This brings up a question I’ve pondered (probably a separate thread):
If a running marathon is 26 miles, what is the equivilant (in miles) of a:
- paddling (kayak and/or canoe) marathon
- biking
- swimming
- other(?)
I paddle as much for my mental health as my physical health. There are all kinds of miles you can paddle. They can be easy and involve floating or they can be very taxing. I don’t discount getting the boat and gear to the river. That can be a whole process, involve lifting, carrying, or dragging heavy objects. Lately I’ve been doing some camping out of the boat and requires more energy.
Where ever I am paddling I like to experience the sensation of making progress. So wind in your face, paddling against a tide or waves, or just getting generally tired late in the day aren’t my favorite types of paddling.
I’m really sore today. Think stiff knees, hips and shoulders. I tried to keep up with the youngsters yesterday on the upper new river. No glassy wave went unsurfed and no play hole was passed up. A lot of that requires movement I don’t get from ordinary paddling. Twisting around for rudder strokes (surfing) and aggressively healing the boat put more strain on the body. I finished with some roll practice. Rolling requires a greater range of movement than what I typically do. All my ww buds say to do yoga. I sure that would help but I never seem to get around to it.
I do set goals for annual paddling miles, walking miles, and the exercise bike. I also track my roll practice, swimming, and even yard work. Having goals seem to help keep me motivated. When the paddling is tiring I remind myself of the easy days of floating. In the end nature calls the shots.
Here is my experience.
When riding a multi-speed, drop bar bicycle I aimed for a target heart rate of 140-155 bpm which I found very easy to achieve (too easy) while maintaining an average speed of around 18 mph. If I increased speed at all beyond that I exceeded entered my anaerobic zone.
While training for a downriver race in a stitch and glue Chesapeake Light Craft Patuxent 17.5, a reasonably quick boat but not a racing kayak, I paddled flat water on Harvey’s Lake, Pennsylvania. The circumference of the lake, closely following the shore, is just over 7.4 miles and I was shooting for, and usually achieved lap times of 1 1/2 hour, a speed very nearly 5 mph. When doing so my heart rate was typically in the 125-140 bpm range and never ventured close to the upper limit of my aerobic target zone.
Since oxygen consumption is closely correlated with heart rate, and calorie expenditure follows O2 consumption, clearly for me moderately vigorous bicycling burned more calories than quite vigorous kayak paddling on flat water.
I’ll have to borrow her fitbit
What were you paddling and the speed?
Strava & mapmyrun all show paddling burning more calories.
Here is a table showing estimated calorie expenditures for different activities for individuals of varying body mass. Obviously, these are only estimates but it might give you some idea.
The estimated calorie expenditure for a 180 lb person cycling at 16-19 mph is estimated to be 981 calories/hr. That is the same estimate as what is listed for “rowing machine, very vigorous” and “crew, sculling, rowing, competition”. But rowing on a sliding seat consumes more calories than paddling a canoe or kayak in a conventional manner because using a rowing machine or sculling employ the large muscles of the legs and buttocks to a much greater extent.
The calorie expenditures for swimming vary with stroke and intensity but are significantly less while calorie expenditures for running and cross country skiing are greater. Estimated calorie expenditure for a 180 lb person running miles in 8 minutes per mile is 1103 calories/hr and some people can maintain a faster pace, obviously.
If you really want to know how various activities you participate in vary with regard to calorie consumption, get a heart rate monitor and use it. The results are sometimes surprising.
thanks, quite an informative chart (I’m saving this away somewhere).
So, just for a ‘sample’, I’ll go with your 180lb person:
Runner 26miles (marathon) (for ease of calc, use: 25miles in 5 hours (5mph)): 654 calories x 5hours
kayak:
from chart: kayak calories/hour for kayak for 180lb person = 409
409 x X_hours = (654 x 5), X_hours=8, assume the kayaker paddles at 4mph, kayak ‘marathon equivilant’ = 32miles
sounds low, maybe assume 5mph (pushing it, this is for the Epic paddlers) = 8x5 = 40 miles
paddling for 8 hours at 5mph I think would qualify
(that’s not me, I’ll paddle the 40 in 10hours)
Like with most of the world, kayaking is misunderstood by nutritional researchers.
First off, kayaking is a predominately upper body exercise, not a full body exercise. Don’t try to talk to me about how a wing paddle works and hip flexion.
If you want full body workout on the water sliding seat rowing is a full body workout.
Floating downstream does not burn anywhere near the calories of marathon races, especially if you are a real competitor. I have seen many localized races where the locals thought they knew what racing was, but were wrong.
I was involved in three studies by students doing fitness papers. All three said that marathon kayaking is one of the top calorie burners.
The reasoning was the extended time of a high heart rate, O2 usage, and pulse management.
Kayaking does need some cross-training for a full body workout, though. For me it is a bicycles and resistance training.
There’s a big part of the answer. Biking on flat ground at that speed is easy.
I have more than the proverbial 10,000 hrs of cycling, both touring and racing, and my GPS/fitness watch clearly shows higher avg HR than it does when paddling. And I am paddling a surf ski, using a wing paddle. Given that surf ski paddling is much newer to me, I expected HR to be higher than when cycling. Not so.
