Calories Burned

[maf427]

Does anyone know how many calories per hour are burned playing
GT with a wheel. 💡

 

[Transformers]

Depends on your force feedback setting.

Considering that vigrously typing for an hour is about 30.
I'd say anywhere from 30 to 80 Calories per hour.

Burning close to 1 calorie a minute.

 

[iamsupernasty]

Depends on the track, the car, the tires, the competition and your consistency. I would say the range is anywhere from 0 to just over 0.

GT5 is not a sport.

 

[playnthru]

Depends on the track, the car, the tires, the competition and your consistency. I would say the range is anywhere from 0 to just over 0.

GT5 is not a sport.

Neither is being awake yet it still burns calories.

 

[TextRich]

Depends on the track, the car, the tires, the competition and your consistency. I would say the range is anywhere from 0 to just over 0.

You are either ignorant or joking.

Calories burned in road and race driving.

340 (at 150 lbs.) calories for race driving - given the lesser intensity of playing GT5 with a force feedback wheel 100-150 calories per hour seems like a reasonable estimate. That would go up depending on the type of car (very slow to very fast), track surface (smooth to rough) and type (oval with a few turns? winding road course with lots of hard turning?) and intensity of competition (against easy AI in A-Spec or the best GTP has to offer online).

340 for race driving sounds like it depends on the type of racing - F1 drivers race at a near maximal heart rate for nearly 2 hours and that would kill a middle-aged couch potato on the spot. 340 calories/hour is way too low!

 

[seanneedscar]

You are either ignorant or joking.

Calories burned in road and race driving.

340 (at 150 lbs.) calories for race driving - given the lesser intensity of playing GT5 with a force feedback wheel 100-150 calories per hour seems like a reasonable estimate. That would go up depending on the type of car (very slow to very fast), track surface (smooth to rough) and type (oval with a few turns? winding road course with lots of hard turning?) and intensity of competition (against easy AI in A-Spec or the best GTP has to offer online).

340 for race driving sounds like it depends on the type of racing - F1 drivers race at a near maximal heart rate for nearly 2 hours and that would kill a middle-aged couch potato on the spot. 340 calories/hour is way too low!

I hope you mean 150 calories total burned in one hour, and not 150 on top of the 80-100 you burn just being alive.

 

[TwistyDrift]

Lololol, ^^ I never knew having my FFB to 10, Power Assist off and Simulation mode, never knew that I could be losing 100 calories. I play like 4-5 hours straight with comfort hard (drifting).

 

[iamsupernasty]

You are either ignorant or joking.

Calories burned in road and race driving.

340 (at 150 lbs.) calories for race driving - given the lesser intensity of playing GT5 with a force feedback wheel 100-150 calories per hour seems like a reasonable estimate. That would go up depending on the type of car (very slow to very fast), track surface (smooth to rough) and type (oval with a few turns? winding road course with lots of hard turning?) and intensity of competition (against easy AI in A-Spec or the best GTP has to offer online).

340 for race driving sounds like it depends on the type of racing - F1 drivers race at a near maximal heart rate for nearly 2 hours and that would kill a middle-aged couch potato on the spot. 340 calories/hour is way too low!

Call me ignorant, then provide no real information to backup your point.

GT5 is not real racing, and arbitrarily assigning a usage of 100-150 calories due to your perceived level of lessened intensity is either a joke or your just ignorant.

Obviously people burn calories just being awake, but I bet GT5 doesnt do much to increase that total. Maybe when your heart starts racing at the end of a tight battle, it may increase your calorie burn slightly, but there is no way to assign a burn per hour anywhere close to your assumption.

I've done real race driving and GT5 and the difference in energy required is enormous.

 

[Omnis]

A lot.

 

[TwistyDrift]

Call me ignorant, then provide no real information to backup your point.

GT5 is not real racing, and arbitrarily assigning a usage of 100-150 calories due to your perceived level of lessened intensity is either a joke or your just ignorant.

