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How many calories do I burn doing sit ups?
Can you tell me how many calories are burned doing sit ups?
Our expert says...
Ok, this is a 'how long is a piece of string' question but I'll do my best to give you an idea. A very, very approximate calculation for a person weighing 140lbs doing sit ups would be as follows:
Minutes Calories
1 9
5 45
10 89
20 178
30 267
40 356
50 445
60 (1 Hour) 535
However, it's important that you understand how potentially inaccurate the above figures are because actual calories burned is massively affected by:
1) The fitness level of the exerciser (those more used to exercise will burn less calories due to learned efficiency and therefore need to work harder to overload the abominals)
2) The type of 'sit-up' exercises being performed - variations that use both the external obliques together with the upper and lower abs mean more muscle usage and a greater calorie burning potential then 'sit-up' variations that target a smaller part of the muscle group
3) The amount of rest between sets - the less rest, the greater the cardiovascular overload and demand and greater the calorie burning potential.
4) The number of repetitions in each set - repeptitions need to be high enough so you feel tired, but should not be reaching the 30 per set as its a sign that the exercise is not targeting the abdominals enough, therefore the technique should be checked and/or exercise changed.
5) The QUALITY of the 'sit-ups' - the most important of them all! The strictist form with minimal cheating with help from other body parts will optimise the calories burned.
Too often with abdominal training I see people going through the motion of counting reps but not really thinking about the quality of their technique or what area they are trying to target. Whenever you do abdominals try to only think about the area you want to feel working while doing your repeptitions. Don't let anything else enter into your mind that could distract from the quality of the movement. This attention principle can be applied to all bodyparts within strength training, however demanding the exercises are to that person.
Hope this helps as a guide with relation to the calorie burning potential of
sit ups!
Kelly
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