Does cycling burn more calories than running?

Factual Questions
1

(Both on machines)
My friend keeps posting pictures of her Polar heart rate monitor showing her burning >1000 kcal in a Spinning session. Fair enough, maybe she’s fitter than me. When I run, the treadmill says I burn about 900 kcal/hour, and I can only keep this up for about 200 kcal. At this level, I’m too breathless to talk.

Today I tried cycling instead, and the machine says I burned >500 kcal in 30 minutes. The odd thing is, I didn’t find it as tiring as running. Definitely not out of breath.

Most people online talk about cycling/running outdoors, but they seem to agree that cycling enables people to exercise at a higher level. Is this accurate? Or is the cycling machine and my friend’s HRM way off? Should I cycle to lose weight instead?

2

Gym fitness machines are notoriously bad at estimating calories. You should throw out whatever those machines tell you about how much you burned. There are some variables such as weight and speed that factor into the calculations, as well as the fact the stationary machines are not the same as running or cycling outside.

Here’s two charts to work with:
NutriStrategy - Examples of Calories Burned During Exercise, Running, Swimming, Walking to Weightlifting
Calories Burned Cycling or Riding a Stationary Bike

And an article that describes some of the considerations: Biking vs. Running: What's Better For You? | livestrong

Bottom line, running is probably better at burning calories over time, but there are too many variables to make a blanket statement.

3

Gym machines maybe, but are HRMs inaccurate too?

4

HRM are more accurate, but not infallible. Intensity, body weight, and a few other factors can raise or lower the number of calories burned by a large percentage. There’s no way to say that running is better or worse than cycling for burning calories over time. If you can run at high intensity longer than you can bike at high intensity then you will burn more calories, and vice versa. If you can run 5 minute miles it’s unlikely you can do better on a bike, but few people can run a 5 minute mile.

There are additional considerations. Running is weight bearing and can benefit your bone density. It requires less equipment and can be done most anywhere. Cycling is less prone to certain types of injuries that could allow you to exercise more consistently.

Bottom line is that exercise is great for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Anything you do is good. But, you are much more likely to have success losing weight by modifying your diet more than anything you do for exercise. In general, diet is more important than exercise by a large margin for losing weight.

5

Yes. I’ve used many different HRMs and those that estimate (guestimate?) calories burned are usually off on the high side. One that I use, a Garmin Edge 705, is well known to be high. I set my weight in 50 lbs lower than what I am to get the calories in the ballpark.

Here’s a recent article on running vs cycling calories by Gabe Mirkin, M.D. Doctor Gabe is very well respected in the sports community.

6

If you friend is taking a spinning class then I think that is probably different than just jumping on an stationary bike for 30 minutes. My understanding is that with spinning you’re working at a high intensity level and there is an instructor barking out orders to change resistance, speed, etc. You probably aren’t going to burn as many calories if you just ride at a moderate pace.

7

What SmellMyWort said. The few times I’ve been in a spinning class it’s been more equivalent to a 30 minute track workout with intervals, hills, Indian runs, etc than just a 30 run on a treadmill.

8

A good cycling class will have you breathless for most of the class. I can believe 1000/cal/hr. The instructor will often have the class crank up the tension or sprint as fast as they can. They try to simulate an actual road coarse, so sometimes you’re going uphill, sometimes sprinting on a flat, etc. Of course, the intensity is totally up to each person. If they don’t increase the tension very much or sprint, then they won’t get the same workout.

You could do the same workout on a stationary bike, but it would really be up to your personal motivation to push yourself. You should try a cycle class to see what it’s really like. Most people will literally be drenched in sweat at the end of the class, but I rarely see people on stationary bikes working up much of a sweat.

9

Completely anecdotal, but I just checked through all my latest tracked workouts ( outside, not gym ) and it’s reasonably consistent throughout that I burn:

  • approx… 1000 calories / hour of running (covering 12km or so on pavements / forest trails).
  • approx… 700 calories / hour cycling ( covering 25km or so generally on mountain bike, mostly on road / bridleways / forest trails).

A decent spin class involves a lot more effort than I usually put into cycling unless I’m training for something specific, so would have no trouble accepting 1000/cals per hour for that. But running (at least for me) still seems to be a better general all-round calorie burner, if that’s your main goal.

Soz, this post belongs more in IMHO, not GQ.

10

Just as I thought, calories burnt directly relates to effort. No shortcuts.

11

Heart rate monitors are accurate at measuring heart rate. Converting that into caloric expenditures is another matter entirely, and is often the result how accurate the equations they use to estimate the answer are. The key word is “estimate”…some are high, some are low. My best advice is to find the most conservative estimates (you’ll find a ton on the web) and use those if you’re really trying to lose weight.

