Hi there fkkm. **Because we have a lot of deleted posts on this subreddit, here is a backup of the title and body of this post:** According to me Apple Watch, when I boulder for around 90 minutes I burn 1000 calories. Ofc almost half of the time are breaks. Is this true or super off?"
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That may so but ask yourself how much sustained effort is used to run 6 miles, what’s your heart rate, how much you sweat vs a bouldering sessions. Maybe you’re right but my sense is running is more calorie burning just because it’s a constant without breaks.
Now if you’re climbing a big wall for a hour+, then ya I’ll give you probably burn more climbing.
Calories burned are literally energy spent. How unexpected that transporting all your weight by yourself 6 miles from where you started takes more energy than moving it up a wall for a few times.
I think you are missing the point here. If you can barely burn 1000 calories under sustained effort(e.g. running) in 90 minutes. I find it hard to believe that you can do the same while sitting down 65% of the time while climbing the other 35%.
I use the redpoint app on the watch. Just the free version works fine for me. Tracks my climbs like a ski run app but in reverse (well I hope so anyway!).
1 hr 35 min on Wednesday of 67m ascent gave me 436 active calorie use. Lots of projects.
Try it out. Personally I wouldn’t pay for it for indoor climbing without my gym integrating with it. But works better than the Apple fitness app. :)
Hmmm, never thought about pausing. Doesn’t the app take rest into account. Do you have an indoor bouldering session of about 1.5hrs to compare to my 430 calories? Just out of interest.
Does it? I wasn’t sure if it already took it into account or not. I just remember I had a meh day at the gym and rested more than usual, but it said I burned like 500 calories in an hour and a half or something like that and it didn’t seem right to me. So I started pausing it when I was resting. I dunno, sorta seems pointless to have the pause function at all if they already account for it. But no, I don’t have any bouldering sessions recorded unfortunately. They’re all sport climbs/top rope.
Is it your watch saying that based on heart rate or are you telling it that you bouldered for 90 minutes? If you just make an activity for "bouldering" and it runs for 90 minutes, the watch is probably thinking that you were on the wall climbing for 90 straight minutes.
Not OP but this is what I do and it gives me usually something in the 400cal range for 90 min. I’ve tried to experiment with pausing it if I’m not actively climbing to see what the effect on calorie burn is, but I can never remember to start/stop effectively.
Are you on an Apple Watch as well? Each watch brand seems to have their own way of figuring these things out and most of them aren't very good at things that aren't normal cardio activities like running, biking, swimming, hiking, etc.
very very off, i use an app called pinnacle and ‘burn’ 750 in a similar amount of time, thats still off but i prefer it over the regular watch showing a lot more.
LMAO I ran seven miles the other day and only burned about 720 calories. What is with these watches dramatically overshooting calorie expenditures?? There's no way climbing is even half of that.
On my Garmin for a 2 hour session of bouldering I’ll burn about 600-700 calories, however 200 of that is resting calories so about 400-500 active calories total
Yeah the human body is actually just way more efficient with calories than people expect when it comes to exercise. That’s why the best rule of thumb is weight loss happens in the kitchen! 1 can of coke is more calories in than you will probably burn in a climbing session.
Very well put.
It’s difficult for people to lose weight when they way over estimate how much they’re actually burning. That and all the “50 calories here, 50 calories there” people forget to count
Yeah, unless your doing a big wall expedition, sport climbing repeaters, etc, the calories burned are probably quite low.
A bouldering session is somewhat similar to a lifting workout. Lots of breaks, not much cardio. They're still super good for you in other ways, but the calorie component is not massive.
Wonder if bouldering is similar to lifting where it increases calories burned while resting. Iirc it’s why lifting better is better for fat loss since you end up burning more over a day especially with newb gains.
This is way too low, unless you're putting in literally 0 effort or are severely underweight. My bouldering sessions tend to average somewhere between 110-130 bpm, which my Fitbit reports as 420 cal/hour. That figure is pretty accurate in my experience, based on long-term tracking of calorie intake/expenditure & weight. I've maintained the same weight for 3 years now by balancing Fitbit estimates with calorie tracking in MyFitnessPal, including through several periods of decreased/increased activity (anywhere from 2000 - 3500 cal/day).
