How Many Calories Do 30 Minutes of Weightlifting Burn?

Your weight and the length of each set determine significantly impact how many calories you burn while lifting weights. (Image via Unsplash/ Gursimrat Ganda)
Your weight and the length of each set significantly impact how many calories you burn while lifting weights. (Image via Unsplash/ Gursimrat Ganda)

Beyond the typical goal of increasing muscle, weightlifting is linked to several positive health effects, one of which is the capacity to burn calories both during and after workouts.

The number of calories burned during a weightlifting session depends on a number of variables, including the person's weight, their percentage of lean muscle mass, the exercises they are doing, the number of sets and repetitions they are doing, and how hard the lifting session is.

Burning calories is a common worry when it comes to weight loss, or more specifically, fat loss. Long-held wisdom holds that you can lose a few pounds or sizes by maintaining a calorie deficit, which is when you burn more calories than you consume. Although it's commonly believed that doing cardio workouts like running or walking is the ideal route to do this, lifting weights also has surprising benefits.


Factors Affecting the Number of Calories Burned During Weightlifting

The weight and length of each set determines the amount of calories you burn while lifting weights. Generally speaking, the more weight you have, the more calories you'll expend relative to someone who weighs less, but only if you're both lifting with equivalent amounts of intensity.

The American Council on Exercise (ACE) physical activity calculator estimates that a 150-pound person will burn 204 calories over 30 minutes of rigorous weight training. For a 150-pound person, 30 minutes of "regular" or moderate-intensity weight training results in 102 calories being burned.

Your movements are another thing to take into account. You will burn more calories during a workout that emphasizes larger compound motions or larger muscle groups like your legs, than you would during one that emphasizes isolation exercises and smaller muscle groups.


Does Weightlifting Help Lose Weight?

Although some types of exercise receive all the attention for helping in weight loss, it is crucial to remember that any type of exercise, including strength training, can aid in fat loss. Physical activity has the widest range of effects on how many calories you burn each day.

Regular exercise can have a significant impact on how many calories you burn each day, which can eventually help you lose more fat over time.

A single aerobic session can burn more calories than a similar-length session of weightlifting activities. However, over time, strength training increases calorie expenditure. Your metabolic rate and the number of calories you burn while exercising and at rest increase as your lean body mass increases.


How to Burn More Calories While Weightlifting?

According to a person's body weight, lifting weights for 30 minutes typically burns between 90 and 126 calories. Depending on the person's body weight, 30 minutes of vigorous weight lifting might burn anywhere from 180 to 252 calories.

The following advice can assist with increased calorie burning while lifting weights:

1) Compound Exercises Increase the Number of Calories Burned: Compound lifts, which include deadlifts, squats, and overhead press, are weightlifting exercises that involve action across several joints. Your metabolic rate can rise more quickly with compound lifts than with other weight-bearing exercises.

2) Combine Weightlifting with HIIT: HIIT stands for high-intensity interval training, which entails short bursts of anaerobic exercise followed by brief, but somewhat longer, intervals of rest. To burn the most calories and fat, alternate sets of weightlifting exercises with HIIT activities.

3) Add Cardio to Weightlifting Activities: Doing cardio in addition to lifting weights will increase fat loss. Add small amounts of aerobic training to your weightlifting program.

4) More Reps with Less Weight: We now know that lifting bigger weights can enhance calorie expenditure over the long run, but lesser weights are still useful in some situations.

Lifting smaller weights for more repetition might increase your short-term calorie burn by enhancing your muscular endurance and extending the time that your muscles can perform against resistance.


Conclusion

The primary guideline for fat loss is to have a calorie deficit. Therefore, while lifting weights, you also need to make sure that you are properly fueling your body for the activity you are doing.

To help you exercise hard and effectively, make sure your diet is full of clean, unprocessed foods. It's important to obtain adequate protein, lipids, and carbohydrates, and eating six small meals a day can help you do this while also ensuring that your body gets all the nutrients you put into it.

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