Lobby: Do calories counted take hills into account?

I'm glad you've asked, but four days on there's no reply; I've often wondered the same thing - I do a ten miler across Dunstable Downs, incorporating an ascent & descent of over four hundred feet, yet I've done similar distances with very few gradients and the calorie count is similar.

 

So how about it technical people?

How could this possibly work?  Maintaining speed while climbing burns more calories, clearly, but how would MMR know what speed is relative to grade?  Maybe working off of a GPS device, but using average speed against calculated grade would be misleading (although it might come out in the wash in the end).

How about linking in real time weather data and accounting for wind speed and direction when calculating calories spent?

I have a similar question relating to altitude but with reference to distance travelled.  If going up or down a hill to get from A to B as opposed to going on a level straight from A to B, you are going to cover additional distance via the hill. 

Does Mapmyrun take elevation into account in its United Kingdom maps? My GPS and speed\distance footpod suggests I cover about an additional 0.5k than what is stated on Mapmyrun

 

Thanks

Scott J

I was thinking about this on an uphill during my run today, and wondering about my Garmin's calorie count...but then I realized (much to my chagrin) that it doesn't matter all that much, as most of us end up at the same place we started on our runs, and whatever hills you go up, you eventually go down (or at least parallel elevation changes). So even if we're burning slightly more calories per mile as we put in more effort on an uphill, we're burning slightly less as we allow the momentum to take us down another hill.

I would be love to be able to map my hill repeat route so that it reflected the distance with the hill repeats. For now, I over-ride the distance and add in the corresponding distance that reflects the repeats. (I did a quick measure of the distance of a hill repeat by mapping that on a separate map.) But I feel guilty doing it this way!

As an extreme example, it's clear that climbing up and down a tall mountain is much more work than just a level walk of the same distance.  But most of us only walk or run much smaller hills so the question for us is how much of a factor is it in small increments over time?  i.e. does it add up to a significant number over a period of years?

I would like to add my 2 cents, if I may.

First, as reported in the NYT (12/20/2007, "Putting Very Little Weight in Calorie Counting Methods"), heart rate does not always translate into calories burned. "Two individuals of the same age, gender, height, weight and even the same level of fitness can burn a different amount of calories at the same level of exertion....Part of that is genetic and part is familiarity with the exercise. The more familiar you are with an exercise, the fewer calories you use at the same level of effort."

 Also, a kcal is defined as the amount of energy needed to raise the temp of 1 gram of water 1 degree c. It can also be represented as the amount of energy needed to move a given amount of weight a given distance. So it doesn't matter if you run 5:00/mile or 10:00/mile, you will burn the same calories after one mile.

As far as running uphill, you burn calories more quickly than running on level terrain.

Bendy, you state that "The human body runs much less efficiently at higher speed, so I can't see your statement about  '5:00/mile or 10:00/mile' is right. Are you trying to tell me that you don't feel a lot more tired after the 5 min miler? and, that it is the same effort? (I doubt it ;o)"

 Feeling more tired and burning more calories is not the same thing. It doesn't seem right, but it's true that speed does not influence how many calories we burn (well, not entirely, as running does burn more than walking)--with any real significance anyway. Studies have shown that it takes about the same amount of oxygen (and, likewise, about the same number of calories) to run a mile regardless of whether you are running quickly or slowly (Daniels, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 17: 332-8, 1985). Running a 5-mile loop faster than usual won't help you unload more calories than usual (Ballor et al., Amercan Journal of Clinical Nutrition 51: 142-6, 1990). If you want to burn more calories, you run farther. 5 miles @ 9:00/mile will burn more calories than 3 miles @ 6:00/mile. I still find it hard to believe sometimes, but that's the science of it.

I guess what it all boils down to is that the calories burned tables are just a rough estimate of what you probably would burn in a perfect environment.  I still don't buy the fact that you will burn the same amount of calories doing a 5 minute mile as you would a 10 minute mile.  Granted in a perfect world where stride does not change between the two paces and there isn't any type of outside forces at work then you could possibly say that it's true.  But in the real world the vast majority of people are going to need to recruit more muscles in order to maintain a 5 minute mile than a 10 minute mile.  The difference probably isn't very big, and it's probably one of those things where people would say close enough.  I've been thinking about it quite a bit and it seems like it could be quite a logistical nightmare to try and make an equation to calculate everyone's very own personal calorie counter.  Considering you would have to take into account weight, body mass %, basal metabolic rates, I'm sure stride efficiencies for runners would also play a factor, aerodynamics in cyclist would also play a big factor.  There are just too many factors involved to definitely say you'll burn EXACTLY X amount of calories doing exercise Y.  So I guess, I'll just go with the guesstimates.  Let's just hope that calorie counters are close enough so we don't think we're going to lose weight when we're actually gaining it instead!