Calorie burning on a turbo trainer

pottssteve
pottssteve Posts: 4,069
edited July 2016 in Training, fitness and health
Hi All,

I was wondering if anyone had any information on the number of calories burned per hour on a turbo trainer for specific cadences and gear ratios. Obviously, individuals would vary depending on their mass (I assume), basal metabolic rate, percentage muscle/fat and factors such as air and body temperature. However, any sort of ballpark figures might be useful in helping me to maintain motivation!

Thanks,
Steve
Head Hands Heart Lungs Legs

Comments

  • imposter2.0
    imposter2.0 Posts: 12,028
    Too many variables there (including effort/power, which you didn't mention) to make any such calculation anything more than a completely random guess. Maybe try to explain what it is you are trying to achieve?
  • pottssteve
    pottssteve Posts: 4,069
    Imposter wrote:
    Too many variables there (including effort/power, which you didn't mention) to make any such calculation anything more than a completely random guess. Maybe try to explain what it is you are trying to achieve?

    I thought as much. I want to know how long I have to pedal in order to be "calorie neutral" while drinking one beer (Stella Artois, 330ml), which I understand is 154 calories, or thereabouts. :)
    Head Hands Heart Lungs Legs
  • webboo
    webboo Posts: 6,087
    I think it about 24 hours :twisted




    My heart rate Monitor reckons about 400 an hour based on my age,weight, height and sex. But again that depends on what session I'm doing.
  • AK_jnr
    AK_jnr Posts: 717
    1200 calories an hour whether you are in Z1 or Z6. If you wrap cling film around your belly like in Full Monty thats another 400 calories.
  • cougie
    cougie Posts: 22,512
    Get a power Meter and that'll help you.

    Fwiw I do sessions that burn about 600kj an hour - I'm sweating buckets with two Fans on.

    You'd be better off just not having that beer. It's far easier to not eat drink so much than it is to burn it off
  • sungod
    sungod Posts: 16,515
    if you have the power curve for the tutbo you can extrapolate power from 'speed', or get a commercial product that does the same, for instance...

    http://www.powercurvesensor.com/cycling ... er-curves/

    it is not as accurate as a powermeter, but probably will get you within 10% once the turbe has warmed up

    even if you just print the powercurve out and then hold a speed, you can do the calculation

    one watt for one second is one joule, there's about 0.24 cal/joule, but the human body is not 100% efficient, coincidentally/conveniently it's in the range where you can just say 1 joule is about 1 cal

    100 watts for an hour would be... 360 kcal or about 2.3 stellas
    my bike - faster than god's and twice as shiny
  • pottssteve
    pottssteve Posts: 4,069
    Thanks for the advice, guys, and especially to sun god for the link to the power curves - very interesting.

    All other things being equal (which of course they are not), I estimate I do an hour at 150 watts average. This is based on riding for half the time in 50x14 and the rest in 50x17 on a standard road bike wheel with 170mm cranks at approx 75rpm. This is an average of 30kph, making 150 watts on an Elite Fluid Elastogel trainer. Based on sungod's info above, one hour at 150 watts is 540 calories, or 3.5 beers. This is good, as although I only had 2 beers last night I also had a bag of crisps, so should just about have broken even! :D
    Head Hands Heart Lungs Legs

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