When you exercise, your muscles work hard. Your body has to spend energy to keep them functioning as it should. If you’re lifting weights or doing other resistance training, your muscles also need the power to repair the micro-tears that inevitably occur during a strength training session. Your body generally burns more calories when you exercise than when you rest. The intensity and duration of the exercise affect how many calories it burns. The exercise also makes a difference: cardio workouts tend to burn more fat than strength training sessions. With that in mind, here is an explanation of how many calories different kinds of muscles burn and how to get them working harder so you can lose weight faster and improve your health simultaneously.
Calorie Burn Per Pound of Muscle.
If you want to lose weight by building muscle, it helps to understand how much you can expect to burn in the process. To begin with, a pound of muscle burns 50 calories a day just sitting there. So if you gain a pound of muscle, you’ll burn an extra 50 calories daily, or 2500 calories monthly. That’s not a huge amount, especially since most of us don’t have time to devote an hour a day to working out. On the other hand, a pound of fat burns only two calories a day. So if you want to lose weight by losing fat, you will have to create a massive deficit by burning off many more calories than someone who’s building muscle. Muscle weighs more than fat, so gaining muscle by lifting weights can help you lose weight. A pound of muscle weighs about the same as a pound of fat.
The Power of Lifting Weights.
Building muscle is the best way to burn calories and lose weight. You can do this by lifting weights, doing high-intensity interval training (HIIT), or doing a combination. Exercises that build muscle, such as squats, deadlifts, and bench presses, are called resistance training or weightlifting exercises. When you lift weights, your muscles contract and get more prominent, this is called muscle hypertrophy. As you add more muscle, your metabolism increases, and you burn more calories daily. Muscle is metabolically active tissue, so it draws energy even when you’re resting. The more muscle you have, the more energy your body uses. Fat, on the other hand, is metabolically passive tissue. It sits there and stores energy but doesn’t draw energy like muscle does. So the more muscle you have and fat you burn, the more muscle you have.
Running and Calorie Burning.
Running is one of the best exercises you can do to lose weight and improve your health. A 2013 study published in the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine found that running burns more calories than other forms of exercise, including walking. Running is also easy to do anywhere and is a great way to clear your head. If you haven’t exercised in a long time, start slowly and build up gradually, following the 10% rule. And to protect your joints, try to do your running on a softer surface, like a track, a trail, or a dune. Running and walking are not just great forms of aerobic exercise but also mental health tools. Running can be a therapy for people suffering from anxiety, depression, or insomnia.
Tennis and Calorie Burning.
Tennis is a great sport that can be played by all ages and work wonders for your health. The average person burns about 400 calories in a half-hour of tennis. A 2009 study found that playing singles tennis burns about 560 calories in 30 minutes. Playing doubles burns about 540 calories in that same amount of time. While you should always try to play at a challenging but not overwhelming level, you should also take breaks during your match to catch your breath and recover.
Conclusion
Exercising can be a great way to burn calories and lose weight. But it’s not the only way. You can also try changing your diet and choosing foods that are lower in calories and higher in nutrients. What’s important is that you make a conscious effort to get more active and move more every day. That way, you’ll not only be healthier but will also feel better. And that’s a win for everyone!
