Which Workout Burns More Calories?
Ever wondered how many calories you burned doing various activities? How many do you burn at the gym? What is better between treadmill or circuit? After a bit a digging around online I found this chart from the Harvard Medical School. You can find the original here. It will outline how many calories are burnt during different workouts.
Keep in mind the calories burned will vary according to weight, and this chart only goes up to 185 lbs. You can still get a good idea of which activities burn the most calories.
The following numbers refer to calories burned PER HALF HOUR of the activity.
The numbers in the first column are for someone weighting 125 lbs.
The numbers in the second column are for someone weighting 155 lbs.
The numbers in the third column are for someone weighting 185 lbs.
Â
Gym activities
Â
Training and sports
Now that you have a clearer idea about calories burnt, there are few things to keep in mind.
1. Continuous activities like biking and running will always burn more calories than non continuous activities like sports or working out. However these tend to rely only on leg muscles and can cause muscle imbalances in the long term.
2. Always stick to the workout you enjoy the most! If you don't like lifting weights, find something that you can enjoy. It's all about creating lasting habits.
3. The numbers above do incorporate rest periods in the non continuous activities. I don't know what the standard rest periods were. The calories you burn in all of these activities will hence depend greatly on how long your rest periods are. If your goal is to burn calories during a workout, I recommend you them at 30 seconds or less.
4. When you are doing a workout to burn calories, focus on your form! I see too many people rushing through exercises to move quicker because they think that moving quicker burns more calories. That is not always right! If you move quickly but have poor form, you won't be using the targeted muscles, you will compensate in ways that may be harmful for your and you will not get as much of the benefits as you would if proper form was used.
Hope you've enjoyed debating whether or not is worth it to running at 10 miles per hour for 30 minutes to max out calories burned :)
Clem