How ****ed am I?



"musashi" wrote:
>
> Yes way. W/hr is less of a measure regarding caloric output than heart
> rate.
> <snip example about 230 pounder>

But, but, but... power is a measure of the rate you use energy. Calories are
a unit of energy. I'm no physicist, but it seems pretty clear to me. Of
course not all the calories expended go toward turning the pedals because
most of it turns into heat. So, maybe that's what you are saying? The
heavier a person is, the higher percentage of energy expended is turned to
heat? I'm not smart enough to know whether that is true or not, but I'd like
to hear from someone who is.
 
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 16:49:16 -0800, "Mark Fennell"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>"musashi" wrote:
>>
>> Yes way. W/hr is less of a measure regarding caloric output than heart
>> rate.
>> <snip example about 230 pounder>
>
>But, but, but... power is a measure of the rate you use energy. Calories are
>a unit of energy. I'm no physicist, but it seems pretty clear to me. Of
>course not all the calories expended go toward turning the pedals because
>most of it turns into heat. So, maybe that's what you are saying? The
>heavier a person is, the higher percentage of energy expended is turned to
>heat? I'm not smart enough to know whether that is true or not, but I'd like
>to hear from someone who is.
>


Well I don't know how smart a person has to be but maybe this will
suffice.

"Power monitoring has advantages and disadvantages compared with
heart-rate monitoring. Power measurments are more direclty related to
performance and are less dependant on environemntal conditions. On the
other hand, power is much more variable and it is more difficult to
use power as a guidance of training intensity."
High-Performance Cycling, Asker E Jeukendrup, Phd Editor. Page 77.
Copyright 2002

So, W/hr are good measures of performance but heart rate monitors are
better at measuring training intensity/energy. It's the
intensity/energy used of a person that decides how many calories they
burn. Not their performance.

Musashi
 
"musashi" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "Power monitoring has advantages and disadvantages compared with
> heart-rate monitoring. Power measurments are more direclty related to
> performance and are less dependant on environemntal conditions. On the
> other hand, power is much more variable and it is more difficult to
> use power as a guidance of training intensity."
> High-Performance Cycling, Asker E Jeukendrup, Phd Editor. Page 77.
> Copyright 2002
>
> So, W/hr are good measures of performance but heart rate monitors are
> better at measuring training intensity/energy. It's the
> intensity/energy used of a person that decides how many calories they
> burn. Not their performance.

Training intensity and energy are not the same.

If I take some fattie master and a pro rider, and have them both work at AT
for half an hour, then they will have done about the same intensity work, as
far as perceived effort and heart rate go (this assumes the MF and the pro
happen to have similar AT heart rate, which will be true if you pick the
right people). The pro will have done more work: their watts output will be
higher. But also their calories burned will be higher, and they will have to
eat more.

As far as your training goes, you only care about calories burned because
you need to eat that much or you will lose weight and get ill, unless you're
fat. You can work off perceived effort, or off heart rate, and that will
tell you how your body is dealing with the training; as you get fitter
you'll need to eat more because the same training intensity is now burning
more calories.

The problem with just training off power is that you can easily get
overtrained, and take a long time to realise it because you're still doing
the long ride at x watts like last week, and that's a bit up from last month
because you know you should be fitter now - when what you are actually doing
is pushing yourself a lot harder to do what should be an easy ride, and
pride doesn't let you admit that until you've already mucked yourself up to
the point of needing a month out recovering. Whereas if you keep an eye on
your heart rate you can catch that happening earlier, because your heart
rate will go with your training intensity.

Peter
 
B Lafferty wrote:

> I have all I can do to stay on the trainer for an hour before the
boredom is
> too much. What are you doing music or visually to make it palatable?

Most of us just tape photos of LANCE to the wall in front
of the bike and gaze lovingly at the disciplined visage
of Our Hero as we pedal.

