Have you ever wondered how many calories you burn doing simple bodyweight workouts like pushups or pullups or even situps. Or are you looking for a bodyweight workout that can target your core, chest, shoulders, arms and burn some calories then Push ups are definitely something you should be looking to add to your workout list.
So how many calories do you burn performing pushups? The calories burned doing pushups can vary quite a bit but from the research we have done it is around 7-10 calories a minute. Of course that doesn't take into effect the amount of calories you burn throughout the day from weight training workouts including bodyweight exercises.
Scorching Calories With Push Ups
Okay this probably isn't going to happen but over the course of time push ups can rev up your metabolism and increase your resting metabolic rate by upwards of 9% as shown in quite a few studies.
This of course doesn't happen overnight but building lean muscle does help you burn more calories. It's not much per a day but added up over years this can equal double digit pounds.
However there are factors that decide how many calories anybody burns when performing push ups or any other exercise:
- How Old Are You? – unfortunately aging is a part of life but it doesn't have to hold you back. It can however cause your body to burn less calories over time. If you keep the fat off and lean muscle on this helps slow down this aging affect.
- Where's The Intensity? – doing 100 push ups in 2 minutes vs 100 push ups in an hour will not have the same effect on burning calories. Doing 100 in 120 seconds will burn more calories then taking all day to do the 100. Up the intensity by doing more or if you are doing slow push ups that can also increase the intensity. Count to 4 on way up and down see how you do with those.
- Male or Female – unfortunately most males burn more calories naturally it does have to do with testosterone and having more lean muscle. So females may have to work harder then most males to burn the same amount of calories. Doesn't mean anything outside of everybody's body is different.
- How Tall and How Much You Weigh – these two factors make a big difference in the amount of calories you are going to burn doing push ups. If you are bigger and weigh more you have more to lift and will then burn more calories.
Average Calories Burned Performing 100 Push-ups
The average calories burned doing 100 push ups has a lot of variables depending on the size of the person and how fast or slow they are doing these push ups. But if you took 2 minutes to perform these 100 push ups you would burn around 14 calories.
This isn't much but if you do those 100 push ups every other day for a year that is over 2,500 calories or a pound of fat lost. Add in the lean muscle gained from these push ups and it could be even more.
How Many Push-ups To Burn 100 Calories?
Burning 100 calories by just doing push ups is quite the task. You would have to perform push ups for over 10 minutes straight to burn 100 calories. I would maybe do some kind of a circuit training workout to really burn some calories. Mix in some sit-ups, pull-ups and some jumping jacks or burpees between push ups.
Vigorous Push-ups
Doing push ups vigorously to up that intensity is a way to burn more calories. The great thing about this exercise is you can basically do them anywhere and hit up a bunch of different muscle groups. Doing something like plyo push ups where your hands come off the ground and you clap them burns a ton more calories and hits your chest and core hardcore.
Different Kinds Of Push Ups
- Traditional – this is the one you grew up doing in P.E. class. About shoulder width apart or a little wider.
- Wide Grip – line up with your shoulders then go wider. This hits your chest and shoulders much more.
- Diamond – is a closer grip push up. Make a diamond with your palms down this is harder to perform. You want to keep your elbows in as much as possible.
- Staggered – you start in a traditional position. Then you just move one hand up and one hand you keep lower. Do a set then switch them up.
- Clap or Plyo – this is more of an explosive push up there are variables. Start off in your traditional then you need to explode up so your hands come off the ground while you clap your hands quickly then catch yourself as you come back down.
- Incline/Decline – you can also do most all of these push ups in a decline and incline. You can use a workout bench or chair. Either put your hands on the bench to create an incline or your feet on the bench to create a decline. Perform normal push ups you will hit more of the upper chest on decline and lower chest on incline. A little confusing because it is the complete opposite of chest press incline and decline.
How Many Calories Does 500 Push Ups Burn?
Doing 100 push ups can burn anywhere from 25-35 calories so doing 500 will burn 5 times that amount or 125-175 calories. Not that much for what you will feel like after doing them. I would stick to around 100 and work in other chest/tricep workouts to get the full effect.
Conclusion
So there you have it doing push ups is definitely not the best way to burn calories, but that doesn't mean you should skip this exercise by any means.
Just work in some other exercises to make it into a high intensity interval workout. You can do something like a round of:
- 25 Jumping Jacks
- 25 push ups
- 10 Burpees
- 25 Situps
*optional add in pull ups at the end if you have a pull up bar
That is a nice little workout that you can do it for a certain amount of time with a break in between sets. Or do it for a certain amount of sets maybe with no rest.
You can also look up push up challenges just like with pull up challenges. These are fun to do for short term and work up to a certain amount of push ups. Just make sure you are giving your body a break at times.
Don't go to push ups for losing weight you need to first look at how many calories you are eating then start to cut back there if you need to. Look into not only diets, but something you can live with. Some people including myself have gone to intermittent fasting which works for me but doesn't work for my wife.
It just makes things simpler not having to eat until later in the day I still consume about the same amount of calories so reducing them is still the main objective. One you get that under control the sky is the limit. I will say don't cut back on too much on your caloric intake you will stall your metabolism overtime if you do.
In the short term fasting even for 24-48 hours is okay just make sure that first meal back you don't over do it. Anyway come up with your own workouts and keep things interesting that is the easiest way to get yourself into shape. Most people hate doing workouts and hate dieting so make them fun it will be well worth it and you will get Healthy For Better.
