Smart watch users

[Whatwouldscullydo]

Ive recently invested in a smart watch. Second hand thank u FB market place certainly couldnt afford new. But im stuck on how to record anything thats not cardio based. The strength training function not only seems a right faff but anything that doesnt involve arms moving enough doesnt really record as a rep. And as far as classes go, something like body pump, well despite it being quite hard work, i guess because your heart rate doesnt increase dramatically enough or for long enough, and the constant switch between say legs then chest then back means that if u record it on the cardio function it comes out as a low calorie burn but its too fast with transitions to faff about on the strength fuction.

I mean i guess its not vital to know how mamny calories it burns but it would be interesting to know. And it cant be only 125 calories burnt when your quads are burning, your arms are dead from tricep dips and bicep curls and you have had three rounds of power presses. I.mean thats only fractionally more than the slow doss walk to the class in.the.first place.

So how do you all record it?

Have you searched the model online and read the instructions?

Your muscles might be sore but that doesn't mean your heart rate has risen much and that's what the smart watch measures. I put it as 'other workout' on my Samsung watch for classes like body pump or LBT and 'aerobics' for cardio based classes

I have read some. Theres alot. Only had it a few days so havent read and memorised it all . Im still wading through them when i have time . It seems fairly straight forward to set up. Ive mananged to record everything else i have done ok. But i havent read anything on functions for the hybrid style classe yet

What sort of watch is it?

Its a garmin forerunner. Im liking it so far. Although weirdly depite all the things it does, the time is always wrong 😂

I found an interesting article which explains it in some detail, and it seems you don’t actually burn many calories lifting weights as it is such a short period of time. It seems it depends more on your body weight than the weight you lift.

https://www.strengthlog.com/calories-burned-lifting-weights/

The formula they give is:

Calories Burned Lifting Weights:

• Men: [Minutes working out] × [Bodyweight in kg] × 0.0713
• Women: [Minutes working out] × [Bodyweight in kg] × 0.0637

So if I do 5 squats in 20 seconds (which is quite slow) and I weigh 70kg, I will have used 0.3 x 70 x 0.0637 = 1.3 calories.

So a session of say 6 exercises doing 5 sets of 5 reps each would use 40 calories.

Or, a squat which moves 50kg through about 50cm takes 250 joules, which is about 0.06 calories. So 5 sets of 5 reps is 1.5 calories.

You do use a few more calories when you have bigger muscles but the workouts themselves don’t use that much.

Its a bummer as it does feel like you’ve put loads of effort in!

That sucks 😭😂 thought lifting was harder going than that.

125 cals for a Body Pump class sounds about right, OP.
I only get less than 100 for an hour of heavy lifting in the gym (compared to around 600 for an hour's running, but then the weights have ongoing benefits that far outweigh the immediate calorie burn element).

On my forerunner I use the cardio setting for Body Pump and other gym classes, and the strength setting if I'm just lifting. The heart rate and cals burned etc always seems very accurate to me.