Ben
using the fact that I have downstairs neighbors
as an excuse to not get on the trainer
 
On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 01:32:58 -0000, "Peter Allen"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>"musashi" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>>
>> "Power monitoring has advantages and disadvantages compared with
>> heart-rate monitoring. Power measurments are more direclty related to
>> performance and are less dependant on environemntal conditions. On the
>> other hand, power is much more variable and it is more difficult to
>> use power as a guidance of training intensity."
>> High-Performance Cycling, Asker E Jeukendrup, Phd Editor. Page 77.
>> Copyright 2002
>>
>> So, W/hr are good measures of performance but heart rate monitors are
>> better at measuring training intensity/energy. It's the
>> intensity/energy used of a person that decides how many calories they
>> burn. Not their performance.
>
>Training intensity and energy are not the same.
>
>If I take some fattie master and a pro rider, and have them both work at AT
>for half an hour, then they will have done about the same intensity work, as
>far as perceived effort and heart rate go (this assumes the MF and the pro
>happen to have similar AT heart rate, which will be true if you pick the
>right people). The pro will have done more work: their watts output will be
>higher. But also their calories burned will be higher, and they will have to
>eat more.
>
>As far as your training goes, you only care about calories burned because
>you need to eat that much or you will lose weight and get ill, unless you're
>fat. You can work off perceived effort, or off heart rate, and that will
>tell you how your body is dealing with the training; as you get fitter
>you'll need to eat more because the same training intensity is now burning
>more calories.
>
>The problem with just training off power is that you can easily get
>overtrained, and take a long time to realise it because you're still doing
>the long ride at x watts like last week, and that's a bit up from last month
>because you know you should be fitter now - when what you are actually doing
>is pushing yourself a lot harder to do what should be an easy ride, and
>pride doesn't let you admit that until you've already mucked yourself up to
>the point of needing a month out recovering. Whereas if you keep an eye on
>your heart rate you can catch that happening earlier, because your heart
>rate will go with your training intensity.
>
>Peter
>






I grasp what you are saying about fitness and intensity being
proportional.

But in the same person day after day the intensity is going to be a
better measure of the calories expended than watts/t will. As fitness
increases the watts one can put out per calorie should increase more
than the intensity per caloire, making the HRM a more stable measure.

I can't believe this is even a discussion really. As you said,
calories burned is only to know how much fat your are burning
off(3200/lb) or to know how much to eat.

And again, the HRM is going to reflect things altitude, which the
Watts will not. 200W/hr at 1000 feet is going to take less calories
than 200W/her at 9000 feet. Power measures won't give you credit for
how hard you are working but a HRM will.

Musashi
 
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 21:09:57 -0500, musashi <[email protected]> wrote:

An example I thought of.

If Ivan Basso were to turn 200W/hr it would take fewer calories than
if I were turning 200W/hr. His heart rate would probably be 130 where
as mine would be maxed out.

So again, the same performance but different calorie outputs. The only
thing proportional to the caloric output would be the HR.

Musashi
 
"Peter Allen" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "musashi" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>>
>> So, W/hr are good measures of performance but heart rate monitors are
>> better at measuring training intensity/energy. It's the
>> intensity/energy used of a person that decides how many calories they
>> burn. Not their performance.
>
> Training intensity and energy are not the same.
>
> If I take some fattie master and a pro rider, and have them both work at
> AT for half an hour, then they will have done about the same intensity
> work, as far as perceived effort and heart rate go (this assumes the MF
> and the pro happen to have similar AT heart rate, which will be true if
> you pick the right people). The pro will have done more work: their watts
> output will be higher. But also their calories burned will be higher, and
> they will have to eat more.
>
>
> Peter

We were just having this discussion last week. The hubby is a pretty
knowledgeable elite-level coach, and says that watts are a more accurate
measure of calories burned than HR. One of his cat-4 athletes and I were
doing the same workout side by side on the computrainer, except she was
working at her prescribed power and I was doing mine, when we noticed that
the CT said I was burning significantly more calories than she was. Made me
happy, but it didn't make sense to me considering that she only weighs a few
pounds less than me, and we were working equally hard . He said sort of
what you are saying, that producing more power burns more calories.

This still doesn't make sense to me. If a beginning rider, Leontin
Van-Moorsel, and myself, all of us with similar lean body mass, were to do,
say 200 watts for an hour, it would probably be a moderate workout for me,
while the beginner would probably barely survive it, and LVM would be taking
a walk in the park. Are we to believe that these 3 same sized people who
worked at vastly different intensities, all burned about the same number of
calories?

No, it's not making sense to me yet. Any of you smart physiologist types
willing to chime in on this one?

