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Calories Burned Chopping Wood Calculator

This is a tool that can give you an estimate of the number of calories burned while chopping, loading, and even stacking wood.

Written by Tom Miller, CSCS

Last Updated onApril 6, 2022

How Many Calories You Burn Chopping Woods?

Using the calories burned chopping wood calculator, you can estimate the calories burned or energy expenditure that is used while chopping wood.

How to use the calculator

The calories burned chopping wood calculator is an easy to use and simple calculator. You just plug in the values and get the estimation of calories burned chopping wood. Here are the step-by-step instructions.

Choose the unit of measurement – pounds or kilos
Enter your weight and time spent chopping wood
Choose the activity you performed
Hit Calculate

Once you hit calculate you should see the number of calories that were burned while chopping wood, along with the calories burned each minute.

Now that you know how the calculator is used, you should also know how the calculator calculates the calories burned.

How Does This Calculator Works?

Formula

This tool uses the MET formula for determining the number of calories burned during exercise.

Total Calories burned in 1 minute = (3.5 x MET x body-weight in kg)/200

What is MET?

MET is a ratio of your working metabolic rate (when you are active) relative to your resting metabolic rate (when you are inactive and not moving or digesting). When using this formula, MET values are used. MET values rate the intensity of exercise from 1 being when the body is at rest and is equal to your resting metabolic rate, all the way to 16, which is 16 times more than your resting metabolic rate (RMR) and is the equivalent to running a 6-minute mile at 10 mph. (3)

So, the higher the MET value of an activity, the more intense the activity is, and the more calories are burned. The MET formula also uses the MET in terms of being equal to 3.5 ml of oxygen being used for each kilogram of body weight per minute. You can find out the amount of oxygen your muscles use by multiplying your weight in kilograms by 3.5.

To determine the number of calories burned while chopping wood, the calculator uses your body weight and the time spent doing the activity.

For example, if an individual weighed 140 pounds or 63.5 kilograms and performed an hour of wood-chopping, they would have burned 220 calories. Let me show you.

Calories burned = (body weight in kg x MET (of activity) x 3.5 (amount of oxygen used per kilogram) / 200
Calories burned each minute = (63.5kg x 3.3 x 3.5) / 200
(63.5kg x 3.3 x 3.5) / 200 = 3.67 calories burned each minute
Calories burned each 60 minutes = 3.67 x 60
3.67 x 60 = 220 calories burned each 60 minutes of woodchopping

That is how a 140-pound individual will burn an estimation of 220 calories an hour chopping wood.

What is Wood-Chopping?

People chop wood for a multitude of reasons, but the main reasons are for the practical collecting of wood for survival, or for a fire, and to create things from wood. It is also a sport where contestants try to cut through a log or block of wood as fast as possible. (1)

There are many methods along with styles and ways to cut down a tree. Sometimes you would only need the limbs to be cut off, so you would use special tools and expertise to do so. Overall, wood-chopping is simply cutting the wood of a tree using an axe or hatchet.

How Great is Wood-Chopping as a Weight Loss Tool?

Wood-chopping is a great form of exercise. The entire body is in motion to move the axe as efficiently as possible to cut trees. It is as simple as it sounds, but a lot of movement is needed. You must keep your core engaged, and swing from the hips and legs, like a baseball bat. While swinging, the entirety of your arms, chest, and some of your back is being activated to put as much force into the swing as possible. The more muscles used; the more calories are burned. Wood-chopping uses the entire body, so it is a great workout in terms of muscle activation. It is even used for rehabilitation purposes, to treat lower back pain because of its ability to provide great core activation and stability. (2)

Wood chopping can build muscle and create a chiseled physique when paired with a good diet and proper rest. It does not burn as many calories as most exercises, because it is not great cardio.

Now that you know what wood-chopping is and what it is capable of, you should know how this calorie calculator works.

More Calorie Calculators

Try out our other calorie-based calculators below.

Is The Calculator Accurate?

This calculator uses the simple formula shown above, but calorie expenditure is always very individual. While the calories burned for each exercise using these formulas is a rough estimate, it will never be completely accurate because many factors depend on the number of calories you specifically burn.

This tool does not factor in age, sex, body-fat percentage, or intensity of the exercise (like RPE or time spent doing solely exercise and not lounging). If you choose to do the exercise a bit more intense or a bit less intense the calorie expenditure will vary, so you will need to take that into consideration, because every time you do this exercise your energy expenditure will never be the same.

It is also important to note that your diet and lifestyle will create the caloric deficit that you need for desirable weight loss, and exercise can help but should be a tool and not the focus creating the deficit.

If you need to create a lower deficit and burn more calories, then it is a great idea to bump up the intensity of the exercise by doing more or going faster. So, chopping more wood for longer and chopping larger logs faster would burn more calories. You can also use a heavier axe, which would make everything more difficult, and as a result, burn more calories.

References:

Woodchopping, Wikipedia, 2022-01-02, Retrieved 2022-01-18
The Wood Chop Exercise: Benefits, How-To, and Muscles Worked. Healthline. 2021-08-04. Retrieved 2022-01-18.
Jetté, M.; Sidney, K.; Blümchen, G. (1990-08). Metabolic equivalents (METS) in exercise testing, exercise prescription, and evaluation of functional capacity. Clinical Cardiology. 13 (8): 555–565. doi:10.1002/clc.4960130809.

Additional References:

Compendium of physical activities: Arizona State University
History of woodchopping as a sport in Australia: https://www.utas.edu.au

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Categories: Fitness Calculator Tools

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Tom Miller, CSCS

Tom is a professional content strategist who loves to write about health and fitness, he is a certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) additionally an expert crap shooter, qualified bro scientist, unmatched at being the best lifter in my local gym.