Calories Burned Push Ups Calculator
In this article
- Factors
- How Many Calories Do Push-ups Burn Per Minute?
- How Many Calories Burned Per Push-ups??
- How many calories does 50 and 100 push ups burn??
- How many pushups does it take to lose 1 pound?
Calories burnd push ups
Push-ups are ubiquitous individual resistance training exercises. Asides from pumping your chest muscles, shoulders, torso, abs, and triceps, Push-up is an ergonomic strength exercise that can also be used to burn calories. Albeit, push-ups do not burn calories significantly, but it can be part of your exercise programs.
In General, a minute of moderate-intense push-ups will burn 4 calories for a 150-pound person. However, the person doing push ups a vigorous pace can burn around 9 calories at the same time.
Just like any other anaerobic exercise (eg:sit ups, abdominal crunches and pull ups) push-ups require bursts of intense energy expenditure in a very short period of time. Aerobics to an extent, until you get tired and you become breathless.
Factors that affect calories burned from push ups
The amount of calories consumed by push-ups depend on lots of factors:
- Your weight and Height
Concerning fat burning, the larger you are, the more calories you’ll consume. Since you plan on losing weight, it is important you have an idea of what you weigh.
- Body size and composition
In general, men have more muscles in their bodies than women who possess more fat. Thus, it will be easier for a man to burn fat faster.
- Age
As you age, you lose muscles and gradually start accumulating more fat.
- Intensity
For example, running at 8mph would consume more fat in 10 mins than 4mph. In the case of push-ups, the number you can do in a period determines how many calories you burn.
A 165-pound person doing push ups, at vigorous effort can burn around 10 calories in a minute.
But doing push-ups at moderate effort burns 4 calories at the same time.
- The length of your feet
Finally, the length of your feet serves as the fulcrum of your body. The shorter your feet, the less force it takes to move your body.
How Many Calories Do Push-ups Burn Per Minute?
In truth, cardiovascular exercise is more concentrated in burning fat than resistance training. They burn more calories per hour. According to the Compendium of Physical Activities, even a slow run counts as a vigorous activity compared to resistance training. Considering their equal output, anyone would prefer a 60 minutes run workout rather than 150 minutes of strength training.
However, a new study proved this conception wrong.(1) Carried out in a lab at Arizona State University, this research proves that the energy expenditure of resistance training is miscalculated. In the previous method, resistance training was treated as a slow and gradual activity, wrong! Resistance training exercises are immediately zero to a hundred. They are short bursts of energy followed by rest.
Experimenting with 12 young men, all averaging 130 pounds. They compared the traditional method to the newer one (one evaluating oxygen uptake during activity and another evaluating oxygen uptake during recovery). It turns out that the calories consumed by push-ups increased to around double of what previously thought. An initial average of 4.31 calories per minute, significantly increased to 8.56 calories per minute.
Here we will calculate push ups calories burned based on the METs value from 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities.
Push ups exercise at vigorous effort has a METs value of 8.0, and 3.8 METs at a moderate effort.
Using this formula:
Calories burned push ups per minute = METs x 3.5 x Weight (kilograms) / 200 (kcal per min)
Calculating push ups calories burned per minute is easy. For example, a 180-pounds (about 81.6 kg) person doing push ups at a moderate effort in one minute burns 5 calories. Calculating formula is: 3.5 x 81.6 x 3.8 / 200 = 5. With this intensity, he burns 10 calories in two minutes. In the meantime, this person doing push ups at a vigorous effort will burn 11 calories per minute.
How Many Calories Burned Per Push-ups?
Knocking out 100 push-ups a day is great for muscle benefits, however, not so great in consuming calories. The calories consumed per rep depends largely on your weight and intensity while pushing up.
For example, a 190-pounds (86 kg) man, Mike, completes 100 push-ups in 5 minutes at a moderate pace, 20 repetitions per set, he has burned 28 calories. Going faster, if he manages to accomplish 100 push-ups in 3 minutes, roughly 33 repetitions for every set, the difference is insignificant. He consumes 17 calories.
On the basis above, Mike would burn around 14 calories in 50 push-ups, and 5.6 calories in 20 push-ups. This results in around 0.28 calories per push-up.
Another example, in this case, a heavier weight, a 250 pounds man. At a moderate pace, doing 100 push-ups in 5 minutes can burn as much as 37 calories ,50 push-ups 19 calories and 20 push-ups 7.5 calories burned.
The larger you are the more calories you consume. For a man with lesser weight, let’s say 130 pounds, the calories burned are less. Doing 100 push-ups in 5 minutes, he’ll burn 19 calories. 50 push-ups, he burns 10 calories and 20 push-ups he burns around 2 calories. This means for a push-up, you burn 0.19 calories, ridiculous!
How many calories does 50 and 100 push ups burn?
