How accurate is the polar HRM calorie counter? I input my hieght, weight, age and it tells me I burn 1300 calories for an hour run, on the treadmill, at my “zone 3ish” HR? the treadmill computer tells me just over 500 calories.
Actual number somewhere in the middle?
halfacre,
At least in this instance, it sounds like the treadmill computer is closer than the Polar HRM. I doubt you could burn 1300 calories in an hour at a zone three effort level. 500-600 sounds a lot closer, maybe as many as 700 in an hour. If you actually burned 1300 calories in an hour, you should have been soaking wet in sweat unless the cooling fan was set at hurricane level or the temp was 15 degrees and you only had on shorts and a t-shirt.
1300 calories in an hour is a pretty intense effort unless there are other things you are not sharing. Like you are 6 ft 11 in tall and weight 345 lbs.
You might want to verify what your Polar HRM actually accepted as your entries. There might have been an error or fat finger issue there.
the polar HRMs give you an estimated caloric consumption. It is based on some formula. It cannot be very accurate based on height and weight alone. Don’t you have the option to also enter VO2max, HRmax? This would make it more accurate. Although, it is still an estimate.
Polar HRM calorie counter is really inaccurate. I have an SRM and have checked my SRM against my Polar HRM. Polar is WAY off.
I typically burn 700-800 cal/hr in a hard ride or race.
I used to see those 1000+cal/hr numbers and thought wow. Now i know why my Polar was way off.
SDBiker
I’ve been told by an elite USCF coach that the Polar readings were accurate given you provide your stats. The readings that I’ve seen don’t seem unreasonable, although I’ve not done a comparison against other sources.
I have a glucose meter and weighted myself before and after the ride I just did.
Prior:
Glucose level 82mg/dl
weight 66.1 kg
Breakfast 510 calories
100km cycle during which I consumed 500 calories
After:
Glucose level 100 mg/dl
weight 66.0kg
Polar says 2800 calories
I think it is a little out 
Both are obviously wrong, unless you’re either huge or tiny.
At 165-170 pounds, you should be burning about 130 Kc/mile. It’s physics - energy required to do a certain amount of work.
My Polar is fairly accurate. Did you punch in your VO2Max?
You can compare your readings with results from metabolic calculations such as the ones provided by the ACSM: http://www.thecoo.edu/~kequick/acsmequations.htm
I have an excel spreadsheet at work that is much easier to use though. For runnning plug in weight, speed, and grade and you cna get cal/min plu gin the minutes exercised and you get total calories. Cycling you need weight and Watts. The calculation listed in the above link for cycling has ths section in it (kgrpmflywheel) these variables convert to kgm’s (kilogram meters/min). There are 6 kgm’s / 1 watt.
Anyone who would like to check out the spreadsheet feel free to email me at konaby2008@yahoo.com .
With running it is often stated that for a 70 (154 lb) kg runner on flat surface will burn ~100 cal/mile no matter what the speed. If they do a 20 min mile (3mph) they are burning ~5 cal/min for 20 min=100 cal. If they run a 5 min mile (12 mph) they are burning 20 cal /min for 5 min which equals 100 calories. If you are bigger than this size you wil burn more calories per mile, if you are smaller less. Obviously incline will raise it as well.
All of these equations are assuming average economy of movement and usage of oxygen. Someone with better than average economy will burn less calories than the equation predicits and vice versa with oor economy. I guess Mark Twain summed it up best “you have lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
what are you trying to say?
The difference in blood glucose concentration before and after the ride mean nothing in terms of calories used. also, the weight is not accurate enough. how much fluid did you drink, how much weight did you loose to sweating, how much…in summary, this data is useless to determine the amount of calories used.
If you don’t have a Polar with the OwnCal, it is very inaccurate. Owncal takes into account fitness level which can have a tremendous effect on caloric burn. Even with OwnCal, tho, the calculation has a tendency to estimate on the high side.
I manage an online weight loss tool that uses the same caloric burn equation as Polar monitors. But we use 7 fitness levels compared to polars 3-4 (?) at any rate, the equation and science behind it is all validated from the University of Colorado Human Performance Lab and we have found that because it’s so difficult to customize the formula for everyone, it’s all an estimate when you get down to it.
Once you have the static data (height, weight, gender, age and fitness level) set, the only things that matter from this point forward are duration and intensity(heart rate). Terrain, temperature, blood glucose, groundhog day they don’t matter since each variable has a direct efffect on heart rate.