How Many Calories Do You Burn Doing Squats?
Since squats are a compound exercise that use many different muscles, you’ll be able to burn plenty of calories doing this exercise. In fact, you’ll burn about 8 calories each minute doing normal intensity squats.
This means that if you perform 20 squats in one minute, each squat equals about 0.38 calories, and with 100 squats you’ll burn about 38 calories.
Calories Burned with Exercises (Weight: 175lbs)
| MET | 15 mins. | 30 mins. | 45 mins. | 60 mins. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abs Exercises | 7 | 146 | 292 | 438 | 583 |
| Burpees | 8 | 167 | 333 | 500 | 667 |
| Jumping Rope | 8.8 | 183 | 367 | 550 | 733 |
| Squats | 5.5 | 115 | 229 | 344 | 458 |
| Jumping Jacks | 7.7 | 160 | 321 | 481 | 642 |
| Sit-Ups | 8 | 167 | 333 | 500 | 667 |
| Lunges | 4 | 83 | 167 | 250 | 333 |
| Kettlebells | 8 | 167 | 333 | 500 | 667 |
| Push-Ups | 3.8 | 79 | 158 | 238 | 317 |
| Rowing | 4.8 | 100 | 200 | 300 | 400 |
| Bridges | 3 | 63 | 125 | 188 | 250 |
How to do Squats Safely
Squats are one of the core exercises that bodybuilders do on a daily basis, which means it’s very important to do squats with the correct form to avoid unnecessary injuries.
Doing squats is easy to do once you have the correct form and have plenty of practice doing them with a light weight to make sure you have the correct technique.
Doing squats step-by-step:
- Before you do squats, you need to warm up. First, you should do some basic stretches emphasizing your lower body. Once you’ve warmed up, you’re now ready to get under the bar and do some squats with weight on your back.
- Put a light amount of weight on the barbell for a warmup set, around 25% of your one-rep max.
- Put your head under the barbell and have it rest on your shoulders until it feels comfortable.
- Then lift the barbell off the weight rack and step back so the barbell won’t make contact with the rack.
- Next, you perform the squat. You should squat down in a controlled motion and make sure you go down far enough so your hips are parallel with the ground.
- After you hold the squat for about half a second or so, drive your legs up to the ceiling, using a lot of power to complete the squat.
Depending on your training program, you should do at least 3 sets of heavy squats each session and you should only do squats 2-3 times per week maximum to avoid overtraining.
Benefits of Squats
Incorporating squats into your workout routine is essential if you want to progress and build a great physique over time. Squats are a great exercise to burn calories, which means doing squats will also help you lose weight if you do them regularly.
Squatting with the correct form and appropriate weight will also help you avoid injury and lowers your chances of hurting your knees and joints, and the squat movement helps to strengthen the tendons, bones, and ligaments around your leg muscles.
Athletes will also benefit in other ways by performing squats. This compound exercise will help you jump higher and with more power. Track runners will find that they will also be able to jump longer distances from working squats into their exercise routine.
While squats are certainly focused on improving your lower body strength, they are also a great exercise to tone your core muscles as well.
As you’re holding weight on your back and moving through different planes of motion, the body must work hard to remain stable and not fall over. This strengthens the core and includes the lower back, inner spinal stabilizers, mid-back, obliques, and abdominal musculature [1].
How the Calculator Works
Our calculator uses MET values to give you an accurate estimate of how many calories you can expect to burn while doing squats and other exercises. The higher the MET value, the more calories you will burn.
MET (Metabolic Equivalent of Task)
We use MET values to estimate the energy expenditure that different activities require, which allows us to give you the number of calories you can expect to burn while performing various activities. Check out our website to see many other activities we’ve developed calculators for.
MET stands for the metabolic equivalent of task, and doing squats at a normal intensity has a MET value of 5 while performing squats with heavy effort has a higher MET value at 8.
Formula
The formula that our squats calculator uses to determine the number of calories burned per minute is (MET x bodyweight in Kg x 3.5) ÷ 200.
Examples
A person weighing 175 pounds will burn approximately 458 calories per hour from doing squats. This activity has a MET of 5.5, which means that it burns over five times as many calories as you would at rest.
This is what the formula for calculating the calories burned while doing squats will look like for a 175-pound individual at a MET value of 5.5.
- Calories burned (per minute) = (body weight in kg x MET x 5) ÷ 200
- Calories burned (per minute) = ( 79.4 x 5 x 3.5 ) ÷ 200
- Calories burned (per minute) = 6 calories x 60
- Calories burned (per hour) = 458 calories per hour
As we mentioned before, the MET value for doing squats with heavy effort is 8, which means you’ll burn even more calories when doing this exercise. Here is an example of the calculation for doing squats with heavy effort:
- Calories burned (per minute) = (body weight in kg x MET x 5) ÷ 200
- Calories burned (per minute) = ( 79.4 x 8 x 5 ) ÷ 200
- Calories burned (per minute) = 1 calories x 60
- Calories burned (per hour) = 667 calories per hour
Squat Variations
There are many different variations of squats that you can incorporate into your exercise routine. Some variations don’t require a squat rack and make use of dumbbells, kettlebells, or bands.
Other variations, like the heel elevated squats, provide different benefits than regular squats. Be sure to do plenty of research to find the squat variation that works best for you, and don’t be afraid to do more than one to mix things up.
The Bottom Line
Squats are one of the most popular exercises among bodybuilders and casual fitness enthusiasts alike. Squats are proven to increase the muscle mass in your legs while toning and sculpting your lower body.
If you want to incorporate squats into your workout routine or if you already do, it’s crucial to perform squats with the correct form to avoid injury. Taking extra time to nail down the right form is a great idea that can save you from potential injuries in the future.
Use our squats calculator to get an idea of how many calories you can expect to burn, and be sure to check out all the other calculators that we have to offer at Fitness Volt!
References:
- Jetté, M., Sidney, K., & Blümchen, G. (1990). Metabolic equivalents (METS) in exercise testing, exercise prescription, and evaluation of functional capacity. Clinical cardiology, 13(8), 555–565. https://doi.org/10.1002/clc.4960130809
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