Yesterday my wife and I kayaked for the first time of the season. The local river has a moderate current, so where we usually go we paddle upriver to the next landing spot, take a little break and then head back down river. About a 4 1/2 mile round trip that takes us 3 hours.
I’m trying to lose weight, and I have an app that tracks calories and exercise. So I happily put in my 3 hours kayaking knowing it would create enough of a calorie deficit that I could eat or drink more than a normal day. 3 hours of kayaking, according to the app, burns a whopping 1,246 calories. My wife said no way did we burn that many calories. I agreed so I only logged 2 1/2 hours’ worth.
But here’s the thing- when we go upriver it’s a pretty tough arm workout fighting the current. If we did all 3 hours upriver I’d say we burned over 1200 calories. But downriver is easy- the only paddling necessary is to steer around logs and stuff. Many people who canoe and kayak that river only ever go downstream. So what kind of kayaking is the app assuming, I wonder? Is it assuming all upstream? Or maybe white water kayaking, where even downstream you’re paddling constantly to keep control? Or is easy-water downstream kayaking more of a calorie-burning activity than I’d assume?
Most apps and websites seem to peg calories burned at about 300-500 calories per hour for “moderate” effort while kayaking, so the number you got is consistent with that. These numbers are of course affected by how much of the time spent was actually at that level of effort, as well as your age, sex, body weight, etc.
I no longer track calories but when I did, I always assumed 50-60% of whatever an app told me for any given exercise and allowed myself to “eat or drink back” that much. I found this kept me at a deficit (or maintenance) and gave me a little buffer to not worry about that extra 47 calories when I had supper or whatever!
Sounds like a good all-around rule of thumb, thanks.
I agree with your wife 3 hours of kayaking is not 1246 calories.
Kayaking in still water isn’t significantly more intensive than fast walking. I’ve never kayaked up river so I have no idea of a comparison, maybe jogging?
I’d probably say down river is like half walking calories since like you said it’s mostly steering and the river is the source of energy
I kayak quite a bit, mostly on the ocean, and am always tracking the exercise component with an Apple Watch. Because it integrates additional sensors, like heart rate, speed, and stroke cadence, it gets a little closer to what seems believable to me. More in the 400-ish range, depending on how hard I’m fighting wind and swells.
One thing that seemed to make a difference for me is working on my forward stroke technique. I was working with a coach, but you can find plenty of examples online. Short summary: If your arms are really feeling the strain, you’re doing it incorrectly. Most of the stroke should be driven by torso rotation. If you’re really being finicky about it, you can lock your arms in position, moving them only up and down to raise and lower the paddle blade. As you plant the blade in the water, you push hard with the leg on that side to start your hips rotating. As that’s happening rotate your torso to pull the blade back. Lift that blade out of the water, lowering the other side, and you’re in perfect position for leg drive and torso rotation the other way.
The reason this helps is both because you get most of your stroke energy out of the big muscles of your leg and trunk, and because in using those muscles, you not only can paddle longer without tiring, those big muscles burn more energy than the small ones in your arms.
Thanks for the tips! Great info.
That’s 400 calories per hour, I assume?
Yeah. Which matches up with what various sites say should be correct for a 200lb kayaker. Minus a little because my boat is narrower than most, but plus some because I like to battle the swell.