How many calories does yoga REALLY burn?

heartpie · February 2015

f you go to a gym, the average yoga class will last around 45 minutes. To burn at least 800 calories during that class, it would need to be as strenuous as running at 6.7 miles per hour during the entire class. If you’ve been in a yoga class before, I doubt that you’ve left feeling the same cardiovascular fatigue as you’d feel if you had been charging down a treadmill the entire time--and considering that much of your time in that class is spent sitting and breathing, holding still without moving a muscle, or lying on your back and breathing, there is literally zero chance that you’re burning the unbelievable 1000 calories per hour that some yoga enthusiasts claim yoga actually burns.

jgnatca · February 2015

I don't count my yoga time as calorie burn. It gives me other things including flexibility and core strength. Which has come in handy lately as I'm building up for a 10K run.

terar21 · February 2015

Really depends on your intensity. But it's still not much. I'd look at it as more of a strength training type and consider the calories burned negligible. Benefits are outside of calories burned.

Francl27 · February 2015

brianpperkins wrote: »

http://www.news.colostate.edu/Release/7359

Female participants averaged 330 calories for 90 minutes according to the press release. I haven't looked into the actual study findings to see if that is gross or net calories burned.

Which is probably close to what you'd be burning if you were just cooking or something, lol.

TheVirgoddess · February 2015

I don't log my yoga usually. I do it twice a day, and I just don't feel like the burns are worth logging - but that's a personal choice.

I do take a Vinyasa class sometimes. It's constant movement - more like dancing than traditional yoga (you don't hold any pose, you move from one to the other with no breaks to fast paced music). Anyway, I log that at 200 calories for an hour.

rseneca724 · February 2015

LyndseyLovesToLift wrote: »

Not many.

Can someone explain the point of hot yoga to me? Sweating does not equal burning more calories. It's just your body trying to cool itself down. If I'm lying by the pool on a hot South Carolina day, sweating like a pig, I'm not burning more calories than I would be lying on my bed in the dead of winter.

I hope the "point" doesn't involve any nonsense about sweating out toxins or something.

It is supposed to loosen your muscles up so that the poses are easier/more effective.
I personally love regular yoga but despise sweating so don't plan to try it in the near future unless I feel like being miserable/dehydrated for s**ts and giggles.

squirrelzzrule22 · February 2015

It depends on SO many things. What kind of yoga, how strong you are, etc. The best way to find out would be to wear a heart rate monitor.

michellemybelll · February 2015

lishie_rebooted wrote: »

LyndseyLovesToLift wrote: »

Not many.

Can someone explain the point of hot yoga to me? Sweating does not equal burning more calories. It's just your body trying to cool itself down. If I'm lying by the pool on a hot South Carolina day, sweating like a pig, I'm not burning more calories than I would be lying on my bed in the dead of winter.

I hope the "point" doesn't involve any nonsense about sweating out toxins or something.

To my knowledge, its to help you deepen the poses.
Which is why I've read somewhere that those new to yoga shouldn't start with hot yoga since they can overstretch and end up hurting themselves.

I know personally, I can go deeper into the stretches when I go to the hot yoga studio in town rather than do it in my 60F living room lol

Yep i think that's correct. although oftentimes they claim that you are "sweating out toxins", which always gets a deep eye roll out of me.

Hornsby · February 2015

squirrelzzrule22 wrote: »

It depends on SO many things. What kind of yoga, how strong you are, etc. The best way to find out would be to wear a heart rate monitor.

A HRM wouldn't be even remotely accurate for something such as yoga. They are designed for steady state cardio.

jbee27 · February 2015

michellemybelll wrote: »

lishie_rebooted wrote: »

LyndseyLovesToLift wrote: »

Not many.

Can someone explain the point of hot yoga to me? Sweating does not equal burning more calories. It's just your body trying to cool itself down. If I'm lying by the pool on a hot South Carolina day, sweating like a pig, I'm not burning more calories than I would be lying on my bed in the dead of winter.

I hope the "point" doesn't involve any nonsense about sweating out toxins or something.

To my knowledge, its to help you deepen the poses.
Which is why I've read somewhere that those new to yoga shouldn't start with hot yoga since they can overstretch and end up hurting themselves.

I know personally, I can go deeper into the stretches when I go to the hot yoga studio in town rather than do it in my 60F living room lol

Yep i think that's correct. although oftentimes they claim that you are "sweating out toxins", which always gets a deep eye roll out of me.

Ha! Yep. Anytime anything gets mentioned about "toxins" in yoga class, I roll my eyes. Absolutely love yoga, but have to tolerate/ignore a lot of the pseudoscience, homeopathy, etc. that it seems to be paired with frequently.

Eleanor_82 · February 2015

I wouldn't normally log something like yoga but I wore my heart rate monitor out of curiosity the last time I did Jillian Michael's yoga meltdown. I was surprised to see that 35 minutes apparently burned 160 calories for me (I'm 32 and 68kg).

However, a part of me thinks my heart rate was elevated due to frustration with the hard positions rather than any kind of "workout"!

How many calories does yoga REALLY burn?

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