If you’re trying to lose weight, you want to burn the most calories possible. A lot of people turn to running, since it burns tons of calories. There are two problems with running. The first is that it only provides one type of fitness, endurance. The second is that while it burns a lot of calories, the calories come from both muscle tissue and fat tissue. You need to preserve as much lean muscle tissue as possible, since the more you have, the higher your metabolism. Here are some exercises that burn more calories than running that also provide other types of fitness, such as strength, flexibility and balance.
Kettlebell training burns calories, builds muscles and increases balance and flexibility.
If you want to build muscle tissue, kettlebells are great. They provide more than just that. Working out with kettlebells burns tons of calories. One study found that the average person working out with kettlebells burned approximately 20.2 calories every minute of the workout. It also increased their strength, while it increased their heart rate to approximately 93 percent of maximum, making it a good workout for endurance. The swinging motion and off-centered nature of the kettlebell improved both flexibility and balance.
Some traditional workouts can burn more calories than running.
If you’ve ever done burpees, you know they can be tough on the body, but did you know they also burn a lot more calories than running? Doing more burpees in a minute, increases the calories burned. If you did seven, it would burn 10.01 calories if you weighed 180 pounds, since burpees burn approximately 1.43 calories per burpee at that weight. Ten would burn 14.3 calories every minute. Combining three traditional exercises and doing them in rapid succession, pushing hard on each one can also burn more calories than running. For instance, doing 15 squats, 10 push-ups and 5 pull-ups, one right after another is a super calorie burner.
Downhill skiing is good exercise, but cross-country skiing is better exercise than running.
When you’re going downhill on skis, it doesn’t burn nearly the calories as running. However, trekking uphill and on cross-country skis is a completely different matter. It requires a lot of effort from your lower body and the larger muscles. You can burn approximately 12 calories every minute you participate in cross-country skiing. If you’ve ever watched cross-country competition, you’ll notice they end the race far more depleted than downhill skiers and much like marathon racers, often collapse at the finish line.
- Tone your whole body while you burn calories with rowing. Indoor rowing is the best because it uses all your muscles, including the back. Like all compound exercises, the more muscles and joints you use, the more calories you burn.
- Use a more intense form of HIIT—high intensity interval training—called Tabata training, to do jump squats. Doing eight rounds of jump squats with 20 seconds at high intensity and ten seconds at a recover pace burned far more calories than running.
- When you choose exercises that cause afterburn, burning additional calories for up to 72 hours after the workout, you’ll get even more benefit. Strength training workouts do that, while building muscles to boost metabolism.
- While your age, gender and weight affect the number of calories you burn, so you might burn more or fewer calories than the number quoted, it’s all relative. If the exercise burns more calories than running for someone 180 pounds, it will be more than running for someone weighing 110 pounds.
For more information, contact us today at Prime Fitness Studio