How can I calculate the calorie consumption during weight training?
If you want to do your strength training even more efficiently, you can calculate the calories consumed and supplied. Especially when building muscles, it is important to provide the body with more calories than it consumes. If you want to lose weight on your legs, the opposite would be true.
The so-called energy balance should be positive in weight training or muscle building. To calculate the calorie requirement of a strength athlete, many different formulas are circulating on the Internet. Some of them are more complex, others are quite easy to perform and calculate.
First of all, you have to calculate your own basal metabolic rate, which provides information about the calorie requirements of your body. The basal metabolic rate refers to the daily calorie consumption of the body at rest. For the calculation of the resting metabolic rate you need the body weight of the athlete, which is multiplied by 24 (hours).
For women, the value is also multiplied by 0.9, as women have a lower resting metabolic rate than men. An average man weighing 75 kg consumes 75 (kg) x 24 (h) = 1800 kilocalories at rest. In addition to the resting metabolic rate, the performance metabolic rate is also required.
This is made up of work and leisure time turnover. In order to calculate this value, a variable is needed that defines the physical energy consumption during different loads. The so-called PAL value is used for this purpose.
Different values are given for the different activity levels: These PAL values indicate the physical activity in everyday life. If sporting activity is added, the PAL value increases by a further ten percent for every hour of sport per day. The performance conversion is thus calculated from PAL (sport) + PAL (leisure).
Our example person mainly performs standing activities (PAL value 1.8). This value increases by a further ten percent because one hour of sport is done every day. This results in a PAL value (for 60 minutes of sport) of 0.1, which means that the performance turnover is calculated as follows: Performance Metabolic Rate = PAL-Leisure (1.8) + PAL-Sport (0.1) = 1.9.
Another variable is Digestion Loss, which indicates the energy lost through digestion. Digestion loss is usually given as approximately ten percent. Now all values can be included in the calculation and the calorie consumption can be calculated for people who do strength training.
The example person for the calculation has a resting metabolic rate of 1800 calories. According to the above example calculation, the value of the power conversion is 1.9. The digestive conversion is now added to this value (0.1), resulting in a PAL value of 2.0.
Therefore the example person needs an average energy of 1800 calories x 2.0 = 3600 calories. The sample person should now consume 3600 calories daily to neither gain nor lose weight. If the strength training is intended to build muscle, then more than the 3600 calories should be consumed.
- Sleep: 1,0
- Mainly sitting or lying activity: 1.2
- Desk work: 1.3 to 1.4
- Partly standing, mainly sitting: 1.6 to 1.7
- Predominantly standing activity: 1.8 to 1.9
- Physically strenuous work: 2.0 to 2.4