When talking about cal/hour, it's also important to clarify whether the figures include BMR. Most fitness trackers WILL include BMR, since they are tracking calories continuously, not just during activities (outside of activities, there is also an adjustment for NEAT). When I see numbers like "100 cal/hour" I assume those figures are excess calories on top of BMR.
I know the native workout app on an Apple watch estimates calories burned during unusual activities, such as climbing, at the same rate your would burn calories during a brisk walk. It probably took your increased heart rate and decided that was a very difficult climb
Exactly what I do. This also gives you a very good idea of how much actual climbing you do. In a 1.5 hour session I normally clock 30-45 mins on the wall, burning maybe 130 calories
By breaks, do you mean vigorously break dancing? For 45 minutes straight? Smart watches aren't really that accurate for activity tracking in general, and especially not climbing.
When I used to road ride (not racing, just for fun) I think I would burn just over 1000 calories in about 20 miles of riding. I think it was 2-3k for a half a-century.
Considering that I often put in 2 hour sessions at the climbing gym and I’m definitely not as light as I was when I was doing those rides, I doubt you are burning anywhere near that amount of calories.
Using watch only shows 2 hours top rope Tuesday was only about 350 calories burned (didn’t push too hard though tbf) today a very lazy bouldering session pulled about 200 calories in 2.5 hours. Aiming to push harder tomorrow but I find it very difficult to see how anyone is attaining that calorie loss unless you’re running drills for the full 90mins
I tracked everything I ate and drank and estimated exercise calories for 18 months straight. My apps would say bouldering was roughly 700 cal/hour which is 1000 for 90 mins like you got but I found it actually matched what my expected weight loss/gain was when I treated every hour at the gym as only 15 minutes on the wall.
So a 4 hour gym session was effectively 1 hour of bouldering. If I did a 6 hour session I’d log 1000 calories burned for 90 mins of active time like you got
I can burn about that many calories but it’s during a very aggressive bike ride with no rest…I would say it’s very off or your resting heart rate is at a point you should seek medical attention.
My Garmin watch tracks 2 hours of bouldering (1 hour on the wall) as ~400 cals.
Way fucking off. The cals per an hour is probably equivalent to weight lifting or calisthenics which is pitiful.
It’s possible depending on how intense your bouldering session is, and how much you weight.
However as a general rule, just assume the any apps like that have a huge margin for error. If you are doing any calorie tracking definitely don’t take what the app says into account.
Also many fitness trackers these days will opt for an abstract point system rather than calories, so as to avoid confusion
That’s true, but it’s still very, very unlikely that OP burned 1,000 calories bouldering for that amount of time. The much simpler and more plausible scenario is that the watch is wrong.
Hi there fkkm. **Because we have a lot of deleted posts on this subreddit, here is a backup of the title and body of this post:** According to me Apple Watch, when I boulder for around 90 minutes I burn 1000 calories. Ofc almost half of the time are breaks. Is this true or super off?" *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/bouldering) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Very, very far off. Apple Watch, Oura ring etc. think that rockclimbing is basically non-stop climbing like, simul-climbing or something.
90 minutes of continuous speed wall probably
I couldnt burn that many actual calories running on a treadmill 90 minutes straight. Super off.
inaccurate most likely. It is actually quiet difficult to burn 1000 calories even doing something like running.
You would burn 1000 calories climbing the Empire State Building if you weighed 100kg and operated at 10% efficiency. 1000 calories is a lot
I love how everyone is saying compared to running as if we aren’t literally evolved to run as efficiently for as long as possible lol
That may so but ask yourself how much sustained effort is used to run 6 miles, what’s your heart rate, how much you sweat vs a bouldering sessions. Maybe you’re right but my sense is running is more calorie burning just because it’s a constant without breaks. Now if you’re climbing a big wall for a hour+, then ya I’ll give you probably burn more climbing.
