Community » Get Advice » Site Help and Feedback » Rest time on Workout tracker?

I have been doing a bodyweight circuit routine (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/ask-the-ripped-dude-whats-an-effective-bodyweight-workout.html?mcid=NL-NEWS06120212&rmid=newsletter_december&rrid=11676032) while at work and have been tracking it and before this one, a beginner circuit routine for three weeks now. Tonight we shortened our rest time between exercises because we had a couple deadline and cut the rest time rather than drop a circuit or set of reps. I adjusted that time from 30 or 45 seconds, depending on the exercise, to 20 secs because we averaged between 15 and 20 secs each set. This adversely affeced my calorie burn totals. Is the wait time (longer) more beneficial for calorie burn? I figured less time between and keeping high heart rate, we were sweating our butts off, would lead to more burn. Or is the time interval on the workout tracker meant to specify how long you did the exercise for? I know for cardio thats how it works, but based on the title of the column for input on strength exercise tracker i assumed it was not calculated the same way. If it is, since I wasn't tracking the amount of time it took to complete the exercise, just the rest time, should I not include the time period at all for strength exercises unless its something like Plank or other similar activites where the duration is key to the equation?

That is great advice mschrank! Thanks :)

Generally, Fitclick is "generaous" on cals burned. I have had to scan for the one "recumbent bike" workout that is closest to my own. On one, it has almost triple the amt of cals burned, than my own bike, so I always am aware that their calcs are off on many other ones too. I suppose adding you own, by referencing a professional bodybuilder site or something on youtube may prove more accurate on many of the weight training/lifting/circuit exercises-but still obtuse, depending on ones fitness level and body fat/muscle ratio.

Good luck!

The system uses a simple calculation that is essentially based on time spent exercising. So shortening the rest time would actually impact the calories burned. It's actually not very different than what other sites do, mostly because there is quite a bit of guesswork done to come up with the numbers. As users improve their conditioning, and potentially decrease their rest time, their calories burned values actually should go down. As you become more efficient (and lighter) you burn less calories (part of the reason why it's easier to lose the initial weight and less so as you get closer to your ideal weight).

The cals burned values should be viewed as educated estimates only. We have had discussion about adding an intensity factor, but even that would also be an estimate.