I heard many years ago, and have heard numerous times since, that you will burn off the same number of calories if you walk one mile, or if you run one mile. Of course, you will exercise for a longer period of less intensity to walk a given distance, rather than run it, but it seemed to make sense enough to me. However, using a Life Fitness treadmill in my routine, I find that when I walk at a 3.5 MPH pace it says I'll burn off 467 calories per hour, but when I speed it up and times to do a jogging pace of 4.5 MPH it list the pace as over 900 calories per hour. Something doesn't add up there with the conventional logic. Is the machine wrong or is the uniform calorie equation for a traveled distance wrong?
Myth or inaccurate machine reading?
I never trust those machine predictions. They always seem to overestimate what you are burning, and I'm sure that helps them sell their product ("hey, if I can burn 1500 calories per hour on this machine...")
I have also read that one mile walked is the same as one mile ran. But I don't know if that takes into account the fact that there is a much greater oxygen debt when you are running, so the caloric afterburn is much greater for running (ie, you burn more calories afterward when you run opposed to walking).
I have also read that one mile walked is the same as one mile ran. But I don't know if that takes into account the fact that there is a much greater oxygen debt when you are running, so the caloric afterburn is much greater for running (ie, you burn more calories afterward when you run opposed to walking).
goldmember;279026 said:
Yeah, I don't know how accurate they are either, but they should be capable of being pretty accurate when you have the ability to program them in to your specific bodyweight. I'll say this, ellipticals, skiers, and steppers burn off way more calories per hour than things like bikes, so I would think they would have an incentive to up the calorie count on the bike as popular as they are.
The only way to answer this is to ask you to experiment...
Perform the typical shuttle run (kinda like a miniature relay) for a few repetitions and then perform the same repetitions exactly the same distances by walking... and compare your fatigue level...
You'll notice you will be much more exhausted peforming the repetitions at a higher intensity level...
You're basically getting more volume accomplished in a less amount of time...
By performing the running distance in a less amount of time you will burn more energy and therefore more calories...
Hope this helps...
Perform the typical shuttle run (kinda like a miniature relay) for a few repetitions and then perform the same repetitions exactly the same distances by walking... and compare your fatigue level...
You'll notice you will be much more exhausted peforming the repetitions at a higher intensity level...
You're basically getting more volume accomplished in a less amount of time...
By performing the running distance in a less amount of time you will burn more energy and therefore more calories...
Hope this helps...
goldmember;279026 said:
Actually, I was thinking later that most treadmills and exercise bikes I've tried had been relatively consistent with what I've read from written sources that list calories per hour. On these machines at least, if they're exaggerating, I don't think it's by any great amount. Now, on a Life Fitness elliptical cross trainer I can burn off about 1300-1500 calories in an hour when I set the resistance real high and go at it with a pretty good pace. However, I usually opt for slower routines that keep my heartrate in the fat burning zone, or close to it. When I've gone gung-ho with the resistance on the elliptical, those 1300 calorie per hour routines have sweat absolutely pouring out of me, with considerable pain and fatigue. It's a struggle to just get through it and ensure I won't pass out, so there is definitely a world of difference when the resistance is turned up.
I believe I can dispute the running vs. walking a mile being the same calories burned from my own experience. I discovered I was diabetic at age 63 in year 2000; weighed in at 280 lbs on a 69 inch tall frame. I changed my diet to the 1800 calorie per day ADA recommended for me. After a year I had lost 50 lbs. and hit a plateau. In 2003 I measured off one mile in my neighborhood and began walking the mile slowly everyday. Building my strength and walking speed and two more years had lapsed I had lost NO weight. In 2006 I began to run the same mile and after two months lost 20 more lbs. Obviously, running did activate my metabolism and got me through the plateau. I now weigh 180 lbs and my diabetes is under control.
I heard that measuring your oxygen intake (don't know how) would give you a calorie burn answer, because of combustion reactions happening in your body. That's all that we intake on a regular basis (besides water) that could be reacted like that I think.
You might be able to figure it out with some physics stuff. There might be easier ways to do this shit or it might be wrong somewhere I don't know (or the wrong concept). Power is energy output per second according to wiki. Everything is in kilograms, meters, and seconds, so google the conversion.
1 joule= 0.239 calories
Work=force*distance Units is in joules
Power=(force*distance)/time Units are watts (joules/second)
force=mass*acceleration
For mass- weight=mass*gravity
gravity=9.8
Convert your mass to kgs or find the english version of gravity, I don't know it. Take your weight divided by gravity.
For acceleration- distance=(1/2)*acceleration*time^2 (^2 is squared, and velocity at 0 seconds was 0 so it dropped out)
acceleration=(2*distance)/time (square root the (2*distance))
If this stuff is right and ledgable it should work with a calculator. It seems to me that both numbers would be higher for running. They might have just been thinking about work in the high school form where lifting a heavy crate will do the same work as pushing it up an inclined ramp if everything works out perfectly.
-- In terms of straight energy (if you were a box with wheels) this may be right, but there must be quite a bit more to it for us living things.
You might be able to figure it out with some physics stuff. There might be easier ways to do this shit or it might be wrong somewhere I don't know (or the wrong concept). Power is energy output per second according to wiki. Everything is in kilograms, meters, and seconds, so google the conversion.
1 joule= 0.239 calories
Work=force*distance Units is in joules
Power=(force*distance)/time Units are watts (joules/second)
force=mass*acceleration
For mass- weight=mass*gravity
gravity=9.8
Convert your mass to kgs or find the english version of gravity, I don't know it. Take your weight divided by gravity.
For acceleration- distance=(1/2)*acceleration*time^2 (^2 is squared, and velocity at 0 seconds was 0 so it dropped out)
acceleration=(2*distance)/time (square root the (2*distance))
If this stuff is right and ledgable it should work with a calculator. It seems to me that both numbers would be higher for running. They might have just been thinking about work in the high school form where lifting a heavy crate will do the same work as pushing it up an inclined ramp if everything works out perfectly.
-- In terms of straight energy (if you were a box with wheels) this may be right, but there must be quite a bit more to it for us living things.
roctober;279483 said:
Great story.
My personal aerobic/cardio routine consists of doing 1-2 hours (usually around 75 minutes most night) on a Life Fitness elliptical trainer and I do a relaxed pace keeping the heartbeat in the fat burning zone. Usually this produces about 1000-1500 calories burned. Then, I do about 2-4 miles on the treadmill where I alternate every quarter mile between 3.5 MPH (a brisk walk) and 5.5 MPH (a good jog). This knocks off another 600 or so calories and does get my heartrate up so I get some cardio for the lungs too.
In case anyone is curious about the results, I've actually tracked my daily calories burned from elliptical and treadmill work since September 5th:
1069
1146
1825
1827
0
1544
2122
1429
1956
1112
2067
913
1538
1563
2763
769
1069
1146
1825
1827
0
1544
2122
1429
1956
1112
2067
913
1538
1563
2763
769