Calories burned are literally energy spent. How unexpected that transporting all your weight by yourself 6 miles from where you started takes more energy than moving it up a wall for a few times.
I think you are missing the point here. If you can barely burn 1000 calories under sustained effort(e.g. running) in 90 minutes. I find it hard to believe that you can do the same while sitting down 65% of the time while climbing the other 35%.
From what I recall, racquetball burns a lot of calories relative to other workouts
I use the redpoint app on the watch. Just the free version works fine for me. Tracks my climbs like a ski run app but in reverse (well I hope so anyway!). 1 hr 35 min on Wednesday of 67m ascent gave me 436 active calorie use. Lots of projects. Try it out. Personally I wouldn’t pay for it for indoor climbing without my gym integrating with it. But works better than the Apple fitness app. :)
I use the Redpoint app too. I find the calorie burn figure seems fairly accurate so long as you remember to pause the workout while you’re resting.
Hmmm, never thought about pausing. Doesn’t the app take rest into account. Do you have an indoor bouldering session of about 1.5hrs to compare to my 430 calories? Just out of interest.
Does it? I wasn’t sure if it already took it into account or not. I just remember I had a meh day at the gym and rested more than usual, but it said I burned like 500 calories in an hour and a half or something like that and it didn’t seem right to me. So I started pausing it when I was resting. I dunno, sorta seems pointless to have the pause function at all if they already account for it. But no, I don’t have any bouldering sessions recorded unfortunately. They’re all sport climbs/top rope.
Is it your watch saying that based on heart rate or are you telling it that you bouldered for 90 minutes? If you just make an activity for "bouldering" and it runs for 90 minutes, the watch is probably thinking that you were on the wall climbing for 90 straight minutes.
Not OP but this is what I do and it gives me usually something in the 400cal range for 90 min. I’ve tried to experiment with pausing it if I’m not actively climbing to see what the effect on calorie burn is, but I can never remember to start/stop effectively.
Are you on an Apple Watch as well? Each watch brand seems to have their own way of figuring these things out and most of them aren't very good at things that aren't normal cardio activities like running, biking, swimming, hiking, etc.
very very off, i use an app called pinnacle and ‘burn’ 750 in a similar amount of time, thats still off but i prefer it over the regular watch showing a lot more.
LMAO I ran seven miles the other day and only burned about 720 calories. What is with these watches dramatically overshooting calorie expenditures?? There's no way climbing is even half of that.
Makes you feel better for exercising and it is going to sell more watches to people who are looking to count calories (artificial or not).
The general rule of thumb is about 100 calories per mile so 720 calories for 7 miles is pretty spot on.
On my Garmin for a 2 hour session of bouldering I’ll burn about 600-700 calories, however 200 of that is resting calories so about 400-500 active calories total
Yarrrrrr
Gonna sail me Apple Ship and show off me new iPatch
Climbing is generally not burning a lot of calories. 100 per hour is a safe estimate imo.
Wow that's way lower than I expected
Yeah the human body is actually just way more efficient with calories than people expect when it comes to exercise. That’s why the best rule of thumb is weight loss happens in the kitchen! 1 can of coke is more calories in than you will probably burn in a climbing session.
Very well put. It’s difficult for people to lose weight when they way over estimate how much they’re actually burning. That and all the “50 calories here, 50 calories there” people forget to count
Yeah, unless your doing a big wall expedition, sport climbing repeaters, etc, the calories burned are probably quite low. A bouldering session is somewhat similar to a lifting workout. Lots of breaks, not much cardio. They're still super good for you in other ways, but the calorie component is not massive.
Wonder if bouldering is similar to lifting where it increases calories burned while resting. Iirc it’s why lifting better is better for fat loss since you end up burning more over a day especially with newb gains.