Obviously people burn calories just being awake, but I bet GT5 doesnt do much to increase that total. Maybe when your heart starts racing at the end of a tight battle, it may increase your calorie burn slightly, but there is no way to assign a burn per hour anywhere close to your assumption.

I've done real race driving and GT5 and the difference in energy required is enormous.

Big words. Kind of agree with your opinion but it is debatable. If you live in a tropical island and keep racing and drifting 5hours straight I'm sure calories will be burned But I don't know anything about this so leave it to the experts

 

[billren2k3]

You are either ignorant or joking.

Calories burned in road and race driving.

340 (at 150 lbs.) calories for race driving - given the lesser intensity of playing GT5 with a force feedback wheel 100-150 calories per hour seems like a reasonable estimate. That would go up depending on the type of car (very slow to very fast), track surface (smooth to rough) and type (oval with a few turns? winding road course with lots of hard turning?) and intensity of competition (against easy AI in A-Spec or the best GTP has to offer online).

340 for race driving sounds like it depends on the type of racing - F1 drivers race at a near maximal heart rate for nearly 2 hours and that would kill a middle-aged couch potato on the spot. 340 calories/hour is way too low!

As a former competitive runner and current age grouper triathlete I hope I can settle this based on more than a bit of experience and a different perspective. No attempt to be smug here and although I have never driven a race car I can tell you it is not possible to hold maximal heart rate for 2 hours as very few elite athletes far above our capabilities can hold efforts above lactate threshold for up to 1 hour (which is on average 20 beats below maximal heart rate based on genetics and training). A hard tempo type effort of running in a very good athlete will net you perhaps 900 calories per hour for a 150 lb person and perhaps 600 calories if you are cycling. Sitting in a chair with a wheel buzzing is not burning much above what you normally would not doing anything. As for race car drivers I would assume it is the same as any other type of sport where heat is a factor and they would sweat out a lot of body weight with certainly an elevated heart rate but the level of muscle exertion and stress on the body is simply not going to be there to drive high calorie output. If you don't believe me go balls out on a run for an hour and think if you could have driven a car at the same time...ummm no!

Unless you are a mutant of course or "chemically assisted"

otherwise not even in the ballpark

 

[Ridox2JZGTE]

Mmmm, what about the effects of G forces while driving a real car ( racing like in F1 ) ? Also what about rally driving or endurance races ? Those in the old days, driving racing cars without power steering, manual shifter with heavy multi plate clutch, would give much more workout, don't they ? I remember Top Gear review of Lambo Countach, spirited driving that car for long distance travel would be a pain, and burns a lot of calorie, correct ?

While in gaming, I don't think much calories could be burned in an hour.

 

[billren2k3]

Mmmm, what about the effects of G forces while driving a real car ( racing like in F1 ) ? Also what about rally driving or endurance races ? Those in the old days, driving racing cars without power steering, manual shifter with heavy multi plate clutch, would give much more workout, don't they ? I remember Top Gear review of Lambo Countach, spirited driving that car for long distance travel would be a pain, and burns a lot of calorie, correct ?

While in gaming, I don't think much calories could be burned in an hour.

I would say they are beating their bodies to pieces and a lot of race car drivers nowadays you would definitely consider athletes for sure as they train and condition their butts off to endure the beating...but are they elite athletes no. I think you are right on old school cars and some different types of racing takes more exertion but can't find any real information on impact of g-force or calorie exertion in race car driving other than it is "hard" which I agree with. The output data is clear in other sports...gets a lot muddier in racing for sure. Whether it is aerobic or anaerobic sustained heart rates at or above lactate threshold drives calorie counts.

 

[TextRich]

GT5 is not real racing, and arbitrarily assigning a usage of 100-150 calories due to your perceived level of lessened intensity is either a joke or your just ignorant.

Obviously people burn calories just being awake, but I bet GT5 doesnt do much to increase that total. Maybe when your heart starts racing at the end of a tight battle, it may increase your calorie burn slightly, but there is no way to assign a burn per hour anywhere close to your assumption.

I've done real race driving and GT5 and the difference in energy required is enormous.

Me too. You are absolutely right GT5 can't match the caloric expenditure of driving an actual car (or kart without power steering for my part). However, I'm sure it's safe to say that GT5 with a decent wheel burns a lot more calories than sitting on the couch and changing TV channels with a remote control nonstop.

If I had a fitness laboratory and many GT5 racers to take samples from I'd be happy to estimate the correct caloric expenditure that you seem to think is the only basis for my argument - not how much those racers sweat or how tired their upper bodies feel after a couple hours of intense racing or time trialling. 100-150 calories an hour is a VERY reasonable estimate compared to other low-intensity exercises. Walking at 2 MPH burns 200, for example.

Oh, a few other tidbits for the other posters, for what it's worth:

(1) The minimum daily caloric intake needed to stay alive and maintain weight is roughly 1,200. That is what an adult in a coma burns in one day.

(2) EVERYTHING you do burns calories, some more than others, as mentioned by other posters here.

(3) I'm not sure if this site frowns upon sharing copyrighted materials, but an article from the November 2010 issue of F1 Racing - "Matters of the Heart" by Riccardo Ceccarelli - gives the average heart rate of a F1 driver at 184 BPM with a highest recording at 201 for a nearly 1 1/2 hour race. A bit off-topic but you need to be in pretty good physical shape to be a professional race driver.

Finally, the most important mindset to have for this thread is not to take it overly personally just because people say that GT5 burns calories. GT5 will still not burn as much calories as your triathlons or weekend racing. Myself having been involved with sports and fitness for 15 years now if someone asks me if GT5 is a good way to burn calories for weight loss I'd say no unless that person plays for many hours per day and not for 1-2 hours daily like most of us. However if I'm injured or overly sore and can't work out on a particular day, playing a couple hours of GT5 isn't a bad substitute.

 

[LeGeNd-1]

Interesting thread OP! From my anecdotal experience, when I play GT5 with a wheel I tend to get hungry more quickly than if I'm doing nothing, so it's definitely burning more calories than your basal level. I treadmill half an hour every day (just fast walking, not running or anything) and it makes me hungry quicker same as playing GT5 for 2-3 hours (an endurance race give or take). On the treadmill half an hour is around 120 calories.

Of course I'm no sports exercise expert, so take my words with a grain of salt

 

[Pupik]

GT5 is not real racing, and arbitrarily assigning a usage of 100-150 calories due to your perceived level of lessened intensity is either a joke or your just ignorant.

Obviously people burn calories just being awake, but I bet GT5 doesnt do much to increase that total. Maybe when your heart starts racing at the end of a tight battle, it may increase your calorie burn slightly, but there is no way to assign a burn per hour anywhere close to your assumption.

I've done real race driving and GT5 and the difference in energy required is enormous.

Here's a table from Harvard Medical School showing all sorts of activities, and how many calories expended in a half-hour, ranging from sitting to cycling, and for weights of 125, 155, and 185 pounds.

Although video games and sim driving aren't listed, the closest thing on the list is "Truck Driving: sitting", with 60 to 89 calories burned on the listed weight ranges. Fully-sedentary activity (that is, doing nothing while awake) burns between 40 and 60 calories per hour. Maybe if the air conditioning is off on a hot day, or wearing a full-race suit, you'd burn more. No matter how competitive you are at racing online or against the AI, I wouldn't compare it at all to actual race-driving, but maybe a tad more than actual driving, which seems to range between 70-80 calories.

So I would agree that one might burn 100 to 150 calories per hour are burned playing games, since it's still a rather sedentary activity, and it seems to be in line with other activity such as doing light household chores. In other words, playing race sims wouldn't be much of an exercise routine; especially when sitting for 4-5 hours straight.

And if that isn't enough proof, validity, and information to draw that conclusion, go tell the good folks at Fare Haavaad they're wrong.

 

[playnthru]

Well it's better than truck driving.👍

 

[Motor City Hami]

Hmmm. Seven hours of real world racing over one weekend left me crawling out of the car, sitting on the ground with an ice cold wet towel over my head and looking for all the Gatorade that I could find. I was on Gt5 for 5 hours on Saturday night and hmmm... just had the munchies.

