jmaak
Tue, February 17th, 2009, 02:19 AM
I'm trying to lose weight and have been running a lot lately, which was working great.
The problem is that I developed runners knee and needed to find an alternative to the treadmill.
I've been using the elliptical a lot now and wanted to know if 40 min @ 165 BPM on the elliptical is the same as if I run 40 min @ 165 BPM, in terms of calories burned?
beartoothweb
Tue, February 17th, 2009, 02:01 PM
I'm trying to lose weight and have been running a lot lately, which was working great.
The problem is that I developed runners knee and needed to find an alternative to the treadmill.
I've been using the elliptical a lot now and wanted to know if 40 min @ 165 BPM on the elliptical is the same as if I run 40 min @ 165 BPM, in terms of calories burned?
You should get a similar relative benefit. It's important to remember that the reported calories burned are total estimates anyway, so I wouldn't get too hung up on them.
Unless you are wearing a caloriometer (sp?) on your body, you're not going to get accurate readings.
I would make the assumption that due to the activity, you're going to burn slightly more calories on a treadmill than on the elliptical, just because you're moving more mass around.
Heart rate isn't necessarily an indicate of calories burned per minute, it goes beyond that. I could walk up behind you and scare the crap out of you and get your BPM to 165, but that doesn't mean you burned the same calories per minute as running on the treadmill.
I think I'd move to the elliptical to save your knees, if you don't, and you get worse, there's definitely a difference between doing the treadmill and being laid up!
Speedster
Tue, February 17th, 2009, 02:53 PM
What beartooth said all around. I hit the elliptical up now because of knee issues as well and I can get a pretty darn good workout. Upping the resistance on the elliptical will help with the caloric burn and just make sure you're keeping a good, steady rhythm. I like to watch the pace it's giving me to ensure I'm keeping steady.
Toward the end of my elliptical work I try to up the resistance even more a few times to get in a sort of "sprint" ending.