I started working out again a few weeks ago. Since then I’ve pretty much used the elliptical trainer exclusively. I have been doing Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays as cardio days where I push myself on the elliptical for a half hour. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I just do about 10 - 15 minutes to warm up then work on strength training.
Today I figured I would give the recumbent bike a try for my warm up before hitting the weight machines.
According to the display, I burned as many calories in 15 minutes on the recumbent bike, just barely breaking a sweat, as I did when I busted my butt on the elliptical trainer for 25 minutes yesterday.
Is the recumbent bike that much more efficient in burning calories than the elliptical trainer? If that’s the case, then on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I could just up the intensity on the recumbent bike to the level I get when I use the elliptical trainer and burn 3 times as many calories. Or are the two pieces of equipment calibrated differently and I’d be burning the same amount of calories at the same heart rate?
Certainly the resistence you dial in on each machine will have an effect, but all things considered I’d think the elliptical machine would burn more calories. If for no there reason, you’re supporting your own body weight while striding.
First - calorie counters on all gym equipment are moderately useless. They aren’t calibrated to anything, and they can’t be compared from machine to machine, let alone different types of machines. So, ignore those numbers.
Second - to a rough degree, what matters is time and intensity. If you felt like you weren’t working hard on the bike, you probably weren’t. I good rough measure is your heart rate, but the heart rate monitors built in to the exercise equipment are also notoriously inaccurate. Take your own pulse.
100% agree. Don’t count on those calorie counters. In fact, I seem to recall a study that said they often overestimate up to 30%.
As said, if your heart rate is up (take it yourself or get a HR monitor) and you’re breaking a sweat, that’s where you want to be. Alternatively, you can use the Rate of Perceived Exertion scale.
Yeah, the elliptical always gives me some outrageous figure like 400 calories after a half hour. I enter my age and weight, as if that will return more accurate numbers, but really I’m just entering them because I like pushing buttons. I just use the machine for 30 min, or until that weird guy who always grunts on the treadmill comes in.