I found MFP over-estimates swimming calories.

I use 150 calories for every 1000 yards I swim

I'm guessing YMMV. 1000 meters is like an hour for some of us!

That's a good point.
I'm an ok swimmer but not great. For reference, a swim practice lasting an hour would be aprx 3000 to 3500 yards

I think it underestimate or at least undercalls a swim.

I hate that it refers to my 10x100m sets at 1:20-1:25 "easy swimming" in the description. Yes, I'm not that fast, but I wouldn't call it easy swimming.

I actually use 100 calories for every 500 meters (not yards). Not that you asked, but for cycling I use 100 calories per 9 minutes, and running (jogging) I use 100 calories per 8 minutes.

I assume swimming burns no calories, since I am:

a). Slower than a sedated adult-onset otter.
b). Consuming GU gels and hydration drinks faster than I can burn calories.
c). Starving after swim, so I assume the worst-case scenario to prevent over-grubbing after workout.

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“Bloom wherever you are planted"

Search Eload and nutrition for racing. They have a good calorie calculator for, racing nutrition and for swimming. Probably the most logical I've seen.

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https://twitter.com/mungub

Guesstimate (one informed by relatively extensive reading) - I figure that for a 1hr masters workout of 2200 yards I'm burning maybe 350 kcal (female, slow!), 1.5hr workout of 3200 or so maybe more like up to 500. Very easy to overestimate swim calories - err on side of caution.

Here you go: http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...es%20burned;#5404691

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

By how many slices of pizza I eat after practice.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

The article posted in the thread you linked to give a formula of body weight in KG X Distance swam in Kilometres X 4 to get calories. My last swim work out (rest week) was 2.4km. By the articles math, that would be 2.4 X 4 X 84 (the reason I'm counting calories) = 806

That seems pretty high. My Fenix 2 says 565, which still seems a touch high to me.

I should be able to eat a lot more pizza if those are correct :)

Think that formula is a bit generous. Swam 3.5 km today, 62 mins, i doubt it was more than 650 calories! No pizza lunch for me

I've used my garmin 910 in the pool alot, I avg 22-24 sec per 25meters, it shows me 5cal per lap when i donw load my data to the Garmin portal.

I guesstimate 200 calories per thousand freestyle. Breaststroke will burn more (fly too I think)

I've always been interested in caloric differences for swim vs kick vs pull

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Well, i am just giving out a published reference on the subject of this thread. To some extent, the formula of km x 4 may be a little high but i don't think it is that high. I've been using 275 cal/1000 yd for many years, which for me (6'1.5", 176 lb (80 kg), w/ long arms [wingspan 77", or equiv of an average 6'5" person] and long legs, about 10.5% fat) would imply about 3.82 x 80 = 306 cal/1000 m or about 275/1000 yd. I use 140 cal/mi for running, i.e. 1000 yd sw = about 2 mi run, or 500 yd sw = 1 mi run. For walking 100 cal/ mi, for cycling 50 cal/mi. As for baseline caloric needs w/ no exercise at all, i use 2500 cal/day. In combo, these numbers work for me:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

We're the same height, I could probably use the same numbers you do (although you must be more muscular than me, because I was well above 10% body fat when I was at 178 lbs).

This article has an interesting spreadsheet based on published research relating energy expenditure to stroke and speed:


For example, freestyle at 1.5 m/s (1:07 min/100m or 1:01 min/100yd) takes 309 kcal per 1000m, but only 160 kcal per 1000m at 1 m/s (1:40min/100m or 1:31min/100yd), according to this work.

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Ale Martinez
www.amtriathlon.com

Maybe but also the long arm/leg thing makes big diff; i have a good friend who is about 6' even but with long torso and shorter legs. In theory, we should look roughly same in terms of "skinniness" at a weight of about 5 lbs apart but in reality it is more like 15-20, e.g. when he gets over up to 170, he starts to verge on looking a dab chunky, whereas i think i'd have to go to about 188 before this would happen. I've never been over 184 so not sure, but, when we both weigh say 170, i look quite skinny whereas he is a dab chunky.

So many variables in losing weight, so really just weighing every day and being certain you are eating consid less than you think you're burning is only way to do it. I will go down to 170, or even 160 when really training a lot, e.g. 20-25 hr/wk, but all my friends think i "look" a lot better at 175-180, e.g. more muscular. Acc to my % fat measurements, i seem to lose about half fat and half muscle when losing weight, so my upper body starts to look pretty small at 160-ish. I've gotten to where i just don't like looking anorexic anymore:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

This is an interesting article but i wonder if something is a bit off; i say this b/c in measurements of energy used for diff running paces from 5:00/mi up to 12:00/mi, research using same methodology, i.e. metabolic cart measuring amount of O2 burned, has been done many times and has repeatedly shown that the energy cost per mile is the same regardless of speed. Obv, you burn cal/hr at a much higher rate if you're going 6:00 miles vs 12:00 miles, double actually per hour of running, but the rate per unit distance is same. I can't see why it would be diff for swimming, or for cycling either for that matter. Also, the article i linked to up in post 10 has a diff viewpoint, citing a 4 cal/kg body weight/km swum figure, regardless of speed.

