Burn Calories Lifting Weights
Burn Calories Lifting Weights
Weight lifting is a form of resistance exercise that helps maintain and build muscle, increase mobility, and burn calories. Any form of exercise, such as weight lifting, will help your body burn more calories. However, adding a form of resistance, like free weights, will help build muscle, which burns more calories from fat.
Building muscle also boosts metabolism, a chemical process that converts food to energy in the body. Increasing your metabolism helps your body burn calories more effectively.
Average Calories Burned Lifting Weights
The average calories burned during a weight lifting session is between 3 and 11 calories per minute for adults.
The exact amount of calories burned can vary depending on several factors, including your sex (males burn more calories than females), the type of weight you use, and whether you are performing a lower body or upper body exercise. Research has found that lower body exercises burn more calories than upper body exercises.
Lifting heavier weights burns more calories than lifting lighter weights, resulting in a greater loss of body fat. While weight lifting alone does not burn more calories than some other forms of exercise, such as aerobic exercise, it is a great way to build muscle. Having more muscle increases your metabolism, which burns more calories at rest and during movement.
If weight loss is your goal, lifting weights is only part of the equation. Getting enough sleep, reducing stress, and eating a diet rich in whole, nourishing foods are also important habits for weight loss.
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Factors Affecting Calorie Burn During Weight Lifting
Several factors influence the amount of calories burned during weight lifting, including:
- Level of intensity: Lifting weights at a higher intensity burns significantly more calories than exercising at a lower intensity.
- Type of weight used: The amount of calories burned can vary depending on whether weight machines or free weights are used.
- Duration: The length of the workout affects total calories burned during weight lifting. Having a longer workout will result in more calories being burned.
- Frequency: The number of repetitions is another factor that impacts total calories burned. For instance, completing 15 repetitions of a weight-bearing exercise will burn more calories than 10 repetitions.
How To Maximize Calorie Burn While Lifting Weights
If you want to maximize the amount of calories burned while weight lifting, there are science-backed ways you can do so. Try the following to increase calorie burn:
- Amp up your workout intensity: Working out at a higher intensity, compared to moderate or low intensity, burns more calories overall.
- Increase the length of time: A longer workout burns more calories than a shorter one because calories are burned during the entirety of the workout.
- Incorporate more compound movements: Incorporating compound movements that use multiple joints (such as deadlifts and bench presses) can contribute to increased energy expenditure (the amount of energy burned during a 24-hour period) and higher caloric burn.
- Safely increase your speed: The speed at which you lift weights can increase caloric burn. Research shows that lifting more vigorously results in higher energy expenditure than lifting with less speed and intensity.
- Add circuit training: Studies show that incorporating circuit training into weight lifting can increase energy expenditure. Add short rest periods in between resistance training exercises to maximize aerobic benefits and the amount of calories burned.
How Building Muscle Boosts Metabolism
Muscle mass plays a key role in calorie burning because muscle burns more calories than fat, which provides a boost to your metabolism. Long-term benefits of increased muscle mass include improved mobility, increased strength, and better bone health.
Sample Workout Routine
If you’re ready to try weight lifting to build muscle, here’s a high-calorie–burning weight lifting routine to consider:
- Pull-ups: Using an overhand grip, place your hands on a pull-up bar, ensuring hands are slightly wider than the width of your shoulders. Hang from the hands with elbows fully extended, then pull the chest towards the bar and ensure your shoulder blades are pulled down and back towards each other. Slowly return to the starting position.
- Bent-over row: Hold a barbell in your hands, ensuring palms are facing forward. Engage your abs and hinge forward at the hips, making sure your torso is almost parallel to the floor while maintaining a slight bend in your knees. Allow the bar to hang at arm’s length, then pull the bar to your lower ribs as you squeeze your shoulder blades together. Pause and slowly lower the bar back to the starting position.
- Straight leg deadlift: At arm’s length with palms facing your thighs, hold a barbell in your hands. Engage your abs, hinge at the hips, and gently lower the bar by gliding it down the thighs so your torso is almost parallel to the floor. Maintain a neutral neck and spine position, and keep a slight bend in your knees. After, return to the starting position.
- Seated row: Attach a straight bar to a cable station and sit down, ensuring your feet are braced. Using an overhand, shoulder-width grip, grab the bar or bar handles and sit upright. With your hands on the bar, pull to your upper abs, then pause for a few seconds. Slowly return your arms to the starting position. Make sure to maintain an upright torso and avoid leaning forward or backward.
Common Mistakes To Avoid
When weight lifting, there are some methods you’ll want to implement to avoid injury and to maximize calories burned.
Here are some common weight lifting mistakes to avoid:
- Using improper form and technique. It’s crucial to maintain proper form to avoid injuries.
- Not having rest days. Ensure you take enough rest days between weight lifting sessions. It is recommended to space each weight lifting session at least 48-72 hours apart. Overtraining can stress the body and lower calorie burn by causing fatigue, inflammation, and changes in neurohormones (chemical substances affecting nerve tissue) that can stall or slow your progress.
- Not warming up. While there are conflicting studies on whether a warm-up reduces the chances of injury, warming up before weight lifting has other proven benefits. Warming up is important to prepare the body for the demands of the training session, stimulate the neuromuscular system (your muscles and nerves), and increase body temperature.
A Quick Review
Weight lifting is a form of resistance exercise that builds and maintains muscle mass. There are several ways to maximize calories burned during weight lifting, including increasing the intensity and duration of your workouts and incorporating more compound movements.
Lifting weights is a great way to improve your overall health, especially as you get older. In addition to burning more calories, weight lifting is great for mobility, muscle building, and bone health.
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