Calories burned ....

[seadweller]

just a general question ...

If climb at a rate of a 1000ft/hour, approximately how many calories are you gonna burn?

thanks.

[AlanK]

If climb at a rate of a 1000ft/hour, approximately how many calories are you gonna burn?

I posted this on the What's a good way to measure hiking performance? thread on October 24, 2007.

In one of the several discussions on the WPS Message Board of hiking energy expenditure , I offered the following rule of thumb:

energy used (in Calories) = 0.6 * weight (in pounds) * distance (in miles) * (1 + 8.8 * grade)

This formula is based on data I gathered from various Web sites about 5 years ago. I have since found other data that do not agree perfectly, but the general trend is ok. (At some point, I would like to take another, more comprehensive, look at the available data, but that can wait.) I should mention that this works for hiking on level ground or uphill. I can make a quasi-derivation of this formula from basic physics, albeit with a fudge factor or two garnered from the literature. We'll save that, and the discussion of downhill walking, for another time.

So,
Power (in Calories/hr) = 0.6 * weight (in pounds) * speed (in mph) * (1 + 8.8 * grade)
or
Power (in Calories/hr) = 0.6 * weight (in pounds) * [speed (in mph) + 1.7 * rate of elevation gain (in 1000s of ft/hr)]