DDR calories burned?

Dancing burns lots of calories!

I think that is certainly possible. I can burn around 400 calories on the elliptical machine after about 30 minutes of vigrous effort. I haven't DDR'd in a while, but I remember that the better you got the faster and more steps you took. If you were at the Difficult level for 30 minutes then 451 calories is definitely a good estimate.

You go girl, being able to that! Keep it up...

I haven't done DDR since getting my HRM so I'll have to go and check it again, but the calories sound about right. DDR is such a fun workout and before you know it an hour passes!!

Hello All, I know I am late to this forum and you will probably all not be back here. But I would like to add some insight into the DDR question.

There have been many studies recently on DDR. Due to the fact people that used it couldnt believe the results they where getting in a short amount of time. (count me as 1 of them) Here is a synopsys of a study done.

In 2007, researchers from the La Crosse Exercise and Health Program at the University of Wisconsin studied the health benefits of Dance Dance Revolution. The research found that DDR players burned an average of 5.9 calories per minute when playing "light mode." Players burned 6.7 calories per minute when playing "standard mode" and 8.1 calories per minute when playing "difficult mode."
This little nugget of info was taken from Livestrong.com
http://www.livestrong.com/article/302934-calories-burned-playing-dance-dance-revolution/

My experience.
I use to play rugby (6 seasons) and was pretty fit. I dislocated both my shoulders about 6 times through the time playing and as I got older I figured "man Im getting to old for this" I stopped playing rugby at about 35 years old. I could no longer lift weights or regular male excersise. i.e push-ups, bench press, chin-ups those types of things due to my shoulders being wrecked.
I began to put on weight. A lot of it. I went from 210 lbs.....(im 6 foot 1 inch) to 260 lbs in roughly 2 years. I felt like crap.
I started doing DDR and was burning through those soft pads and had to go to the full on metal pads. I was doing 60-90minutes a day on those things and not even thinking about it. 6 months later I was down to 205 lbs. I started to wonder what was going on. how was I losing so much weight what was the calorie out put? I came across a website that stated you burn about 24 Calories a song. I was doing about 40 songs a day!
I was very very skeptical of thinking I was burning roughly 1000 calories a day. By this time my family had noticed of course how much weight I was losing and I invested into another metal pad so I could play at the same time with family members. My younger cousin who was 23 at the time was very fit and could run 5 miles no problem. At about the half hour mark on the DDR machine with me he had to quit and couldnt keep up. I started to brag to my family on how I ran the young pup into the dirt. My Aunt then took the challenge. She is more fit then my cousin and she stayed with me on it for about 45-50 minutes as well. She had a heart rate monitor and when she fatigued at 45 min. her HRM stated she had done 745 cal. I asked her if that was good? She stated to me that her tae-bo only burned 345 Cal. in that time. She was very very impressed. She quit and went back to Tae-bo a week later. LOL

In the above study it states that average person will burn about 8.1Cal a minute on difficult I am on expert. If we assume 8.1 cal per minute is true then 8.1x 60min.= 486 cal burned. If you stretch that out 8.1x 90 min= 729 Cal. so I say all that to say yes it is very very true you can burn that much.

When you get to expert on DDR I figure that your brain is signaling your feet, abdomen, and arms to fire faster then you can remember what you have done. This is why I think that most of the time I cant remember the steps I have done but see that I have hit them all in expert combos. I say feet, abdomen and arms because feet are obvious. Your abs are working to keep you balanced and for the quick twitching jump combos to spin your hips, and your arms are working to help with balance as well.

I have since, worn out my metal pads and getting a good one is getting hard to come by nowadays. I put back on 30 lbs and I am now at 235 lbs again because I havent been able to get back to doing DDR. I am waiting on my new metal pad I ordered and will be getting back into it in a week and can't wait.
I hope that this response has been helpful and understandable. I am sure that probably nobody will read it due to me being late to this thread.....Oh well I hope its helpful to somebody. Keep up the DDRing and get a good metal pad not the crappy foam ones you will burn through them in about 2 months.

I don't know how this post will be viewed, but please don't attack me if you don't agree with the way that I get to play DDR.

There aren't any DDR machines left around me. They've all either been removed or replaced with the snazzier Pump it Up machines (which I hate... I've tried it, and I just don't care for the layout). I also don't have any gaming consoles to buy any dancing games.

Sooooo, I use an emulator for PC, a USB mat and download user-created songs for it (there are also a lot of "official" songs for it). I'm not going to share which emulator I use, and where I download the songs since I'm not entirely sure of how legal it is to do that. It's easy enough to find them if you know how to use Google.

I was starting to lose weight pretty easily while I was at the peak of my DDR days, but I moved into a new apartment with people below me, and judging from the people above me, the floors are pretty thin. So I'm trying to work up the nerve to play for 30-60 minutes a night during a reasonable hour (8pm, I guess? The people below me keep pretty late hours).

I haven't played it at all since getting my HRM, but I would sweat buckets playing on expert. I miss playing it so much. It haunts me when I listen to songs and thing "awww, this would be AWESOME for DDR!"

Oh wow, the memories!

Back in the PS2 days I played DDR religiously and entered tournaments on campus, this was back in 2004-2005ish. I lived in a dorm and we would visit each other's dorms and challenge each other to "dance-offs". Watching people play on Heavy while I progressed from Light to Standard was super inspirational, and I always wanted to get to Heavy level.

I long since wore out my dance pads years later and eventually threw them out. Haven't played since.

Recently I was thinking about how I dislike workouts without "function". I stuck to biking and walking because it got me from point A to point B, and it was just functional. It didn't feel like I was jumping around in one spot doing the same moves over and over again like I am now with workout videos.

When I was reflecting back to DDR I realized I was at one of my lowest weights. It was SO FUN! It didn't feel like working out at all... It was competitive and enjoyable, the more you played the more songs you unlocked, trying to beat my high scores, etc. So I found a website that sells old school foam PS2 pads and I'm going for it. I will get a HRM and start tracking how many calories it burns, not sure I trust the calorie counter built into the game.

I wonder if anyone else uses it as their primary cardio source?

@likerebecca, how goes the DDR experience?! I LOVE DDR. I think I need to get new games though, stuck with the same two that we've had for a while. You can only get so good until your feet don't keep up with your brain (especially if you're a klutz like me...) so new songs would be helpful I think!

I like to do Random on Standard/Difficult and if it's a song I'm horrible at, I just "run" on the arrows, to keep the calories burning. A lot of the games have a workout mode that doesn't require you to get a certain grade to keep the song going, which is nice if you have the random song here or there that you stink at!

Good luck all and DDR on!

Hey everyone. I use DDR as my primary cardio source: 1 hr 5/6 times a week on Expert mode. I'm a 23-year-old female, 5'2.5", and I weigh about 130 lbs. According to my HRM (Polar FT4), I burn about 500 calories in one hour. During that time, I play about 25 songs, mostly 7 and 8 footers. So it's approximately 20 calories per song. I think it'd probably be closer to 25-30 calories for 9 or 10 footers, but I've been avoiding them so far since they get my heart rate too high.

To everyone who says you only use yor feet playing DDR, I have no idea how you can do that. I use my arms for balance and keeping time, and my body is always twisting to get the forward and backward arrows. Plus, I bounce on beats that don't have a note, and sometimes on the eighth notes.

I'm playing today for the first time in months, after a pregnancy that ended in miscarriage and a broken toe. None of those are good conditions for playing DDR. It's a great workout, although I couldn't play too long because my foot started to hurt!