Calories burnt doing Kung Fu

xsix

Im wondering if anyone has accurate numbers for the amount of calories burnt doing Kung Fu?

So far this is all I have been able to find.....



Papasmurf7467

Answered Last

The "lowest impact" martial art, Tai Chi Chuan, you burn roughly 320, about the same as downhill skiing. In most others though, vigorous external ones, especially if they include cals in their curriculum, you will burn up to 800 in an hour. If you train with weaponry, some of which may be heavy, its effect on the muscles, is similar to that of weight asisted aerobics; you will burn up to 1,000 calories, and even resting you will keep on burning blubber because of muscle soreness. In both Kung Fu and Karate, weapons can be hard on the body if you're not used to them. Not because instructors are such sociopaths they spend their time whacking you; weapons are hard on the body because you are doing hundreds of repetitions with something weighing between 2 to 10 lbs. That may not sound like much, until you take into consideration the angle by which you hold something.
By far the harshest martial arts weapon, is probably the Tetsubo; it is a 30 lb Japanese club, that was designed to break horse's legs, and break body armor. I am not aware of any dojos however, that train in the use of that monstrousity. Again, to conclude; at the lowest level of impact, roughly around 320 calories per hour. If you are training with weaponry, such as a spear in Kung Fu, most of which are in fact heavier than they look, or, a Suburito in Kenjutsu, which weighs as much as a real Katana, if that is included in the training you will burn up to 1,000. However you do not study weapons, until you have reached black belt level or the equivalent. It is a sad reality of modern martial arts, that not even physically grown adults, have the psychological maturity to be "playing" with weapons. You need to prove to the instructor that you can use a staff without whacking other people in the head, or kamas without cutting yourself because you pretended to be in Lord of the Rings. State law requies most martial arts schools not to allow children under 18 to study edged weapons. In Japan, if through parental negligence, or dojo instructor irresponsibility a kid is caught wielding a Katana, you could go to prison for 20 to 30 years; naturally in east Asia they take martial arts weaponry a lot more seriously.
Japan for example, has an outright ban; you can only legally use them, inside the confines of a dojo, if an police officer catches you with even so much as an unsheathed Bokken (wooden sword) outside the confines of a dojo you can get arrested. I believe you can only use them, within dojos, or while filming movies but I do not think even movie bokkens are the real thing; the "wooden swords" in Japanese movies are in fact made of compressed bamboo. The actual metallic swords, are made with bamboo sheets, laminated to look like metal.



**** Actually there are martial arts that are only weapons training where you don't have to be a black belt to participate, such as kenjutsu, iaijutsu, kendo, and iaido, as well as numerous others. Aikido for example often uses a bokken or iaito (a dull katana). Also, a suburito is not the actual weight of a katana, it is much heavier and longer and is used for building muscle and control. A bokken is fairly close to the weight and length of an actual, steel katana. I am a practitioner of kenjutsu. As for swords being banned in Japan, where did you get that information? They are banned in the UK, but I have never heard of them being banned in Japan, in fact there are still ceremonies that swords are a big part of. Do some research before answering.

terbusha

It would be very hard for us to say because it depends on a number of things like how long you do it for, your intensity, and your current physical condition. I'm assuming you'd like to know so you can set an appropriate calorie level?
If that is the case, what I do and what I recommend to people is to eat at a calorie level that allows you to make good progress towards your goal. If you are trying to lose weight, eat so you drop 1-2 lbs/week. This assumes an average calorie burn from you getting in all of your workouts. This will be different for everyone, so you'll have to do some trial and error to figure it out. I'd start ~2200 cal/day. Hit this goal, along with your macros and getting in your workouts, for a week. If you lose 1-2 lbs, you're good to go. If you lose too much, increase your intake and repeat. If you don't lose enough, reduce your intake a bit and repeat. After a few weeks, you'll figure out what works for you in your situation.

dbmata

1 calorie per hour chi chuan

Sinistrous

Heart rate monitor.

lockedcj7

After much deliberation, I decided not to count the calories that I'm burning in TKD. I'm not going to eat those calories back since I don't think the estimates are even close. Based on the treadmill estimates and the estimates here, I think the calories burned while running are fairly accurate and they are about half what is estimated for TKD. If we were out of breath and wringing wet at the end of an hour in the dojang, I might believe them but that's simply not the case.

We do 10-15 min. of warm-up exercises and stretching and then usually work on forms or techniques. If we spar or do kicking techniques for an extended period, I'll be breathing hard but other than that, I hardly break a sweat.

SueInAz

You might log 15 minutes of aerobics for a one hour class and it'd be fairly close but it's impossible to say with any certainty. MFP could make a guess if you choose a similar activity but the program really has no idea how much class time you spend standing watching the instructor vs. the minutes you spend sparring vs. the minutes you are working on something less strenuous. A heart rate monitor would give you a calorie burn estimate which is a little closer to accurate but even that isn't perfect if you're starting and stopping. My bet is, you aren't burning as many calories during a class as you probably think you are.

aplcr0331

Hard to get anything "accurate" with such a wide variation in types of martial arts. How it is taught, and more importantly how you as an individual work during your training are most important.

What are your classes like? Does your class use resistance training? Sparring? Those two will increase the amount of calories burnt by a long shot. Most traditional KF schools avoid those things like the plague however.

xsix

aplcr0331 wrote: »

Hard to get anything "accurate" with such a wide variation in types of martial arts. How it is taught, and more importantly how you as an individual work during your training are most important.

What are your classes like? Does your class use resistance training? Sparring? Those two will increase the amount of calories burnt by a long shot. Most traditional KF schools avoid those things like the plague however.

Classes last for about two hours, not heavy on the sparring yet, as I have just started, I do plan on doing some San Shou with my teacher in a month or two. The whole class is based on movement, we do a lot of single motion, and a lot of body movement, weapons, the sets are pretty cardio intensive, stance work is cardio intensive, sand bags, the whole class is moving around a lot, however i'm not pouring sweat,

I guess i'm going to have to upgrade my fit bit to the one with the heart rate monitor.

November_Fire

You've really no way of finding out. 'Kung fu' is a hugely broad term. A HRM is only good for teady state cardio. I trained for 7 years, some sessions we broke a sweat but not many. I still ended up strong and with muscle-definition, but I don't credit it with any major calorie burn. If your class is anything like mine, there's plenty of standing around watching and listening too.