As for cycling vs. running, it’s not all that straightforward. Spinning class (not the same thing as cycling) and running on a treadmill (not the same thing as running outside) further complicate matters. The #1 most relevant issue is how hard you’re working at each activity. Riding a bike in an intense manner CAN burn more calories over the same time as an easy jog.

In general, however, running is more efficient at burning calories than cycling in everyday practice. With running, you need to support your weight 100% of the time, more of your body is involved, and it’s impossible to “coast” like you could on a bike. On a bike, weight is an issue riding uphill, but not downhill, and most of your weight is supported by the bike. So if you have half an hour to exercise, most people will burn more calories running for half an hour than they could on a bike.

On a bike, terrain plays a much bigger factor in how hard you’re working. You may kill yourself going up a hill, but as you go down the other side, it’s common to reach speeds where pedaling no longer has any effect, and you end up coasting. Likewise a tailwind can give you a false impression that you’re working hard (if you use speed as a judge).

With running, you have no choice but to work hard. On a bike, you need discipline to work as hard (it helps to monitor your heart rate or power output so you don’t “cheat”) since it’s easy to trick yourself into thinking that you’re working hard.

Finally (and here comes the contradiction) if you want to burn maximum calories, get a bike. While running burns more calories over time (more efficient) riding a bike allows you to ride more TIME overall. So let’s say you’re able to burn 1000 calories/hour running, but only 500 per hour on the bike. Most “normal” runners that I know will run 5 miles or so on a given day, and maybe 10 miles for a “long” run unless they’re training for a marathon. That means that a “normal” run for less than an hour, and maybe up to a couple hours on a “long” run. Most cyclists, however, are able to for much longer durations due to the lower average intensity level of riding a bike. While a 45 minute, 5 mile run might burn 750 calories, a 3 hour, 50 mile bike ride might burn 1500 calories.

12

Are you escaping from the new Bicycling Magazine forum software too? :smiley:

13

One small problem with your last paragraph, especially the last sentence, is the dreaded ‘bonk’ if you ride 3 or more hours without taking in calories. My two water bottles would have about 100+ calories each of sports drinks in them and maybe a GU or Powerbar in the back pockets for a ride that long. That makes up some of the difference.

Still I’d rather do a 100-mile century ride than a half marathon any day. I’m not nearly as beat up on the bike even though it takes me over twice as long to do the century ride over the 13.1 miles beating my feet, and knees, on the pavement.

14

Apparently heart rate monitors can do a decent job claculating energy expenditure between sports albeit less well in females than in males.

15

That’s why I trail run, much easier on the legs.

16

I posted a similar comment in another thread. Gym equipment seems to provide a blanket estimate on calories based on time or distance. Thus no matter your intensity or weight, you will get similar calories counts.

Online calculators that let you put in your weight and an approximation of the workout intensity will give you a better estimate.

17

Hi Jerry :slight_smile:

Good point on the bonk, but that can happen running too. Another way to look at it:

The typical “long distance” race is a 26 mile marathon. Elite runners do those in a couple hours and then need time afterward to recover.

A typical multi-stage bike race will cover 100+ miles in a day, and requires 4-6 hours of riding time. Then the typical bike racer gets up and does it again the next day. And the next.

So while the marathoner might burn a similar number of calories in a race day, it’s unusual for them to compete at the same caloric burn rate day after day, whereas the guy on the bike will burn ridiculous amounts every day for up to 3 weeks in some cases. After a month, the bike racer will probably end up burning more calories than the runner.

Running is a microwave for burning calories. Cycling is more of a simmering pot for burning calories. If you have limited time, run. If you want to rack up big calorie deficits and have all day to do it, ride.

18

Your charts don’t show what uphill grades do. My husband runs at 18% grade (stage IV of the Bruce Protocol) for an hour 4-6 days a week. The calorie counter says he’s using about 1100 calories, but he’s not losing weight.
He’s 6’2" weighs 295 lbs. He’s on a clean, low carb diet*. He lost about 60 lbs initially, but has plateaued.

Do you, or anyone, know of a chart I could show him, other than the actual Bruce protocol?
*Lots of vegetables, berries, low fat meats.

19

Cycling gives you nice legs.

But seriously. One benefit to cycling is that it is easy to adjust your workout. Effort is nearly all due to wind resistance, so the effort required is directly related to speed. Speed up, work harder. Slow down work less. Spin a low gear and work your cardio, push a tall gear and blast your legs. Go sprint for a half hour or take a relaxing all afternoon ride.

Having said that…
Forget the calories. Find something you enjoy and get out and do it.