Suz
 
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 20:17:50 -0800, "Suz" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>
>"Peter Allen" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>> "musashi" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected]...
>>>
>>> So, W/hr are good measures of performance but heart rate monitors are
>>> better at measuring training intensity/energy. It's the
>>> intensity/energy used of a person that decides how many calories they
>>> burn. Not their performance.
>>
>> Training intensity and energy are not the same.
>>
>> If I take some fattie master and a pro rider, and have them both work at
>> AT for half an hour, then they will have done about the same intensity
>> work, as far as perceived effort and heart rate go (this assumes the MF
>> and the pro happen to have similar AT heart rate, which will be true if
>> you pick the right people). The pro will have done more work: their watts
>> output will be higher. But also their calories burned will be higher, and
>> they will have to eat more.
>>
>>
>> Peter
>
>We were just having this discussion last week. The hubby is a pretty
>knowledgeable elite-level coach, and says that watts are a more accurate
>measure of calories burned than HR. One of his cat-4 athletes and I were
>doing the same workout side by side on the computrainer, except she was
>working at her prescribed power and I was doing mine, when we noticed that
>the CT said I was burning significantly more calories than she was. Made me
>happy, but it didn't make sense to me considering that she only weighs a few
>pounds less than me, and we were working equally hard . He said sort of
>what you are saying, that producing more power burns more calories.
>
>This still doesn't make sense to me. If a beginning rider, Leontin
>Van-Moorsel, and myself, all of us with similar lean body mass, were to do,
>say 200 watts for an hour, it would probably be a moderate workout for me,
>while the beginner would probably barely survive it, and LVM would be taking
>a walk in the park. Are we to believe that these 3 same sized people who
>worked at vastly different intensities, all burned about the same number of
>calories?
>
>No, it's not making sense to me yet. Any of you smart physiologist types
>willing to chime in on this one?
>
>Suz
>

I suppose one could argue that the formula used by the CT could be
based on inaccurate information.

But I agree, if you have one person about to drop off going 90% of max
HR for one hour, another going 80% of max HR for one hour and a third
going 70% of max HR for one hour while all 3 put out 200 watts per
hour.... How can that be burning the same number of calories?

I can see it being closer than the heart rates would indicate just due
to the fitness and ability to maintain intensity with better O2
utilization and better muscle conditioning but if they are all going
to maintain that constant different effort I can't see how the
calories burned would be the same.

An interesting statment from the Text I mentioned earlier.

"..heart rate is probably a better indicator of physiological stress,
whereas power is a better indicator of true exercise intensity and
performance."

That contradicts what they say later about "power is much more
variable and it is more difficult to use power as a guidance of
training intensity"(compared to heart-rate monitoring)

So then the question would be ' is the caloric expenditure based on
the physiological stress or is it based on the exercise intensity?'

Musashi
 
Suz wrote:

> This still doesn't make sense to me. If a beginning rider, Leontin
> Van-Moorsel, and myself, all of us with similar lean body mass, were to do,
> say 200 watts for an hour, it would probably be a moderate workout for me,
> while the beginner would probably barely survive it, and LVM would be taking
> a walk in the park. Are we to believe that these 3 same sized people who
> worked at vastly different intensities, all burned about the same number of
> calories?
>
> No, it's not making sense to me yet. Any of you smart physiologist types
> willing to chime in on this one?
>
> Suz
>
>

I'm not a smart physiologist type, but I'll chime in anyway. What's the
worst that'll happen?

Calories are a measure of energy.

Watts are a measure of power.

Energy = power * time.

Therefore Calories burned should directly correlate to average power for
a given time period, whether the thing producing that power is a LiIon
battery, a fatty like myself, or Van Moorsel, or a moped. 200 Watts for
an hour equals 172 Calories.

Well, that can't possibly be true, right? If you're riding at 200 watts
for a couple of hours, you'd better eat or you'll bonk, despite the
thousands of calories stored as glycogen in your liver & muscles.

The fudge factor is efficiency. Training improves your efficiency and
allows you to convert more of the calories you're burning to power
output at the pedals. "Wasted" energy goes into cooling, respiration,
circulation, digestion, and certainly -- for beginning riders -- poor
pedalling technique.

So, as you train, your power output for a given calorie consumption
increases.