Based solely on my personal experience, i think the real truth is somewhere in between, i.e. there is some impact of speed in any endeavor, be it S, B, or R, but it might be more in the "after-burn" effect, i.e. your body is more revved up, i.e. your HR is still elevated, after a hard effort than after an easy effort of same distance, so you burn more calories over the next 10-15 hrs than you would normally. So many variables...:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

It's because of the fact that the resistance offered by water increases by your speed. The increased resistance in running is much lower. It's the same on your bike, riding a 40k as fast as possible will burn a lot more than if you just cruise it. If I can do it in 50 minutes on 300 watts (costing me 1100 kcal) I could just as well do it in 65 minutes on 180w, costing me 650 kcal.

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Endurance coach | Physiotherapist (primary care) | Bikefitter | Swede

Just to throw another wrench into this, calories burned swimming is probably dependent on technique as well. Someone thrashing about to swim 1:40/100m very well might burn more calories than a "fish" cruising along at 1:10/100m.

(Quote) "It's because of the fact that the resistance offered by water increases by your speed. The increased resistance in running is much lower. It's the same on your bike, riding a 40k as fast as possible will burn a lot more than if you just cruise it. If I can do it in 50 minutes on 300 watts (costing me 1100 kcal) I could just as well do it in 65 minutes on 180w, costing me 650 kcal." (Quote)

I'm well aware of this increase in resistance but i still think the differences given in that article, e.g. 278 cal/1000 yd at 1:01/100 yd vs 144 cal/1000 m at 1:31/100 yd are just too drastic. If you go to the spreadsheet, the example given therein is at 1:15/100 yd and only gives 193.5 cal/1000 yd. I have done a ton of swimming in my life and, if i were to only have eaten 194 cal for every 1000 swum at 1:15/100, then i would have starved to death by now. Seriously, i have been tracking my swimming, as well as the B and R, and estim other cal burn for many years, and i feel like i have it down pretty well. Also, i started the cal tracking back when i was "just a swimmer", so i was only looking at cals burned swimming. My estimate is 275 cal/1000 yd on average, but i am definitely NOT averaging 1:01/100 yd across all workouts, which is what this study is saying i'd need to doing to burn 278 cal/1000 yd. Part of my increased cal burn is prob due to the fact that i'm about 80 kg vs the 70 kg "average man" used in the study, but then they say that weight does not affect cals burned in the swim the way it does in running due to the obv diffs in gravity's involvement. In any case, i certainly understand that going faster requires more energy output but i just don't think the variance is as great as this study purports to show.

One other thought: when tired, the perceived effort required to go a given speed is a lot more than the effort that would be required to do this same pace when feeling really good. Now i know that perceived effort isn't everything but, if you're having to work really hard just to go say 1:20/100 yd on a tired day, whereas you could cruise at 1:20 on a good day, it certainly "feels" like i'm doing a lot more work on the tired day than on the good day, despite the pace being the same. AFAIK, no one has done any detailed studies on swimmers across a season, which would be very interesting to see how cals burned vary with fatigue levels.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Ale - I've been thinking a bit more about this and the main thought that has occurred to me is that the article and spreadsheet above are based on measurements taken from elite swimmers. Now the author may say that 4:00 for 400 LCM is "sub-elite" but well, it is just very barely sub-elite, since the WR is only 3:40. Guys who can swim that kind of time are extremely efficient in the water and generally have great flexibility and strength, so they may burn only 160 cal/1000 m at a 1:40/100 m pace but, for your more average age group competitive swimmer, they will prob burn more and then your average Joe-lap swimmer even more for any given pace. So, I think the only way to get any handle on swim cal burning is to very carefully monitor your calories in vs out on on days when you swim. Swim calories are probably pretty person specific.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Eric, I tend to agree with your interpretation. Swimming seems to be complicated because economy is not constant WRT speed and surely there is wide variability between individuals of different technical levels, but I haven't found enough published data.

Running is somewhat simpler since economy is mostly independent of speed in the endurance range, but while the 1kcal/kg/km or 200ml O2/kg/km seems to be a good average, the range is at least +/-20%, in swimming it could be wider due to the greater technique influence.

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Ale Martinez
www.amtriathlon.com