Pushing metal prowler workout sleds with heavy weights will definitely burn more calories. Find out rough estimations about how many.
The average person can expect to burn around 236 – 406+ calories per 30 minutes of pushing a weighted workout sled at a vigorous intensity.
Where you are in this range will depend a lot on your body weight.
A 125-pound (56 kg) person will lean more toward burning 236 calories while pushing a weighted sled whereas the 406 calories are an estimation for a 215-pound (97 kg) person.
That aside, these are still very rough estimations that don’t even include the weight you use and the speed of your steps. You should not take these numbers too precisely.
This article will also go into somewhat more detailed estimations, how different sled push intensities compare, how to burn more calories while doing sled pushes, and more.
Biggest influences on calories burned with sled pushes
An unfortunate fact is that predicting and even measuring the number of calories burned with sled pushes accurately is very hard.
This is another reason why calories in calories out is very far from perfect.
At the same time, you can still get somewhat more accurate estimations of how many calories workout sled pushes burn. One way is by taking a few factors into account that influence your results a lot.
Another benefit of knowing these factors is that it becomes easier to modify your sled push and pull workouts in a way that makes them burn more calories.
With that in mind, a few examples of things that influence the number of calories burned with prowler sled pushes a lot are:
- Body weight: Your body needs energy aka calories to keep itself alive and move around. Generally, the heavier a person is, the more calories they will need to do activities like sled pushes.
- Extra weight on the sled: Workout sleds are typically made to put weight plates on. Exactly how much extra weight is on the sled influences how hard your body has to work to push it forward. Heavier weights will require more energy.
- Body composition: Different people can be made of different ratios of tissues. This is relevant because an amount of body fat will burn fewer calories than the same weight in muscle mass.
- Sled push intensity: There are many speeds at which you can push prowler sleds. The faster you go, the more calories you tend to burn.
- Pushing surface and friction: You can push workout sleds on different surfaces and different models have different friction with the surface under them. The harder ends of the ranges will burn more calories.
Hidden calorie burning from workout sled pushes
There are even more details that make it harder to estimate the calorie-burning results of a prowler sled push workout.
How many extra calories you burn is not necessarily limited to during the workout itself.
First of all, by implementing certain repetition ranges and weights, prowler sled pushes can help you burn a nice amount of muscle mass.
This extra weight will not only benefit your future workouts but also your daily activities in terms of calorie burning.
These muscle gains will not always happen and/or can vary a lot from person to person. In simpler words, putting an exact number on the results of this is hard.
Besides that, there is also something called afterburn which you can get from exercising very intensely.
You can describe this as burning more calories than usual for some amount of time (typically not more than 72 hours) after your sled push workouts.
Thirdly, working out also has an impact on a variety of hormone levels. In turn, these can influence the number of calories you burn.
All of these effects are hard to put into exact numbers. For this reason, the estimations of the number of calories burned with the prowler sled push exercise typically don’t include them.
Estimations calories burned with sled pushes
To get some rough estimations about how many calories sled pushes burn anyway you can use numbers called MET values.
These are predictions and sometimes measurements about how physically intense certain activities are. In turn, you can use these METs in the formula below to get an idea of how many calories you burn.
Formula: METs x 3.5 x (your body weight in kilograms) / 200 = calories burned per minute
Unfortunately, there are no MET estimations for prowler workout sled pushes specifically.
The next best thing is using the METs for circuit training which are 4.3 for moderate effort and 8 for vigorous effort (1).
If you load the workout sled heavy and really pick up the pace, you will likely be higher than an 8 MET. Even so, while the numbers are lacking, they do give you some idea of what you can expect.
In the first table below, you can find the MET for vigorous sled pushes applies to different body weights and amounts of time.
After that, there is a table comparing different intensities.
By now, it should be even more clear that these estimations are far from perfect. There will be some extent of just doing a sled push routine and seeing what results it actually offers.
Calories burned with prowler sled pushes
For cardiovascular-focused prowler sled pushes, you will likely prefer the rough estimations for how many calories they burn in certain amounts of time.
Again, your actual pushing speed and how much weight you use can make big differences.
| Time Weight Person | 1 Minute | 15 Minutes | 30 Minutes | 45 Minutes | 60 Minutes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 125 Pounds (56 kg) | 8 calories | 118 calories | 236 calories | 354 calories | 473 calories |
| 155 Pounds (70 kg) | 10 calories | 146 calories | 293 calories | 439 calories | 586 calories |
| 185 Pounds (84 kg) | 12 calories | 175 calories | 350 calories | 524 calories | 699 calories |
| 215 Pounds (97 kg) | 14 calories | 203 calories | 406 calories | 610 calories | 813 calories |
Calories burned different sled push intensities
One of the benefits of prowler sled pushes is that you have a lot of freedom to choose the weight you use and how fast you walk.
These details do influence your calorie-burning results a lot.
The very rough estimations below are for pushing the workout sleds for 30 minutes. Again, all the variables involved will make a big difference.
| Sled Push Intensity Weight Person | Moderate Effort | Vigorous Effort |
|---|---|---|
| 125 Pounds (56 kg) | 127 calories | 236 calories |
| 155 Pounds (70 kg) | 157 calories | 293 calories |
| 185 Pounds (84 kg) | 188 calories | 350 calories |
| 215 Pounds (97 kg) | 218 calories | 406 calories |
How to burn more calories with workout sled pushes
As mentioned, you can change the effectiveness of your workout sled pushes a lot. This is great since it means you can burn more calories in a shorter amount of time.
If you do this exercise as a cardiovascular workout, you would do the sled pushes at a faster pace. More vigorous movements tend to require more energy from your body.
At some intensity point, you can even get the afterburn effect mentioned for extra calorie-burning.
Secondly, you can make each step with the prowler sled more challenging.
The main way to do this is to put more weight plates or other weights on the workout sled.
You do want to make sure that you can still push the sled at a nice pace to burn calories.
Lastly, you can also build muscle with certain prowler sled workouts or other resistance training exercises.
This extra mass will make your body burn more calories during the cardiovascular sled push workouts and the rest of your day.
Do workout sled pushes help you lose weight?
If you are interested in burning calories you likely also want to know what weight loss results sled pushes offer.
Something important to keep in mind about this is that burning more calories is not always enough. You may need to make other changes too to lose weight with workout sled pushes.
That aside, you can temporarily assume all the extra calorie-burning will come from body fat to get some rough estimations.
A 185-pound (84 kg) person doing three 20-minute vigorous workout sled push sessions a week will burn an extra 699 calories or about 0.2 pounds (0.09 kg) of body fat.
After doing the same sled push routine for a month (four weeks), this person would have burned an extra 2796 calories or about 0.8 pounds (0.35 kg) of body fat.
Keep in mind that if you build muscle with workout sled pushes, the number on the scale can move less than expected. Even if you are actually losing body fat.
Are workout sled pushes good for burning calories?
Prowler workout sled pushes can be a great workout for burning a lot of calories in a short amount of time.
Especially if you find sled pushes an enjoyable way of working out.
To get the most calorie-burning results, you would likely switch up muscle-building sled push workouts with more cardiovascular-focused ones.
On the flip side, sled pushes are not completely unique in how many calories they burn either. If you don’t enjoy them, you have many other effective options too.
Lastly, keep in mind that if you want to lose weight and more specifically fat with sled pushes, you may also need to make positive changes in other lifestyle areas like nutrition.
