How Many Calories are Burned by Sports?
For fencing, which is a typical intensity activity under the general description of sports activities, the average calories burned by a person weighing 190 pounds (86 Kg) in 30 minutes is 259 Calories. In one hour fencing will burn 517 Calories.
Summary of Sports Information and Charts
To help you find the information you need, we first focus on fencing which is the most common sports activity. This is followed by the activities with the highest burn rate which is Crossfit maximal intensity, and the lowest which is sitting and performing light effort tai chi or qi gong, martial arts, giving the average calories burned per minute and per hour, along with food calorie equivalents and our new proprietary calories burned score© and calories burned rank©The calorie score gives an indication of the relative burn rate of the sports activities measured as a percentage score out of 100 for the different sports activities, where 100% is the maximum calorie burn which we estimate from running at a pace of 4 minutes per mile which is a world class speed for running for 30 mins.
The calorie rank is the rank of the sports activity compared with all other 800 activities in our database to give an indication of the percentage of activities which have a higher or lower calorie burn. A rank of 1 means it is the highest ranking activity in terms or calorie burn and a rank of 100 means it is the activity with the lowest carlorie burn compared with all other activities.
Effect of Intensity on the Calorie Calculator
Although the above is a typical example for sports, the calculator we use to determine the calories burnt depends on the intensity, duration and your body weight. At the bottom of the article we have a variety of different intensities which can be personalized based on your weight and the duration of the activities, using our free calculator.
Calorie Score and Calorie Rank for Sports
At dietandfitnesstoday we have a new proprietary concept of a Calories Burned Score© and Calories Burned Rank©.
Calories Burned in 30 Minutes for a Typical sports Activity
As we have previously mentioned Fencing is a moderate and typical level of intensity for sports and can be used as a general representative approximate measure for calories burnt by sports. For this activity in 30 minutes an average man weighing 190 pounds (86 kg) burns 259 Calories, while an average woman weighing 163 pounds (74 kg), in 30 minutes burns 222 Calories.
Calories Per Minute
The calories burned per minute for Fencing is 9 Calories per minute, for a typical man and for a typical female is 7 Calories per minute.
Calories Per Hour
The calories lost in one hour is 517 calories for a typical man, and 444 calories in one hour for a typical woman.
How to Burn 100 Calories
To burn 100 calories for a typical male would require 11 minutes of the activity fencing and to burn 100 calories with the same sports activity for a typical female would take 14 minutes.
Score and Rank
Fencing has a Calorie Burned Score© of 23.70 out of 100 which means it gives a calorie burn of 23.70 % of the highest realistic calorie burn possible. This activity has a Calorie Burned Rank© of 65.00 out of 100 ie it is in the top 65.00 % of activities in terms of calorie burn. There are in fact 229.00 activities that have a higher calorie burn than fencing
Equivalent Activities
The following activities burn the same number of calories as Fencing -
- basketball, non-game, general (Taylor Code 480)
- building road, driving heavy machinery
- butchering animal, large, vigorous effort
- carpentry, outside house, installing rain gutters (Taylor Code 640),carpentry, outside house, building a fence
- carpentry, sawing hardwood
Comparison with Inactivity
30 mins of inactivity for example just sitting and watching television burns 43 calories for a typical man and 37 calories for a typical woman. Which means Fencing burns 6.5 times more calories than the equivalent time of inactivity for an average man and 6.0 times more calories for an average female.
Food Calorie Equivalents
This level of 259 calories burnt by an average man fencing is equivalent to 0.5 Big Macs, 0.9 snickers bar, 2.2 Starbucks Grande Skinny Lattes, 0.9 cheeseburgers, 0.9 slices of pizza or 0.7 large blueberry muffins.
For an average female burning 222 calories is equivalent to 0.4 Big Macs, 0.8 snickers bar, 1.9 Starbucks Grande Skinny Lattes, 0.7 cheeseburgers, 0.8 slices of pizza or 0.6 large blueberry muffins.
Weight Loss from Sports
To answer the question how many pounds will I lose from the activity sports? Taking this example of fencing in 30 minutes, the weight loss for a typical man is a minimum of 0.04 pounds, and a typical woman would lose 0.03 pounds.
Based on 4 sessions per week of fencing for a duration of 30 minutes per session, the approximate time taken to lose one pound is 6 weeks for a man and 8 weeks for a woman, assuming no other changes in lifestyle or eating habits.
The same 4 sessions per week of fencing for a duration of 30 minutes per session, would lose 1kg in 3 weeks for a man and 4 weeks for a woman.
Sports Activity with the Highest Calorie Burn
The highest number of calories burned for an average person is achieved by Crossfit maximal intensity. For this activity in 30 minutes an average man burns 625 Calories, while an average woman in 30 minutes burns 536 Calories.
This activity of Crossfit maximal intensity has a Calories Burned Score© of 61.80 out of 100 which means it gives a calorie burn of 61.80 % of the maximum realistic calorie burn possible. This activity has a Calories Burned Rank© of 14.00 out of 100 ie it is in the top 14.00 % of activities in terms of calorie burn. There are in fact 11.00 activities that have a higher calorie burn than Crossfit maximal intensity
Since this level of activity is in the top 15% of all activities it is not advised to attempt this level of activity if you are just starting out on a new fitness regime. In fact this level of intensity may be beyond all but the highest levels of fitness.
Sports Activity with the Lowest Calorie Burn
The sports activity with the lowest calories burnt is sitting and performing light effort tai chi or qi gong, martial arts, which for an average man in 30 minutes burns 65 Calories, and for an average woman burns 55 Calories.
This activity of sitting and performing light effort tai chi or qi gong, martial arts has a Calories Burned Score© of 3.50 out of 100 which means it gives a calorie burn of 3.50 % of the maximum realistic calorie burn possible. This activity has a Calories Burned Rank© of 95.00 out of 100 ie it is in the top 95.00 % of activities in terms of calorie burn. There are in fact 782.00 activities that have a higher calorie burn than sitting and performing light effort tai chi or qi gong, martial arts
Average Calories Burned by Sports
Based on the the list of 130 sports activities, shown below, the average calories burned for an average male, weighing 190 pounds (86 kg) is 284 Calories for 30 minutes of sports. The average burnt for an average female, weighing 163 pounds (74 kg) is 243 Calories for 30 minutes of sports.
You can browse other common activities from our database, from the links below or visit the compendium at https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home.