Many gym machine have inaccurate calorie counts. The reason for the inaccuracies of the calorie counts on gym machines is that the machine treat every individual as if they are an average of all individuals. The machines does not have the intelligence to understand you’re metabolic rate.
However, your heart rate can tell you how many calories you are burning. The higher the number on your heart rate monitor, the more energetic you are expending. Therefore, if you want to track your energy expenditure while exercising at the gym, you should focus on your heart rate monitor rather then the calorie count on the gym machines.
Use Your Heart Rate, Not Gym Machines
There are different zones associate with training on different levels. The first is an active recovery zone, which involves low intensity that burns a few calories. The second zone is the fat burning zone; in this zone, your body use it’s stored lipids for fuel.
Many people prefers to exercise in this zone because it is sustainable for longer period of time without making the individual feel fatigued. The next two zones are the aerobic zone and the threshold zone. These two zones burns a higher number of calories per minute than the lower zones.
However, as the exercise intensity increase to these zones, your breathing becomes a limiting factor in the amount of exercise you can perform. Additionally, the higher your heart rate, the more energy you will expend. However, a high heart rate does not necessarily mean that you are performing a good workout.
If you push your heart rate to the highest zone for too long during a workout, you may feel exhausted after the workout (burnout). Several factor will affect your personal numbers for each heart rate zone. One of the most significant is your body weight.
The heavier your body weight, the more calories you will burn at the same heart rate as an individual who weigh less than you. Your fitness level will also affect your heart rate and how many calories you burn during exercise. The more fit an individual is, the more calories they will burn.
This is true because the more fit an individual is, the better their heart will efficienty move the blood in there system. An elite athlete will burn less calories than a beginner during the same workout. The type of activity you perform will dictate the zones your heart rate will display.
For instance, activities like yoga and walking will keep your heart rate in the lower zones. However, activities like boxing will place your heart rate in the higher zones. High intensity interval training for short periods will create an oxygen debt in the body.
This debt of oxygen will lead to an afterburn effect. The afterburn effect means that your metabolism will remain high for several hours after the high intensity training. In contrast, a light walk will not create an afterburn effect in the body following the exercise.
To track your heart rate, you will need a tool. For example, you can use wrist trackers to monitor your heart rate. However, wrist trackers will lag behind your actual heart rate.
A chest strap will give you a better reading of your heart rate. By calculating your maximum heart rate, you can train in specific zones. One rule of thumb for training is the 80/20 rule.
The 80/20 rule means that you should spend most of your training in the fat burning zone and only a fraction of your training in the high intensity zone. By tracking your heart rate, you can turn your workout into a precise process. You can use your heart rate to control your exercise like a dial.
Furthermore, if you track your heart rate, you can be sure that you are exercising according to your bodys need. Therefore, if you track your heart rate while exercising, you will no longer have to guess at how many calories you are burning during that workout.
