Weightlifting burns calories, boosts metabolism, and extends fat loss, and not just while you're pumping iron. Thanks to the afterburn effect, weight training burns calories during your workout and keeps your body torching fat long after you’ve racked the weights. While cardio gets the spotlight for calorie burn, resistance training builds muscle, boosts metabolism, and creates long-term fat-burning potential. Whether your goal is to lose weight, build muscle, or achieve both, understanding how weightlifting affects your calorie burn is key to maximizing your fitness results.
How Many Calories Do You Burn Weightlifting?
The Centers for Disease Control estimates that weightlifting for 1 hour will burn approximately 220 calories for an average person weighing 154 pounds. However, it does vary with your weight; people who weigh more will burn more calories, and those who weigh less will burn fewer. To compare weightlifting to cardio, that 154-pound person would burn around 370 calories in a 1-hour cardio workout.
Afterburn Effect of Weightlifting
However, lifting weights has additional calorie-burning benefits not seen in cardio. This is because weightlifting leads to high Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption, or EPOC. EPOC means that your body will continue to burn calories even after you have finished your weightlifting routine because your body is repairing and rebuilding your muscles. Studies suggest that this can occur for 12-24 hours or more after you stop lifting.
What Factors Influence Calorie Burn During Weightlifting?
Let’s look at the factors influencing how many calories you will burn when lifting weights.
Body Weight
Naturally, people who weigh more burn more calories than people who weigh less. This is because when you have more mass, whether bones, muscles, fat, or internal organs, it requires more energy to move you.
As you lose weight, you may burn fewer calories. This is why progressing your loads, increasing your sets or reps, or using more challenging exercises as you train will help you continue burning more calories over time.
Age
As we age, we naturally lose muscle mass, declining at about 3-8% per decade after age 30. After the age of 60, the decline accelerates. This means that older people burn fewer calories than a young person of equivalent weight who is doing an equivalent exercise routine.
The good news is that older people can offset some of this muscle loss by engaging in weightlifting or resistance training.
Sex
People who are born male tend to burn more calories than females do, primarily because males tend to be naturally larger and have more muscle mass. However, hormones may also play a role, as males have a higher basal metabolic rate (BMR) due to the male hormone testosterone, which leads to a higher calorie burn. This means that females who want to burn the same amount of calories as men would need more weight training to achieve this.
Training Intensity
The type of exercises you do, how fast you do them, and how much weight you lift will also affect your calorie burn.
However, don’t just go for heavy weights simply to burn more calories, especially if you’re new to training. It’s not an effective way to train your body to handle weights, and it might result in injuries. Instead, gradually increase your weights. As you build muscle, your body will progressively be able to handle more weight. As your muscle mass increases, so will your metabolic rate. This, in turn, will also increase your ability to burn more calories.
Rest Periods (Metabolic Conditioning)
It’s not just your body and the intensity of your workout that can influence your calorie burn; using metabolic conditioning by altering your rest periods also plays a role.
What we mean by this is that by strategically manipulating your rest periods, you can increase the intensity of your workouts, boost your metabolism, and burn more calories. Due to the EPOC effect, this can even occur for hours afterwards.
Simply shorten your rest periods to force your body to work harder. This will increase your heart rate and oxygen consumption, torching more fat during and after the workout.
Lifting Weights vs. Cardio for Calorie Burn
Combining cardio and weights is your best bet when it comes to burning calories. This is because, minute by minute, cardio burns more calories than lifting weights does. Remember the 154-pound person who burned 220 calories lifting weights for an hour, but burned 370 calories when hiking for an hour? Additional cardio comparisons include doing yard work for an hour, which burns approximately 330 calories; walking burns 280 calories; and cycling burns 290 calories. Cycling is a low-impact exercise (i.e., it doesn’t strain your joints) that you can easily do at the gym, on the roads, or at home on your Speediance Velonix.
So, does this mean that cardio is better than weight lifting? Not at all. One reason is that those calorie counts do not factor in the EPOC afterburn, which continues well into the next day. Additionally, progressive weight training is crucial to enhance your muscle growth over time. Increased muscle growth is also essential for increasing calorie burn over time.
