Shooting hoops can be a great way to relax, practice your technique, and move more. Additionally, this activity burns a few extra calories.
Shooting hoops is generally considered a fun way to get in some extra movement. On top of the other basketball health benefits, you also burn some extra calories.
The average person can expect to burn around 133 – 229+ calories per 30 minutes of shooting hoops. This number will vary from individual to individual due to a variety of factors.
For example, a 125-pound (56 kg) individual will burn around 133 calories during 30 minutes of shooting hoops.
On the other hand, a 215-pound (97 kg) individual will burn around 152 calories during the same hoops shooting session at the same intensity.
This article will also show you a more detailed chart that takes multiple factors into account, how different aspects of basketball compare, how to burn more calories while shooting hoops, and more.
Biggest influences on calories burned
A fact that many people find annoying is that the number of calories you burn while doing something like shooting hoops is hard to predict and measure correctly.
This fact can make things like weight loss feel like a guessing game when you are trying to balance these numbers with the calories in food.
Even so, good estimations for the number of calories burned while shooting hoops can be a helpful starting point. By taking a few important factors into account you can make your estimations more accurate.
Some of the biggest factors that influence how many calories you burn while shooting hoops include:
- Weight: To move around your body needs energy, measured in calories. The more you weigh, the more energy your body needs to fuel its movements.
- Body composition: Body composition is how much of your body weight is made up of different tissue. Two people can weigh the same but for one individual most of the weight can come from fat while the second individual has a lot of muscle. The reason that is important is that the same weight of muscle requires more energy than that weight in fat.
- Intensity: If you’re looking at calories burned per minute of shooting hoops this can vary a lot by the intensity of your session. The difference between walking vs running to get your basketball can really add up after a few minutes.
Hidden calorie burning from shooting hoops
There are many other aspects that make it even harder to put how many calories you burn while shooting hoops into an exact number. This includes the fact that the calorie-burning effects of shooting hoops are not limited to during the workout.
As mentioned, how much you weigh plays a relatively big role in how many calories you burn. This doesn’t just apply to your workout, this is also the case during everyday activities.
Some people also build or preserve some muscle mass by shooting hoops. This amount of muscle mass will definitely not be as much as something like weight lifting but it does help you burn more calories day in, day out.
It is however extremely hard to put this amount into a number since this muscle mass will be so different from person to person. Individuals more experienced with resistance training will likely not build any muscle by shooting hoops.
Next, doing an activity at high intensities can also cause something called “afterburn”. This is basically having an increased metabolism for a while after you stop doing the exercise.
Lastly, by moving your body more you influence the levels of certain hormones that in turn can benefit your metabolism.
Estimations for calories burned while shooting hoops usually don’t take these effects into account.
Estimations calories burned shooting hoops
The centers for disease control and prevention simplifies the number of calories burned while shooting hoops into between 3.5-7 calories per minute (1).
In reality, there are tools to make more precise estimations. To calculate calories burned during certain activities more specifically you can use a formula with MET values.
A MET value is an exercise-specific value to indicate how intense a specific type of workout is. This number represents how many times more intense the exercise is compared to sitting still.
You can use this in the following formula: METs x 3.5 x (your body weight in kilograms) / 200 = calories burned per minute
An estimation for the MET while shooting hoops is 4.5 (2). The first table below will show estimations for the calories burned while shooting hoops for different body weights and time intervals.
After that, you can find a chart with a comparison between the number of calories burned with different aspects of basketball.
To put these estimations into perspective, 100 grams of boiled potatoes contains about 87 calories (3).
Calories burned while shooting hoops
One of the most convenient ways to see how many calories you burned while shooting hoops is by looking at how much time you spent there.
| Time Weight Person | 1 Minute | 15 Minutes | 30 Minutes | 45 Minutes | 60 Minutes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 125 Pounds (56 kg) | 4 calories | 66 calories | 133 calories | 199 calories | 266 calories |
| 155 Pounds (70 kg) | 5 calories | 82 calories | 165 calories | 247 calories | 330 calories |
| 185 Pounds (83 kg) | 7 calories | 98 calories | 197 calories | 295 calories | 393 calories |
| 215 Pounds (97 kg) | 8 calories | 114 calories | 229 calories | 343 calories | 457 calories |
Calories burned different aspects of basketball
Shooting hoops is not the only way to play basketball. There are plenty of other activities involved in this sport and in turn, these burn different numbers of calories.