I have no idea how this correlates to heart rate. It might be valid to
correlate calorie consumption to heart rate for a given individual on a
given day but it seems like there's so many other factors involved that
any bigger correlations get muddled in the noise (for instance, your
heart rate increases dramatically if you're dehydrated, but I really
doubt there's a corresponding increase in calorie consumption).

-Moishe, dumbass newbie (but long-time lurker)
 
musashi wrote:
>
> "Power monitoring has advantages and disadvantages compared with
> heart-rate monitoring. Power measurments are more direclty related to
> performance and are less dependant on environemntal conditions. On the
> other hand, power is much more variable and it is more difficult to
> use power as a guidance of training intensity."
> High-Performance Cycling, Asker E Jeukendrup, Phd Editor. Page 77.
> Copyright 2002

Power is definitely more variable, and the basis for Jeukendrup's sentence
is its variability, not its innate unsuitability for measuring intensity.
(HR has a natural lag structure in response to stimulus that makes it
"smoother" and less variable). So while it may seem more difficult to use
power to guide intensity, all it takes is a suitable way to smooth.

> It's the
> intensity/energy used of a person that decides how many calories they
> burn.

Nope. It's the energy. Intensity doesn't matter.
 
Suz wrote:
> Are we to believe that these 3
> same sized people who worked at vastly different intensities, all
> burned about the same number of calories?

Yup.
 
musashi wrote:

> So then the question would be ' is the caloric expenditure based on
> the physiological stress or is it based on the exercise intensity?'

It's not based on physiological stress. If by "exercise intensity" you
mean the amount of work performed, then the answer is yes: caloric
expenditure is based on the work performed divided by the efficiency. If
by "exercise intensity" you mean the rate at which work is being performed
(i.e., watts) then you have to multiply by the total time to get the total
amount of work.
 
Suz wrote:
> The hubby is a pretty
> knowledgeable elite-level coach, and says that watts are a more accurate
> measure of calories burned than HR.

[snip]

> This still doesn't make sense to me.

Hmmm. Wife doesn't believe something husband tells her? Whoa. Stop the
presses.

> Any of you smart physiologist
> types willing to chime in on this one?

Wife doesn't believe husband who she describes as "pretty knowledgeable
elite-level coach" and then asks Usenet for help? Yikes.
 
"Moishe Lettvin" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Suz wrote:
>
>> This still doesn't make sense to me. If a beginning rider, Leontin
>> Van-Moorsel, and myself, all of us with similar lean body mass, were to
>> do, say 200 watts for an hour, it would probably be a moderate workout
>> for me, while the beginner would probably barely survive it, and LVM
>> would be taking a walk in the park. Are we to believe that these 3 same
>> sized people who worked at vastly different intensities, all burned about
>> the same number of calories?
>>
>> No, it's not making sense to me yet. Any of you smart physiologist types
>> willing to chime in on this one?
>>
>> Suz
>
> I'm not a smart physiologist type, but I'll chime in anyway. What's the
> worst that'll happen?
>
> Calories are a measure of energy.
>
> Watts are a measure of power.
>
> Energy = power * time.
>
> Therefore Calories burned should directly correlate to average power for a
> given time period, whether the thing producing that power is a LiIon
> battery, a fatty like myself, or Van Moorsel, or a moped. 200 Watts for
> an hour equals 172 Calories.
>
> Well, that can't possibly be true, right? If you're riding at 200 watts
> for a couple of hours, you'd better eat or you'll bonk, despite the
> thousands of calories stored as glycogen in your liver & muscles.
>
> The fudge factor is efficiency. Training improves your efficiency and
> allows you to convert more of the calories you're burning to power output
> at the pedals. "Wasted" energy goes into cooling, respiration,
> circulation, digestion, and certainly -- for beginning riders -- poor
> pedalling technique.
>
> So, as you train, your power output for a given calorie consumption
> increases.
>
> I have no idea how this correlates to heart rate. It might be valid to
> correlate calorie consumption to heart rate for a given individual on a
> given day but it seems like there's so many other factors involved that
> any bigger correlations get muddled in the noise (for instance, your heart
> rate increases dramatically if you're dehydrated, but I really doubt
> there's a corresponding increase in calorie consumption).
>
> -Moishe, dumbass newbie (but long-time lurker)

Nice explanation. Lurk less.
 
