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Calories Burned Lifting Weights

How many calories are being burned? This is often one of the first questions a person asks when engaging in exercise. You may identify runners as people who have slimmer bodies due to their ability to burn calories. On the other hand, you may identify weightlifters with large bodies. However, this does not mean that lifting weights doesn't burn a reasonable amount of calories.

  1. Increasing Muscle Mass

    • For most, weightlifting is done to increase muscle mass. An increase in muscle mass, which occurs only after the muscles have neurologically adapted to the exercise stress in the first four to six weeks, will require more energy to maintain at a healthy state. Due to this, lean muscle mass is calorically expensive. It requires a greater amount of calories to maintain whether you are lying on the couch watching television or working on your one-rep max at the gym.

    Calories Burned

    • According to "A Fresh Start: Accelerate Fat Loss & Restore Youthful Vitality" by Susan Smith Jones, an extra 10 pounds of lean muscle mass will require an additional 600 extra calories per day to maintain. That's calorically equivalent to running six miles a day, seven days a week. Therefore, the greater the amount of lean muscle, the greater the amount of calories that must be burned to simply maintain it.

    EPOC

    • Weightlifting also burns calories through a phenomenon called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, or EPOC for short. EPOC occurs during the hours after one has engaged in intense exercise. During this period, your body is busy replenishing energy sources that your muscles used during exercise. Your body must also re-oxygenate your blood circulation, restore hormone circulation, reduce your breathing and heart rate to a normal level as well as level off your core body temperature. These processes take extra energy, which means additional calories burned.

    Metabolism Boosts

    • Since the body is attempting to return to a regular resting state, the greater your weightlifting intensity and duration, the greater the energy that will be used by the body during EPOC. So, the bottom line according to "The New Rules of Lifting" by Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove, is that weightlifting boosts post-workout metabolism and this effect is enhanced by any additional lean muscle mass that is gained.

    Dangers of Overtraining

    • While the natural inclination might be to simply work out longer and harder, it must be remembered that in order to build muscle your body has to overload the muscles, break them down, then repair and rebuild them. This requires recovery time, an extremely important point when it comes to lifting weights. Ignoring the need for recovery because you want to get the benefits of EPOC through longer and harder workouts will lead to overtraining, meaning an inability to work out at a greater intensity. Thus, you will not be able to take advantage of the calorie-burning benefits.

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