If I maintain a good steady speed paddling against a stiff wind, then the avg HR goes up, similar to what I get cycling. Short intervals without adverse wind will get the HR higher…IF the “ON” periods are longer than the “OFF” periods and if repeated enough times. Otherwise, my HR goes back down into the just-cruising range.
The legs get worked significantly harder on a bike ride or a mountain climb than they do paddling. They have big muscles. It’s no surprise that cycling, running, x-c skiing are so demanding of aerobic capacity. Now add in climbing and it’s obvious why.
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Personally I huff and puff quickly while biking for hours, and on the rowing machine I can last for half an hour. Kayaking I can huff and puff not for more than a few minutes. IMO what it boils down to is leg muscles are big so its easier to burn more biking.
Depends if you’re using your legs paddling no?
15-17 is an average speed for long distances by most.
Unless you are rowing or sculling on a sliding seat, you really aren’t engaging the big muscles of the lower body, the quadriceps and the gluteals, to any great extent.
Actually, the guys that I rode with considered a speed of 18 mph on flat ground to be about minimal speed for long, slow distance training. Some of them could maintain a 20 mph pace for LSD training but I was never that fit.
I already answered that question.
I drive with my legs they are getting used a lot.
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Tensing the muscles of your legs against your foot pegs does not consume anything close to the amount of oxygen that is consumed through the full range of hip and knee flexion and contraction that occurs with rowing on a sliding seat or sculling.
Add that to my upper body movements of torso, arms, & hands. Both apps have me burning much more calories paddling. My legs more than tense on the forward stroke. They are moving although not like a cycling.
Yes, and when cycling you use your biceps, triceps, and shoulders to a considerable extent as well, especially when hill climbing, although the range of motion is not so great.
I’m not sure what apps you are referring to. Obviously the calories burned per unit time in either activity is going to depend on a lot of factors such as equipment, wind direction and speed, current direction and speed, gradient, and the intensity with which you approach the activity. There is no doubt that you can burn more calories kayaking very vigorously than bicycling at a leisurely pace. But there are many comparison tables that show bicycling consuming more calories than canoeing or kayaking when done at similar levels of intensity and I will link you to another. This is a long table that shows energy expenditures for many different activities in terms of METS. It is a long table so I will list some extracts from it below.
Note that for all of the bicycling activities the energy expenditures are for a flat surface. Energy expenditures are much greater if any hill climbing is required (and it usually is).
Bicycling: leisure, light effort, 10-11.9 mph - 6.8 METS
Bicycling: leisure, slow, moderate effort, 12-13.9 mph - 8.0 METS
Bicycling: racing or leisure, fast, moderate effort, 14-15.9 mph - 10.0 METS
Bicycling: very fast, not drafting, 16-19 mph - 12.0 METS
Bicycling: racing, not drafting, > 20 mph - 15.8 METS
Water activities:
Canoeing on camping trip - 4.0 METS
Kayaking: moderate effort - 5.0 METS
Canoeing, rowing, 2.0-3.9 mph, light effort - 2.8 METS
Canoeing, rowing, 4.0-5.9 mph, moderate effort - 5.8 METS
Canoeing, rowing in competition, or crew, or sculling - 12.0 METS
Canoeing, rowing, kayaking, competition, >6 mph, vigorous effort - 12.5 METS
So by this table the only time that the energy expenditure for kayaking, canoeing, rowing approaches or exceeds that for bicycling at even a fairly leisurely speed of 14-15.9 mph is when done at a competitive level sculling, crewing, or kayaking at a speed of greater than 6 mph. In no case do these water activities approach the energy expenditure required to bicycle at 20 mph or greater, which is a speed competitive cyclists can maintain.
As for myself, when I cycled regularly although I could not maintain a 20 mph pace very long when not drafting, I could certainly maintain a pace of 16-19 mph for some hours which is listed in the table as requiring an energy expenditure of 12.0 METS and a pace that I personally would not describe as “very fast”
As for kayaking, a pace of greater than 6 mph (12.5 METS) would exceed maximum theoretical hull speed for any of the kayaks I own (longest being 17.5 feet) and I would ask how many individuals could maintain that pace on non-moving water for any length of time kayaking.
Strava and MAPMYRUN
As I understand it, apps of that type make estimates of caloric expenditure while bicycling based on factors like body mass, average speed, distance, and elevation using GPS to determine distance and elevation change. I could be wrong because I haven’t used them. But they can only give general estimates based on population averages.
Of course, the same is true of the tables of caloric expenditure and METS that I presented. The best way to estimate your energy expenditure for any activity is to track your heart rate. Of course a determination of VO2 or calorimetric determination of energy consumption would be more precise still but that is impractical or impossible for most. Heart rate is a reasonable estimate of oxygen consumption and caloric expenditure. There are quite a few bicycle computers that will track your heart rate while simultaneously tracking average speed and distance. That is the most reasonable way to estimate your personal energy expenditure for the activities you engage in.
I know that I consume far more calories riding a road bike on a relatively flat course on a good surface at 18-19 mph for 90 minutes than I do paddling a kayak on flat water at a speed of 5 mph for 90 minutes because I have tracked my heart rate doing both. And I could ride a road bike at 18-19 mph longer than I could paddle a kayak at 5 mph on flat water.
By the way, this question has been debated a number of times. You might want to peruse this old thread: