How Many Calories are Burned?

[sifaan]

However, the fitter you are, the more your metabolic rate increases but this occurs throughout the day.
I have noticed that my average heart rate is dropping as I get more fit. I can plot this effect because my Polar watch stores the data.
Calorie burn is directly proportional to heart rate.

Sorry, but this is getting even more confusing now :S
As far as I understood, as we get fitter (stronger muscles, etc.) our metabolic rate increases (i.e. body needs to burn more energy per second than before, to supply energy to the muscles) - and this is why having more muscles helps burn more calories even at rest.
This is somehow collerated to a lower heart rate (i.e. the fitter you get, the less frequently your heart has to pump). I'm not sure if this is an indicator of general health (body is more efficient at extracting nutrients from blood; also we breath better, so more oxygen in the blood, therefore volume of blood required is lower), or just of cardiovascular health (i.e. the heart muscle is stronger, it can pump more blood per beat, and therefore doesn't need to beat as often as it did before) or both.
So, what we have is:

• When not exercising, lower heart rate corresponds to more calories burned


• When exercising, higher heart rate corresponds to more calories burned (Doo's quote, and apparently the basis for the calorie measurement)

OK, that sounds silly, so I guess I am making an invalid comparison somewhere... if anyone finds any interesting reading on this topic, please share and rescue me from my confusion

[Mehdi]

The guy who is stronger will burn more calories in one workout than the guy who is weaker. For one he can use more muscle fibers than the weaker guy (can use CNS better), second he lifts more weight (more volume, more workload per workout), third he can handle more exercises, greater intensity.
While the body gets more efficient as you get stronger, you're also working harder. A lot of strong guys can get away with huge amount of shitty food while staying fairly ripped, because they burn a lot of calories in each workout / have more muscle mass / increased metabolic rate.

[ken20008]

pardon me for being a noob, but wat is CNS?

[mjh]

central nervous system. That is, all the systems, processes and mechanisms that go towards keeping you alive.

[ken20008]

so working the heart harder = more calories burned?