Guest Author - Llyn Payne
Recently I learned that it is possible for a person weighing 145 lbs (66 kilos) to burn 461 calories an hour by spinning. This was exciting and inspiring news! I wondered if this was on a single or double treadle or perhaps a walking wheel? Digging into this deeper, I was disappointed to find that it involved a stationary bicycle and that it had absolutely nothing to do with making yarn.
Researching charts showing number of calories burnt per hour of specific activity yielded no results for spinning yarn. Yet it is a physical activity and calories must be burnt while engaging in this activity. I suspect that the reason it is not listed is because there is so much to consider:
double or single treadle, long draw or short draw, spindling while walking vs. spindling while seated, drop, small support spindle, or large support spindle. Perhaps a great wheel: regular spindle, miner’s head, or pendulum? And - what fiber is being spun: wool, flax, cotton, exotic, one of the new synthetics? If the manner in which the wheel operates or the spinner handles the fibers is different, then wouldn’t it stand to reason that the amount of calories burned would change? Still it would be nice to know just how many calories we expend while making yarn.
The same calorie charts tell me that knitting burns 102 calories an hour, assuming a 150 lb (68 kilo) person and that sheep shearing burns 395 calories for a person tipping the scales at 145 lbs (66 kilos). Let’s assume that spinning falls somewhere between shearing the sheep and knitting the spun yarn.....I think most will agree that this is a logical assumption to make. Forget the processing, we’re only concerned with coming up with a range of calories burned per hour while spinning. Let’s assume that we’re spinning on a double treadle wheel and doing short draw.
The hand motions made doing short draw are different from those of doing a knit stitch but have about the same range of motion, this puts calories burned at 102 per hour. But we have to consider the fact that we’re also moving our feet. I’d put this into the “sitting/moderate work” category which burns about 160 calories/hour for our 145 lb. person, which is about the same as walking slowly.
I think that it would be safe to estimate that an hour of spinning (as in making yarn) burns at least 160 to 200 calories an hour. Sure, you can burn more calories with that stationary bike, but you won’t have any yarn to show for it.
