How Many Calories Do Burpees Burn?

Burpees are known for being a challenging exercise. Find out how many calories you burn with burpees and how to burn more.

Some rough estimations are that the average person burns around 118 calories to 203 calories during 15 minutes of vigorous burpees.

How much you weigh plays an important role in these estimations.

The 118 calories burned are the number for a 125-pound (56 kg) person doing the 15 minutes of burpees.

On the flip side, the 203 calories are the estimation for a 215-pound (97 kg) person doing the same burpee workout.

Additionally, the actual number of calories you burn with burpees will likely vary due to differences in body composition, hormone levels, and exact workout intensity.

That being said, the estimations do you give some idea of what you can expect from this exercise.

This article will also go over a chart with more detailed estimations for different body weights, how to burn more calories while doing burpees, and how much weight loss these numbers offer.

Biggest factors in calories burned with burpees

There are many details that influence how much energy burpees actually require from your body. This makes it harder to find out for what amounts of food burpees can compensate.

Even if this is the case, learning about the things that influence how many calories burpees burn can still be useful.

First of all, it helps you make your estimations just a bit more accurate.

Secondly, it helps you understand how you can change up your burpee workouts to make them more effective in this area.

Here are some of the factors that influence how much energy burpees require:

• Weight: Your body burns calories throughout the day to keep you alive and move you around. Generally, the more you weigh, the more energy these things require.
• Body composition: The human body is made from different tissues. In what ratios these are present can vary which is called body composition. This is relevant because muscle tends to burn more calories than the same weight in fat.
• Intensity: Another detail that influences how many calories your movements burn is the speed at which you do them. Faster burpees tend to burn more calories per minute of exercise.

Hidden calorie burning from burpees

There is another detail that makes the calories burned with burpees even harder to predict. This detail is that your burpee workouts can also cause extra energy usage after you stop exercising.

First of all, there is something called “afterburn”. This is where intense workouts make you burn a few more calories than usual after the workout.

Afterburn will not make the craziest difference but for up to 72 hours after a burpee session, you could burn a bit more energy.

Secondly, while they are not ideal for this purpose, it is possible that you build a bit of muscle mass by doing burpees with the right repetitions, sets, and resistance.

This extra muscle mass would help you burn more calories throughout your day and your other burpee sessions.

The calorie-burning estimations for burpees don’t take these more long-term effects into account. Your workouts can offer slightly more results than the numbers imply at first.

Chart of burpee calorie-burning estimations

There is a cheat sheet from the Centers For Disease Control And Prevention that just mentions that vigorous calisthenics exercises like burpees burn more than 7 calories per minute (1).

Luckily, there are ways to get more useful numbers. More specifically, you can use something called MET values to get somewhat more precise estimations.

MET values are estimations (or sometimes measurements if studies are available) of how physically intense an activity is. You can use numbers like this in the formula below to get estimations of calories burned:

Formula: METs x 3.5 x (your body weight in kilograms) / 200 = calories burned per minute

This formula is obviously not perfect. There are a variety of factors that influence how many calories you actually burn with burpees.

At the same time, the numbers do give you some information about what you can expect from this exercise.

Sources can vary but 8 is one MET estimation for vigorous calisthenics exercises like burpees (2). The table below will give you a variety of estimations you get by using this MET value.

How many calories do 100 burpees burn?

You may also want to know how many burpees you should do to hit certain calorie-burning targets.

Let’s say the average person does about 15 burpees per minute (3).

In that case, the average person can expect to burn around 53 calories to 90 calories per 100 burpees.

With the same intensity, you can burn around 32 calories to 54 calories by doing 60 burpees.

To burn 3500 calories (about one pound of body fat) with burpees you would have to do about 6,667 to 3,876 burpees.

You can get a better idea of what all these calorie amounts mean by knowing that 100 grams of boiled potatoes contain about 87 calories (4).

Ways to burn more calories with burpees

By now you likely understand that all the numbers above are not necessarily static. There are a few ways you can increase how many calories you burn with burpees.

Most people are interested in getting more out of their existing burpee routine. This allows you to get more results without spending more time.

The first way to do this is to do your burpees faster. These more intense movements require more energy.

Secondly, you can make it so your body has to move more weight.

One way to do this is by carrying extra external weight. For example by wearing a heavy backpack or weighted vest while doing burpees.

Additionally, you can build some muscle with other resistance training exercises. By weighing more in a healthy way, you can burn more calories during burpees and the rest of your day.

Lastly, you can also still consider doing more burpees. If you avoid overtraining, this can lead to more calorie burning too.

How long does it take to see results from burpees?

Burning all of these extra calories with burpees looks nice but you are likely more interested in the fat loss results this offers.

The first thing to note is that while burpees can be good for weight loss, doing them does not necessarily offer results. You still need habits in areas like nutrition that are good enough.

That being said, if you assume your current routine keeps you at the same weight and you only implement more burpees, you can get some interesting numbers.

A 185-pound (83 kg) person can burn an extra 1750 calories by doing 15 minutes of burpees every day for 10 days. This comes down to about 0.5 pounds (0.22 kg) of body fat.

If this same person does the same burpee routine for 30 days, they can burn an extra 1.5 pounds (0.66 kg) of body fat.

One important thing to note is that as this person, and you, lose weight with burpees, the same workouts will start to burn fewer calories.

Should you do burpees for calorie burning?

There are more effective options too but burpees can help you burn nice amounts of calories in a short amount of time.

Two of the more unique benefits of burpees are that you can do them basically everywhere and that you can do a few in the small free time blocks you have throughout the day.

One thing you do want to keep in mind is that burpees can also be challenging on your ankles, knees, hips, and back. Especially if you have a few extra pounds to lose.

If you are relatively new to exercising you likely want to start with one of the softer burpee alternatives.

Lastly, if you want all of these calories to come from body fat, your habits in other lifestyle areas like diet will need to be good enough too.