distance/calorie accuracy on cross trainers

Awful Scut

I bought a fairly decent cross trainer (400 euro) for home use there recently and have worked out a bit on it. With the resistance programs that mimic slopes, it does provide good hard aerobic exercise.

Just wondering if anyone knows how accurate the distance measurements are on them? Reads 5km or 7km and does feel like it, in fairness, as I'd be well shagged out. The calorie count would only be around 175 burned or something. Thought it'd be more, or does it matter?

Just curious.

cowzerp

i would tend to say that it is not accurate and not important anyway, work hard and burn as much calories as you can and then your doing o'k..

rubadub

It is only an estimate, use them as just numbers, try an beat your previous number. If you swing your arms walking it burns more, so they cannot take this into account. And unless it takes your weight etc into account it is a very rough estimate. A fat guy walking a mile burns more than a kid.

siochain

what heart rate are you working out too? Does it give your average heart rate and how long you are in different zones i.e. weight loss or cardio?

The FitnessDock

cowzerp wrote:

i would tend to say that it is not accurate and not important anyway, work hard and burn as much calories as you can and then your doing o'k..

I agree. My personal opinion is that they are not accurate at all. They take your weight and then give a very rough approximation as to how many calories you're burning.

I also ignore the whole Cardio vs Weight-Loss Training Zones they advocate. In my experience, short but tough interval training sessions work best for both getting fit and burning fat.

PAUL

olaola

I agree - I wouldn't pass much heed to them.
One thing I do though - I just leave all the options to the default.
So everything is constant - and I get a reading of how many calories were burnt. I know this is not accurate, but it gives me a good indication of how much work I have completed.

So if I do, lets say, 30 mins on the cross-trainer and I burn x amount of calories on the default settings - I can use that as a baseline. So if I do the same time on the same settings tomorrow and I burn more indicated calories then I know I was pushing myself a little harder. Ya get me?!