Schools Indoor Rowing League
Log in

Children in Need Row 2026, 2 to 13 November. £5,949 raised by 9 teams so far.

Find out more Donate now

Train

Calorie calculator

Estimate how many calories a workout on the rowing machine burns, adjusted for the rower's body weight.
Start from
Average pace per 500m
Workout length

Enter the monitor's calories per hour (or a pace) and how long the workout lasted to see the answer.

Finding your average calories per hour

Use the average calories per hour for the whole workout from the workout summary, not the calorie figure the monitor shows for your last stroke. On a PM3 or PM4 monitor:

  1. From the main menu, select More Options.
  2. Select Memory.
  3. Use the up and down arrows to find the workout you want.
  4. Select the magnifier icon.
  5. Read the calories/hour figure in the workout summary. If the monitor isn't showing calories, press Change Units until it does.

How it's worked out

The monitor works out calories per hour as watts × 4 × 0.8604 + 300, and it assumes every rower weighs 175lb (about 79kg). A lighter pupil therefore sees a higher figure on the screen than they really burned.

The calculator corrects for that with Concept2's weight adjustment, which takes 300 off the monitor's hourly figure and adds 1.714 for every pound of body weight, then scales the hourly figure to the length of the workout. If you start from a pace instead, it first turns the pace into watts (2.80 ÷ (pace ÷ 500)³) and then into the monitor's calories per hour.

Treat the answer as an estimate, since technique and fitness change how much energy each rower uses for the same pace.