accu.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this article by Julie Deardorff in the Chicago Tribune<\/a> today, which discusses the accuracy of the calorie counters on cardio machines&#8230;the take home is that you may not be burning as many cals as you think you are, depending on the machine you use&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>&#8220;The bicycle predictions are the easiest to make, because the variation in people&#8217;s mechanical efficiency is relatively low, and it&#8217;s very easy to convert work [in watts] into calories, given what we do know about cycling efficiency,&#8221; said exercise physiologist Ross Tucker, co-author of the exercise science blog The Science of Sport, sportsscientists.com.<\/p>\n<p>On the treadmill, the efficiency of an individual&#8217;s stride is more variable, Tucker said. &#8220;Assuming you&#8217;re within 5 percent of the &#8216;true value,&#8217; if your reading says you burned 600 calories per hour [or 10 calories per minute, a fast walk or slow run], then your range is probably within about 570 calories to 630,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike the treadmill, there are no standardized equations for caloric count on elliptical machines, said Doug Durnford, a senior product manager with Precor, which manufactures fitness equipment. So the accuracy &#8220;depends on the amount of due diligence performed by the manufacturer.&#8221; Precor has funded a study looking at whether its equation\u2014which measures calories using gas exchange measurements\u2014is valid.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In other words, the counts on an exercise bike are fairly accurate; treadmills are sorta accurate; and ellipticals&#8230;well, it could be an &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/story\/2008\/11\/17\/ST2008111701259.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">elliptical illusion.<\/a>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This is not to say that certain machines should be shunned &#8211; &#8220;not accurate&#8221; doesn&#8217;t mean &#8220;no good&#8221; &#8211; in fact, I like ellipticals and feel I get a pretty good workout from them.\u00a0 But I just don&#8217;t bother with the calorie counters to tell me how hard I&#8217;m working&#8230;or how hard I should be working.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I ran across this article by Julie Deardorff in the Chicago Tribune today, which discusses the accuracy of the calorie counters on cardio machines&#8230;the take home is that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,28,29],"tags":[297,304,317,318,575,613,1676],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=833"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7629,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833\/revisions\/7629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}