BTW, excepting that neither training nor pedaling technique appear to
affect efficiency, I thought the rest of your explanation was pretty
clear.

Heart rate is positively correlated with power--but for various reasons
(response time, drift, fatigue, and boundedness) the correlation is less
strong than many people seem to think.
 
"musashi" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> But in the same person day after day the intensity is going to be a
> better measure of the calories expended than watts/t will. As fitness
> increases the watts one can put out per calorie should increase more
> than the intensity per caloire, making the HRM a more stable measure.

What you're saying is, as fitness increases your efficiency increases (you
don't mean 'watts per calorie', watts is power, calories is energy, they
don't relate that way), i.e. the ratio of total useful work output (watts x
time) to energy input (calories) goes up.

Which is sort-of true, but once you have the muscle patterns down to ride a
bike (like everyone here does), then your efficiency is about 20% (IIRC),
and after that it will only change by miniscule amounts. Studies have been
done to prove that.

So the result is that, looking at one person day after day, who knows how to
ride, intensity is a poor measure of calories burned, watts x time is a good
measure. But you don't really care how many calories you're burning, you
care about getting in as much quality time as possible without getting
overtrained, and that goes with perceived intensity and heart rates fairly
well. For example, if you were to do every day two flat out 10 mile time
trials, one in the morning one in the evening, you'd pretty soon get
overreached (and overtrained if you tried to keep doing it for a few weeks).
But you'd have burned less calories than a three hour moderate pace ride
each day, and that isn't even particularly hard training.

> And again, the HRM is going to reflect things altitude, which the
> Watts will not. 200W/hr at 1000 feet is going to take less calories
> than 200W/her at 9000 feet. Power measures won't give you credit for
> how hard you are working but a HRM will.

Please stop doing this watts/hour thing. It's painful. Watts are a measure
of power. 'Watts per hour' is meaningless.

AIUI, simply living at altitude ups your calorie requirements. But you're
still going to be about as efficient on the bike. Just that when there is
less oxygen around, then your CV system has to work harder to supply your
muscles, and perceived intensity at (say) 200W output is going to be higher
than at sea level. The HRM will show that, and your training will have to
reflect that, but calories burned putting out 200W as a steady effort for a
given time will be the same at sea level or at altitude.

Peter
 
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 20:12:16 -0500, musashi wrote:
> So, W/hr are good measures of performance

What the friggin figsticks is W/hr?


--
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Thunderbird E-mail and Newsgroups - http://gettbird.com/
 
"musashi" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 21:09:57 -0500, musashi <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> An example I thought of.
>
> If Ivan Basso were to turn 200W/hr it would take fewer calories than
> if I were turning 200W/hr. His heart rate would probably be 130 where
> as mine would be maxed out.

It's just 200W. Not 'per hour'.

Yes, Basso would probably find 200W incredibly easy, and you might be maxed
out at 200W (I really hope not, though). But you both know how to ride a
bike, you'd both burn about the same number of calories doing it. If you
were to go out and do an easy three hour ride, and Basso were to do the
same, then the intensity would be the same in both cases, but you'd need to
eat less than Basso afterwards.

Peter
 
Robert Chung wrote:
> Moishe Lettvin wrote:
>
>>The fudge factor is efficiency. Training improves your efficiency and
>>allows you to convert more of the calories you're burning to power
>>output at the pedals.
>
>
>>So, as you train, your power output for a given calorie consumption
>>increases.
>
>
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15241718
>
>
>

Interesting. That study's subjects seemed to fit in a fairly narrow
range, though -- people who could pedal 80-90 rpm at 165W, with a VO2
max between 55 and 69, and between 68 and 81 kg. I wonder if the
results would change if they included 150 kg sedentary people who
couldn't maintain even a paltry 165W.

I guess my question is: is the efficiency vs. % of max power curve for a
given individual non-linear? If it has a significant elbow somewhere,
then I would expect to see very different efficiency numbers for
different people at a given power output, depending on how close that is
to their max. For instance, 400W is well beyond my LT, but below a
top-level pro's. If I'm anaerobic at that power, and the pro isn't,
aren't I necessarily less efficient?

-Moishe
 
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