Just stop already. Gt is not exercise. Do a quick GTP pole on fitness. Who is in shape and not. Better yet, everyone post their photo. Bet we see a lot of beer guts.

 

[playnthru]

Hmmm. Seven hours of real world racing over one weekend left me crawling out of the car, sitting on the ground with an ice cold wet towel over my head and looking for all the Gatorade that I could find. I was on Gt5 for 5 hours on Saturday night and hmmm... just had the munchies.

Just stop already. Gt is not exercise. Do a quick GTP pole on fitness. Who is in shape and not. Better yet, everyone post their photo. Bet we see a lot of beer guts.

Jeez man, nobody said it was! And I don't think anyone said it was the equivalent of, real race driving. People are talking about 150 calories burned max.

How are you qualified to determine what is and what is not, real exercise? Not that I'm saying it is.. But, it's not your call.. To a sick person getting out of bed can be exercise.

 

[Motor City Hami]

Jeez man, nobody said it was! And I don't think anyone said it was the equivalent of, real race driving. People are talking about 150 calories burned max.

How are you qualified to determine what is and what is not, real exercise? Not that I'm saying it is.. But, it's not your call.. To a sick person getting out of bed can be exercise.

This post is just more dumbing down of our society. We are now defining getting out of bed as exercise.

 

[playnthru]

This post is just more dumbing down of our society. We are now defining getting out of bed as exercise.

Huh? You read what you wanted. Truly the definition of dumbing down society, no? Seems you missed the TO A SICK PERSON part! Which is true thanks.👍 Ever been in physical therapy?

Perhaps you should actually read before you quote.👍 Or were you just proving your theory about the dumbing of our society? Using yourself as an example?:roll eyes:

 

[JJSCHMITTY2000]

This post is just more dumbing down of our society. We are now defining getting out of bed as exercise.

Think before you post. I had a kidney tumor in the 5th Grade, and had a 10 inch long incision that went through all of the muscle material in my abdomen, and I was in the hospital for a week. Laughing hurt, and I couldn't walk more than 50 feet three days after the surgery. 3 days. Probably 5. Getting out of bed was all I could do. That felt like excersise.

 

[Morgoth_666]

Some people appear to be highly offended by the crazy notion that activating some of one's muscles for an extended period of time while one's brain is in an elevated state of activity and one's heart rate and body temperature rise to levels noticeably above normal could possibly cause one's body to consume even slightly more stored energy than leaning back on a couch half asleep watching reality TV for the same period of time.

I don't think anyone is arguing that simracing with a wheel will give you substantial fitness boost by itself, but it's obviously going to require more energy than sunbathing, and it seems reasonably likely to consume more than playing Call of Duty with a gamepad although you would need some testing to be truly sure. I'm actually mildly surprised that it hasn't been included in any of the 10,000 studies done on how much energy every simple activity imaginable consumes.

 

[jgancherjr]

There seems to be several people in this thread "high on fitness" don't one of u own a heart rate monitor and a descent steering wheel? If so strap it on and give us some results! Hell I'm tempted to pick one up in the morning after work.. If no one else wants to I will.. Then I'll burn 13 laps around Nur in a X1 with a T500RS and send the results 👍

 

[niky]

GT5 with a heavy force feedback wheel is definitely less stress than driving for real. The weight of the controls and the need to brace yourself in corners is much higher. Your workload is lots less if you've got a good racing seat with good support, but drive a road car on track, and your sides and ribs will hurt like hell at the end of the day. No lateral support, and the seatbelt hurts like hell when you brake.

The ultimate, though, is karts. half-an-hour in a kart is like two hours in a regular car.

But sim driving is a damn sight more exercise than typing, so I can believe the 100+ figure.

The Harvard link lists truck driving at 70 calories per thirty minutes, so about 140 per hour for a 155 pound person. I'd peg driving with a wheel at about 100-150, depending on how twisty the track you're playing on is.