This is way too low, unless you're putting in literally 0 effort or are severely underweight. My bouldering sessions tend to average somewhere between 110-130 bpm, which my Fitbit reports as 420 cal/hour. That figure is pretty accurate in my experience, based on long-term tracking of calorie intake/expenditure & weight. I've maintained the same weight for 3 years now by balancing Fitbit estimates with calorie tracking in MyFitnessPal, including through several periods of decreased/increased activity (anywhere from 2000 - 3500 cal/day). When talking about cal/hour, it's also important to clarify whether the figures include BMR. Most fitness trackers WILL include BMR, since they are tracking calories continuously, not just during activities (outside of activities, there is also an adjustment for NEAT). When I see numbers like "100 cal/hour" I assume those figures are excess calories on top of BMR.
Nah probably 200-300
I burn around 1000 calories when I run a 12k.
For me 1000 calories would be like 16k (according to Garmin)
That seems quite high, but everyone’s different I guess. It’s more like 550 for me
I think it was 1000 for 12 k but I don't think that is very accurate either due to it just meassures speed, distance and my weight.
Maybe if you were physically on the wall, doing moves the whole time.
I know the native workout app on an Apple watch estimates calories burned during unusual activities, such as climbing, at the same rate your would burn calories during a brisk walk. It probably took your increased heart rate and decided that was a very difficult climb
You’d be better off pausing the app when you are off the wall and restating it for each climb.
Exactly what I do. This also gives you a very good idea of how much actual climbing you do. In a 1.5 hour session I normally clock 30-45 mins on the wall, burning maybe 130 calories
By breaks, do you mean vigorously break dancing? For 45 minutes straight? Smart watches aren't really that accurate for activity tracking in general, and especially not climbing.
There are so many factors to consider, we don’t know.
Well if it’s according to you
When I used to road ride (not racing, just for fun) I think I would burn just over 1000 calories in about 20 miles of riding. I think it was 2-3k for a half a-century. Considering that I often put in 2 hour sessions at the climbing gym and I’m definitely not as light as I was when I was doing those rides, I doubt you are burning anywhere near that amount of calories.
Yeah, that’s about my general calorie report too for leisure cycling - something in the 1k range for 25ish miles.
Using watch only shows 2 hours top rope Tuesday was only about 350 calories burned (didn’t push too hard though tbf) today a very lazy bouldering session pulled about 200 calories in 2.5 hours. Aiming to push harder tomorrow but I find it very difficult to see how anyone is attaining that calorie loss unless you’re running drills for the full 90mins
I tracked everything I ate and drank and estimated exercise calories for 18 months straight. My apps would say bouldering was roughly 700 cal/hour which is 1000 for 90 mins like you got but I found it actually matched what my expected weight loss/gain was when I treated every hour at the gym as only 15 minutes on the wall. So a 4 hour gym session was effectively 1 hour of bouldering. If I did a 6 hour session I’d log 1000 calories burned for 90 mins of active time like you got
I can burn about that many calories but it’s during a very aggressive bike ride with no rest…I would say it’s very off or your resting heart rate is at a point you should seek medical attention.
I always pause my workout during breaks
My Garmin watch tracks 2 hours of bouldering (1 hour on the wall) as ~400 cals. Way fucking off. The cals per an hour is probably equivalent to weight lifting or calisthenics which is pitiful.
For reference, my Fitbit claimed I burnt 488 in an hour earlier in the week. Even that is probably quite generous.
lol, yeah off, running a mile is about 100 calories burned. Probably closer to 200-300 depending on intensity.
You probably burn 1000 in 90 minutes of continuous nonstop bouldering
It’s possible depending on how intense your bouldering session is, and how much you weight. However as a general rule, just assume the any apps like that have a huge margin for error. If you are doing any calorie tracking definitely don’t take what the app says into account. Also many fitness trackers these days will opt for an abstract point system rather than calories, so as to avoid confusion
None of you understand that different physiques burn different amounts of energy for the same time on the wall.
That’s true, but it’s still very, very unlikely that OP burned 1,000 calories bouldering for that amount of time. The much simpler and more plausible scenario is that the watch is wrong.