Let’s take Mike for example. 190 pounds weight.
| Number of push ups | 20 push ups per min | 25 push ups per min | 30 push ups per min | 35 push ups per min | 40 push ups per min |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 push ups | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1.6 | 1.4 |
| 20 push ups | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 |
| 30 push ups | 9 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 |
| 40 push ups | 11 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 |
| 50 push ups | 14 | 11 | 10 | 8 | 7 |
| 80 push ups | 23 | 18 | 15 | 13 | 11 |
| 100 push ups | 29 | 23 | 19 | 16 | 14 |
| 200 push ups | 57 | 46 | 38 | 33 | 29 |
Calories burned Push ups Vs. Squats
Accoring to a new research by Juntendo University Graduate School of Medicine, the estimated energy expenditure doing push-ups at 10 repetitions per minute was around 7.1-11.2 calories per minute(7.8 METs).And this study shows a helpful conclusion that total energy expenditure increased linearly with repetition frequency in all subjects.
Besides, the amount of calories burned doing push-ups was significantly much more than squat(4.9-7.7 calories per minute(5.4 METs)). (2)
How fast and How many pushups does it take to lose a pound?
You can burn as many calories through push-ups. Although burning 3500 calories through push-ups might not be your best bet, it is still possible.
Like I previously stated, the two most important factors in calculating how much calories are consumed are body weight and intensity. Thus, there’s no standard amount of calories burned per rep. However, your weight and intensity of push-up determines how much you burn.
Let’s take Mike for example, how fast can he burn a thousand calories? Since he weighs 190 pounds, 90 minutes of moderate-intense push-ups will burn 515 calories. 90 minutes of push-ups! Almost impossible. Mike could also consume 257 calories in 45 minutes which is more realistic.
If Mike consistently pushed-up at a moderate pace(20 reps per set) for 45 minutes every day, in a week, he would do consume about 1800 calories, slightly half a pound. To burn 3500 calories and lose 1 pound, he should do 900 push ups in 45 minutes per day for two weeks! Therefore, in order to lose 1 pound, about 12600 push ups are required.
It is quite clear that push up is not an effective weight loss exercise.
Compared to other strength training exercises or aerobics, the amount of calories burned from as many push-ups is disappointing and discouraging, considering how strenuous it is. In general, strength training exercises do not typically burn as many calories as cardiovascular(running, cycling, and other aerobics) exercises.
Push Up Chart by Age for Men and Women
Below is the push ups chart by age from the American Council on Exercise.
Push Up Test norms for MEN (regular push-ups)
| Age | 17-19 | 20-29 | 30-39 | 40-49 | 50-59 | 60-65 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Excellent | >56 | >47 | >41 | >34 | >31 | >30 |
| Good | 47-56 | 39-47 | 34-41 | 28-34 | 25-31 | 24-30 |
| Above average | 35-46 | 30-39 | 25-33 | 21-28 | 18-24 | 17-23 |
| Average | 19-34 | 17-29 | 13-24 | 11-20 | 9-17 | 6-16 |
| Below average | 11-18 | 10-16 | 8-12 | 6-10 | 5-8 | 3-5 |
| Poor | 4-10 | 4-9 | 2-7 | 1-5 | 1-4 | 1-2 |
| Very poor | <4 | <4 | <2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Very poor | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Push Up Test norms for WOMEN (modified push-ups on knees)
| Age | 17-19 | 20-29 | 30-39 | 40-49 | 50-59 | 60-65 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Excellent | >35 | >36 | >37 | >31 | >25 | >23 |
| Good | 27-35 | 30-36 | 30-37 | 25-31 | 21-25 | 19-23 |
| Above average | 21-27 | 23-29 | 22-30 | 18-24 | 15-20 | 13-18 |
| Average | 11-20 | 12-22 | 10-21 | 8-17 | 7-14 | 5-12 |
| Below average | 6-10 | 7-11 | 5-9 | 4-7 | 3-6 | 2-4 |
| Poor | 2-5 | 2-6 | 1-4 | 1-3 | 1-2 | 1 |
| Very poor | 0-1 | 0-1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Conclusion
Although push-ups could knock out many calories, it is not the best way. Considering how difficult it might be for mike, a 190-pound man, to push up for 45 minutes, the strength training exercise can be discouraging in terms of burning fat.
Push-ups are the perfect home exercise that builds your upper-body and core strength. Proper push-ups are bodyweights exercise that works your muscles in most of your body, even your legs. Push-ups are great for pumping muscles but I can’t say the same for losing weight. There are more ergonomic workouts that can consume more calories better than push-ups.
Sources and External Resources
(1) An Examination of the Differences Between Two Methods of Estimating Energy Expenditure in Resistance Training Activities
Vezina, Jesse W.; Der Ananian, Cheryl A.; Campbell, Kathryn D.; Meckes, Nathanael; Ainsworth, Barbara E.
(2) Estimating Energy Cost of Body Weight Resistance Exercise Using a Multistage Exercise Test
Push Up Test norms for MEN