Of course, even sedate walking or Tai Chi (highly recommend it) burns twice as many calories, but there you go.

Just stop already. Gt is not exercise. Do a quick GTP pole on fitness. Who is in shape and not. Better yet, everyone post their photo. Bet we see a lot of beer guts.

Do we get to post school pictures of when we were on the track team, or do we need to show our frail, old geriatric bodies?

-

The original post asked how many calories per hour. Not "How much GT5 should I play to stay fit." It's an interesting question, and if anyone doesn't like the discussion, they can simply choose to ignore this thread completely.

 

[Motor City Hami]

Huh? You read what you wanted. Truly the definition of dumbing down society, no? Seems you missed the TO A SICK PERSON part! Which is true thanks.👍 Ever been in physical therapy?

Think before you post. I had a kidney tumor in the 5th Grade, and had a 10 inch long incision that went through all of the muscle material in my abdomen, and I was in the hospital for a week. Laughing hurt, and I couldn't walk more than 50 feet three days after the surgery. 3 days. Probably 5. Getting out of bed was all I could do. That felt like excersise.

Slow down there kiddos. Let's not take things way out of context and bring in the political correctness police.

To the OP... I wonder how many calories this burns... http://youtu.be/HPPj6viIBmU Probably about as much as playing GT5 for an evening.

 

[TwistyDrift]

This is good! I must have lost like 200+ calories today. I'm not getting slimmer though.

 

[TextRich]

There seems to be several people in this thread "high on fitness" don't one of u own a heart rate monitor and a descent steering wheel? If so strap it on and give us some results! Hell I'm tempted to pick one up in the morning after work.. If no one else wants to I will.. Then I'll burn 13 laps around Nur in a X1 with a T500RS and send the results 👍

Interesting challenge! I have a monitor and took you up to it last night.

Before bed I went for a drive. Before I explain what I did let me first tell you that I have a G27 and use both foot pedals and paddle shifter (so that is not as much body movement as if I had used stick shifting). Zero aids, wheel simulation on, and force feedback down to 1 as not to wake up the apartment neighbors.

First I drove for 10 laps around Monza with the Ferrari F10. After 17 minutes my heart rate went up only slightly, from 64 (my resting rate) to 71. It did not stay at 71, it went between 68 to 71 most of the time. At the end of the 10th lap my body started feeling warmer and sweating (breaking down calories stored for additional energy). My monitor said I burned 33 calories in those 17 minutes, so if I had been playing for 1 hour it would have been 140 calories.

Now for the X1 at the Nordschleife. I did one lap only. I am far less familiar with the Nordschleife than I am with Monza, and force freedback on that track is much rougher, but for the most part my heart rate was the same - maximum at 71-72 BPM. I got the sensation of my body warming up 1/4 into the lap. I forget now how much calories I burned but I do remember that if it had been an hour it would have been 120 calories.

So the big conclusion is that playing GT5 sitting on your living room couch and using a wheel strapped to a quality wheel stand does NOT significantly affect your heart rate. Considering that the heart rate for minimal cardiovascular benefits for me would be 110 beats per minute, I can't view playing GT5 as a tool for improving cardiovascular fitness. In contrast when I kart, after an intense 20-minute race my HR goes up to between 140 and 150 and stays there for 15 minutes AFTER THE RACE! I have no idea how high it gets during the races as I don't check for obvious reasons.

So, is GT5 exercise? Yes. Is it cardio? No. Will 1-2 hours of playing it daily alone, combined with a healthy nutrition plan, improve your fitness or body composition to any significant degree? No again. I think we all know that by now. So the next time sweat starts forming in your forehead when you are an hour into a 3-hour endurance race, you can smile and appreciate the small contribution GT5 is making towards your daily caloric expenditure.

 

[JJSCHMITTY2000]

To the person above me:

That was on FFB on 1. I'd like to see how it was when you went up to 10 at the nurb in the X1.

 

[TextRich]

Well I thought the Nordschleife was a bit rough even with FFB to 1. I'd be glad to try using max FFB (my preference anyway) within the next couple days.