In the table below you can find estimations of calories burned with basketball in general, during a game, when doing drills, etc. when doing the activity for 30 minutes.
| Weight Person Basketball Activity | 155 Pounds (70 kg) | 185 Pounds (83 kg) | 215 Pounds (97 kg) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shooting Hoops | 165 calories | 197 calories | 229 calories |
| Basketball (Non-Game) | 220 calories | 262 calories | 305 calories |
| Basketball (General) | 238 calories | 284 calories | 330 calories |
| Officiating | 256 calories | 306 calories | 356 calories |
| Basketball (Wheelchair) | 286 calories | 341 calories | 396 calories |
| Basketball (Game) | 293 calories | 350 calories | 406 calories |
| Basketball Drills and Practice | 341 calories | 406 calories | 472 calories |
How to burn more calories while shooting hoops
The number of calories burned while shooting hoops is certainly not something set in stone. There are a few ways you can increase this amount per time interval.
The challenge for most people is fitting in activities in their busy schedules. They want to burn as many calories in the least amount of time, which means burning more calories per minute spent shooting hoops.
If you do have more time, spending more time shooting hoops will generally burn more calories although at some point overtraining may cause the reverse.
A more obvious way to burn more calories while shooting hoops in a shorter amount of time is by picking up the pace. This means throwing more often, running to get your basketball when it bounces off, etc.
At some intensity point, you also get the added afterburn effect.
The second way to burn more calories while shooting hoops is by making the weight you have to move around heavier.
You can do this by wearing a light weighted vest if it doesn’t get in the way. Additionally, you can build some extra muscle mass with other exercises. This will also likely improve your basketball play.
Can you lose weight by shooting hoops?
Shooting hoops is a form of exercise that can help you burn extra calories. In combination with good habits in other lifestyle areas, this can lead to weight loss.
One pound of body fat is about 3500 calories (one kg +-8000 calories). How long it takes to see weight loss results from shooting hoops will also depend on the number of calories in your diet.
One person might eat more than the other. This might make it so they need to exercise longer or more intensely to see the same weight loss results. You can even lose weight without exercising so there are many factors that influence it.
30 minutes of shooting hoops a day could help you burn an extra 1650 calories in 10 days which is about 0.47 pounds of body fat. 30 days, 4950 calories (= +- 1.41 pounds of body fat), and so on…
Keep in mind that losing weight too fast can be suboptimal. In general, a 500 calorie deficit per day is considered to be a healthy weight loss rate.
Muscles worked by shooting hoops
Shooting hoops mainly works muscles like your shoulders, trapezius, triceps, biceps, forearms, erector spinae, abs, obliques, and lower back.
If you are relatively inexperienced when it comes to resistance training, shooting hoops could help you grow and strengthen some of these muscles a small amount.
For individuals more experienced with resistance training, shooting hoops is likely not enough to build a lot of muscle mass.
Both groups of people generally benefit from giving their bodies enough nutrients, rest, and sleep to repair and grow their muscles after an intense session of shooting hoops.
Should you shoot hoops to burn calories?
As you can see, shooting hoops can be described as a decent workout that can burn a nice number of calories. That being said, there are plenty of other activities that can help you burn more calories in a shorter amount of time.
Whether you should choose shooting hoops as your main form of workout also depends on factors like personal preference.
If calorie burning is your main goal, implementing some exercises in your schedule specifically for building muscle can be helpful.
The extra muscle mass will help you burn more calories day in, day out, including during your hoop shooting sessions.
Also keep in mind that the things you eat stay important no matter what movement routine you’re following. It’s hard to out-exercise a bad diet.