This helps demonstrate that using a variety of cardio exercises and weight training is the best choice. When you combine cardio and weights in your fat loss workout plan, you can achieve better calorie burn, improved physical fitness, increased strength, a more balanced physique, and a healthier body than doing either alone.
However, don’t solely focus on calories, even if it’s your primary goal when lifting weights. Ensuring balanced nutrition for muscle growth is essential for both weight training and calorie burning.
How to Maximize Calorie Burn When Lifting
Using Progressive Overload
Using progressive overload will help you lose fat without sacrificing muscle mass. A progressive load means consistently increasing the weight, reps, or intensity of your workout over time. So, you’ll progressively build strength, muscle mass, and burn more calories. This is important since your body adapts to the activities you put it through. Therefore, you need to continue pushing to build muscle, which requires more energy and burns additional calories. Whether your goal is to torch fat or build muscle mass, progressive overloading is non-negotiable.
Consume enough protein to ensure good muscle gains. This will prevent you from burning too many calories at the expense of your muscles.
Compound Exercises
Compound movements are essential for burning fat and building a sculpted physique. Instead of doing hours of aerobic activity, use multi-joint exercises like squats, deadlifts, and bench presses. In short, compound movements activate more muscles and burn more calories.
Bodyweight exercises like push-ups, squats, and lunges are all great places to start. Still, to achieve progressive overload, combining these exercises with deadlifts, presses, and resistance exercises on equipment like the Speediance Gym Monster 2 is essential.
Frequency
People often think you can simply do your exercise routine once or twice a week to burn calories or get shredded. But nothing can be further from the truth. Consistency is key if you are serious about weight training or burning calories. This means you must train at least 3 to 4 times a week.
Frequent training boosts your metabolism and keeps it elevated, avoiding those highs and lows associated with inconsistent training. It also triggers continuous muscle growth, and the EPOC effect ensures you continue to burn calories even on your rest days.
Intensity
Intensity is also essential for maximizing calorie burn. Heavier weights will build more muscle, but you need to focus on high-intensity weight training to push your body for more efficient fat-burning while preserving those precious muscle gains. Every pound of lean muscle you build allows you to consume and burn 50 more calories daily, even just at rest.
Prioritize Protein
Protein intake preserves muscle during calorie restriction. If you're cutting calories to lose weight, cut fats and sugars, but ensure you consume enough protein. This is critical since if your body isn’t getting enough protein when working out, lifting weights, and burning lots of calories, it will start targeting your existing muscle, breaking it down to use it for fuel to keep your workout going. That isn’t something you want.
How much protein do you need? While it varies from person to person, a general guideline is to aim for 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. Therefore, that 154lb person we mentioned above should consume 123g to 154g of protein each day. This protein can come from meat or vegetarian sources; the body doesn’t care which. The key is consuming a variety of sources. If you are vegan or vegetarian, the protein content of your meals is lower, so just ensure you have some with each meal.
One final thing to note is that it’s not just about how much protein you consume, but also the timing. You want to ensure you get protein throughout the day so that amino acids are always available for muscle repair throughout your workout and beyond. If you're having a hard time consuming enough protein throughout the day, try protein shakes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I Lose Weight by Only Lifting Weights?
You can lose weight only by lifting weights, since it burns calories. However, the most effective exercise routines for weight loss, physical fitness, and overall health typically involve a combination of cardio and weightlifting exercises.
Can You Build Muscle and Burn Fat at the Same Time?
Yes, you can build muscle and burn fat simultaneously. The key is to ensure adequate protein intake while weight training. This will allow your muscles to continue building while you burn fat, effectively killing two birds with one stone.
Lifting Weights Boosts Metabolism, Builds Strength, and Burns Calories
Lifting weights isn’t just for building muscle; it’s a powerful tool for burning calories and supporting long-term fat loss. From the calories burnt during your session to the extended afterburn effect, strength training helps you torch fat even while at rest. You can effectively burn fat while building muscle by focusing on compound movements, progressive overload, training intensity, and adequate protein intake.
Want to take your workouts further? A smart home gym system like the Speediance Gym Monster 2 offers guided resistance training to help you get stronger and leaner from the comfort of home.
