ExRx.net

Hello,

During the summer I always recorded the average watts for the duration of my cardio workout on the elliptical as part of my plan to keep track of my progress. When I returned to the university though I realized that the ellipticals here don't record the average watts. Is there a way I can calculate this on my own? What would you recommend paying the most attention to after my cardio workout?

Thanks as always,
Adrx

Why do you need watts?
I'd recommend only checking the time and distance. Nothing more is needed. Try to improve the other every time you want to work on your cardio. Simple as that. For fat burn, try intervals.

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Prove the impossible!

The shorthand training log provided in the aerobic section of this website uses watts, minutes, and miles in the shorthand training log. The amount of time I run doesn't often change since I use the PACE guidelines which can be found as a .pdf on Google by searching "Progressively Accelerating Cardiopulmonary Exertion." Therefore, recording the time for every run would be useless to me. I could record miles but that almost seems dependent on the amount of power (watts) I can exert on the elliptical machine.

Watts are a measure of the power generated. Multiplied by time gives you the amount of work you did. It's convenient to have a common reference that you can take from machine to machine as they may have different resistance. Another similar measuer is METS. You can covert back and forth between the 2, so if your new machine measures METS, you can compare them. Just search "watts mets" and you'll find lots of convertors. You can also convert to Kcal/min.

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Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~Hippocrates
Strength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley
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Thanks TimD

All the machines I use already give me the amount of METS so I won't need to convert that.