Polar calorie count?
 

Hi everyone!
A few weeks ago I was here asking about ur heart rate monitors and after reading many of you are almost in love with urs i bought a Polar F4! I really really adore it, but I have a question...

I use the elliptical machine for 50 minutes aprox and my heart rate usually stays between 160- 170s hrt per min, then do abs and situps and some arm exercises for 10 mins aprox, that´s an hour of exercise. My polar says I burn 580- 600 calories (depends the day).. that sounds like A LOT. Is that accurate or am i just fooling myself?

Tks!!

Nope...sounds about right, with your heart rate that high. My Cardio Kickboxing class is about 50 minutes of HIGH intensity cardio (my HR between 160-180) and 10 minutes of hardcore abs and I burn 600-700 calories, depending on how hard I work during the class. :)

That sounds reasonable to me, though it depends on your height, weight and age. I burn about 300 calories for every 30 mins of running and it takes about 45 minutes of strength training to burn the same.

I think you can trust your HRM. As long as you followed the directions when you bought it and entered your height/weight/age info--it tracks your heart rate and does the math about your calories burned. I forgot to mention that you should have entered all that in...but I think you probably did :D

Yeah, I entered all the right info.. tks so much for ur answers! Now i do believe my polar´s readings!

It's still an estimate, but it's close enough for me. :)