swimmers - calories burned?

kat.in.the.hat · March 2012

is there any sort of very general rule of thumb about how many calories you burn in swimming? something equivalent to the very general rule of a 100 calories for every mile you run?

I'm just trying to get a feel for how accurate (or not) MFP is with what they are telling me (because I know with running, they way overestimate)

mrs.jacinthe · March 2012

A lot depends on how fast you swim and what stroke you use. However, for me personally, I just consider 10 calories per minute as an approximation. So 600 calories an hour. Based on my HRM, I think its a little low, but I'd rather underestimate calories used than overestimate and wind up overeating.

gumiberg · March 2012

i dont think it burns that many (relatively) because its not weight bearing. also its technique driven so the faster you are, the less you probably burn (may be good news for people like you and me, lol). i dont wear an HR monitor but i have to do intervals to even make my HR a tiny bit high.

megstoo · March 2012

gumiberg:
i dont think it burns that many (relatively) because its not weight bearing. also its technique driven so the faster you are, the less you probably burn (may be good news for people like you and me, lol). i dont wear an HR monitor but i have to do intervals to even make my HR a tiny bit high.

Actually swimming burns quite a few calories. It's a low impact activitity. According to my heartrate monitor 1 hour of swimming for me burns about 800 calories and that's using the free stroke. Sometimes I can only do 30 min because of time restaints but those are still at least 500 calories.

kat.in.the.hat · March 2012

mrs.jacinthe:
A lot depends on how fast you swim and what stroke you use. However, for me personally, I just consider 10 calories per minute as an approximation. So 600 calories an hour. Based on my HRM, I think its a little low, but I'd rather underestimate calories used than overestimate and wind up overeating.

that sounds like a good rule of thumb, thank you. MFP gave me more like 8 calories a minute for leisurely swimming (which about describes my 2:10 100 pace) so like you said, better to under than overestimate

mrs.jacinthe · March 2012

kat.in.the.hat:

mrs.jacinthe:
A lot depends on how fast you swim and what stroke you use. However, for me personally, I just consider 10 calories per minute as an approximation. So 600 calories an hour. Based on my HRM, I think its a little low, but I'd rather underestimate calories used than overestimate and wind up overeating.

that sounds like a good rule of thumb, thank you. MFP gave me more like 8 calories a minute for leisurely swimming (which about describes my 2:10 100 pace) so like you said, better to under than overestimate

I'm guessing the "leisurely" aspect covers effort, not pace. If you're putting your all into your 1-minute 50's, that's not "leisurely". If, however, you're just cruising at that speed, then yeah, that's leisurely.

swimmers - calories burned?

Re: swimmers - calories burned?

Choose Another Board

Search Boards