Since your heart rate increases in direct proportion to your effort, a person can estimate his calorie expenditure based on his average heart rate for that activity, right? Well, sort of.
Formulas
An article published in the Journal of Sports Sciences offers the following formulas for calculating your caloric expenditure based on your age, weight and average heart rate:
Men: Calories/min = (-55.0969 + 0.6309 x HR + 0.1988 x weight in kg + 0.2017 x age) ÷ 4.184
Women: C/min = (-20.4022 + 0.4472 x HR - 0.1263 x weight + 0.074 x age) ÷ 4.184
Variables
Since muscle burns more calories than fat, a muscular cyclist burns more energy per minute than a flabby cyclist who weighs the same. Also, the more you practice an exercise, the more efficient your body is at conserving calories. According to the study’s authors, the formulas are only 73.4 percent accurate.
Automatic Calculators
Heart rate monitors in wrist watches and those in cardio equipment each use their own formula to estimate calories burned from heart rate. Your position on the equipment, the machine’s calibration and inflated calorie estimates that make the equipment seem more effective all affect the reliability of the calorie readouts on cardio equipment.
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