Muay thai and BJJ discussion - is the calorie loss really that high?

leeanneedith
leeanneedith Posts: 13 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hello everyone,

I am a fan of martial arts, and have been training in Muay Thai for a year and a half now. In addition, I also started training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu last month, and love it, albeit I am finding jiu jitsu to be quite frustrating and very difficult to learn at first. I train in muay thai about 4-5x a week, and jiu jitsu about 2-3x a week. I can honestly say that prior to mma, I was not that healthy, but the fun and fast paced nature of martial arts, and the mental stimulation involved has made me a bit of a gym rat. It has been the pinnacle in helping me reshape my lifestyle, helped my confidence and mental health, and changed my overall health habits.

Anyway ... I have a question for some of you out there that may have also wondered about the calorie burn involved with martial arts. We have all heard the infamous claim that "training in muay thai for an hour will burn about 1000 calories", but is there research to really back that? This app already has a muay thai fitness option built into it, and has the calorie burn per hour as something absurd, like 730 calories. Jiu jitsu is also built into the app, and has the per hour burn as something similarly high. But what kind of training is it talking about? Pad work is different from sparring, and I am very beginner in BJJ. Sometimes I feel that my calorie loss cannot be as high as what this app is saying.

Fitbits shouldn't be worn for this sport, but what have others thought? Do you think you lose over 700 calories in an hour of kickboxing/muay thai or boxing? What about BJJ?

Replies

  • leeanneedith
    leeanneedith Posts: 13 Member
    Also, on a different note, I am looking for friends to help motivate me in this app! I love martial arts, but I love chocolate and ice cream equally as much. I always welcome more support <3
  • Rose18l
    Rose18l Posts: 147 Member
    Maybe 1 hour of sparring but one hour of regular training I highly doubt it. Not sure how else to calculate it.
  • frankmcvols
    frankmcvols Posts: 1 Member
    I train BJJ every day and in the MFP app, I enter in the amount of time of live rolling as the actual exercise.
  • leeanneedith
    leeanneedith Posts: 13 Member
    That makes sense. Then the time you do drills, practice rolling or shrimping, or whatever, you put that in as calisthetics? I guess I can do something similar for muay thai, for the time I spend holding pads.

    How long have you done bjj? What belt do you have?
  • JJordon
    JJordon Posts: 857 Member
    Rose18l wrote: »
    Maybe 1 hour of sparring but one hour of regular training I highly doubt it. Not sure how else to calculate it.

    I humbly also suggest, atop this, that bag work (punching, kicking, throwing <if you have the type of bag that can be thrown or for GnP>) would also be somewhat similarly as strenuous.
  • MikePfirrman
    MikePfirrman Posts: 3,307 Member
    edited May 2018
    My son spars with some of the best in the US (actually in the world), at least in BJJ, and his cardio is pathetic. It depends on what kind of shape you are in and it's a very stop and start sport. Intense in short spurts.

    The fact that you're having fun is the most important thing and that you've found something you love.


    @ JJordon - true, I actually got my son that for X-Mas - a heavy bag, speed bag combo.
  • fuzzylop72
    fuzzylop72 Posts: 651 Member
    Somewhat unrelated, but what sort of cardio fitness does one need to start bjj. My cardio fitness level isn't really the greatest.
  • Nightgrl1980
    Nightgrl1980 Posts: 14 Member
    I wear a chest strap HR monitor when I go to boxing classes (60 mins very high intensity) and it says I usually burn between 650-750 calories per class plus a quick warmup beforehand. My HR usually stays in the 75-90% of max HR for the whole time.
  • MikePfirrman
    MikePfirrman Posts: 3,307 Member
    fuzzylop72 wrote: »
    Somewhat unrelated, but what sort of cardio fitness does one need to start bjj. My cardio fitness level isn't really the greatest.

    I do rowing. It's fantastic cardio and very, very hard if done properly. Tried to get my son into rowing but he took it up and quit. He's the one that does the BJJ and the Muay Thai. He was getting destroyed by two kids at his gym that were much younger than him. Turns out that the one was an International champ in BJJ (no gi I believe). That kid rows, now my son is back to rowing. Many in MMA row. Connor McGregor and many more. We're not talking sliding your butt back and forth but real Erging on a Concept2. 3 minutes on very hard, then whatever the round break is, 3 minutes again and just keep repeating. That's what these guys do and it seems to work very well for them.

    Try doing 4 1K meter rows or five of them with 3 minute breaks, going at under a 2:00 pace. If you can do that, you have plenty of cardio for MMA.
  • HoneyBadger302
    HoneyBadger302 Posts: 2,070 Member
    I've noticed that the martial arts estimations seem quite high for the average class.

    That being said, when I was going through black belt testing, my training was very intense and the calorie burn probably was fairly accurate as I was eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and was still losing weight - and didn't really want or need to. Once I was through those tests, however, and back to a regular training schedule, my weight went back to normal.
  • Mack200goal
    Mack200goal Posts: 3 Member
    Article with a “Estimation Calculator” based on time & activity:
    https://bjjpassion.com/how-many-calories-are-burn-in-bjj-session/
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,943 Member
    Nightgrl1980 wrote: »
    I wear a chest strap HR monitor when I go to boxing classes (60 mins very high intensity) and it says I usually burn between 650-750 calories per class plus a quick warmup beforehand. My HR usually stays in the 75-90% of max HR for the whole time.

    Have you measured your hrmax? Apart from that hr for calorie burn only kind of works for steady state cardio and not for exercises where you go faster and slower, or even stop for a moment. And not either if you’re one of the approx. 50% people whose hrmax deviates from 220-age.

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