Does anyone have an accurate calorie burn for practicing karate?

naomiefaye
naomiefaye Posts: 58 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hello, I am just getting back into this community for like the 100th time. I've been taking karate for over a year now and I've been averaging 9 hrs a week of practice. It's not all performed at the highest intensity, but I do work up quite a sweat in most classes. Does anyone have a more accurate source for how many calories are burned while performing karate? My fitness pals estimate seems really high at 1900 cal for 90 mins.
Thanks

Answers

  • GlenG1969
    GlenG1969 Posts: 34 Member
    Hi,
    That's the $100 question. 💵💵💵

    It's dependent on so many factors that it would be impossible to guesstimate the calorie burn. Your weight, your individual fitness level, the intensity you are training at, the duration of the session, even the ambient temperature of the dojo etc. Just too many different factors to take into consideration, for you to get an accurate ammount.
    I agree that 1900 calories for a 90 min session does sound rather high, but again depends on lots of different factors.

    You obviously have your reasons for wanting to know the answer but as I said it's a tough one.

    I have a couple of suggestions you could try:

    If you have access to a fitness wearable and chest strap.

    a, Wear a HR device with chest strap. (Probably not allowed during class sessions)

    b, As above but do a simlar 20/ 30 min session at home to calculate a rough baseline. Then x by 3 or 2 for an hour long session etc

    c, Put your weight, sport and perceived effort into a online calculator, to give another guesstimate.

    Either way, it sounds like you are committed to karate and are thoughly enjoying it. So I say good on you, KIAI!
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,416 Member
    Here's what I do - for any and all aerobic/cardio exercise done at moderate intensity for one hour:

    300 calories flat.

    It's easy for me to calculate, I've used that number for 15 years and my weight does what I would expect.

    1900 is way too high, I'd guess. Try using 500 calories per 90 minute session for the next month and see how you do. Exercise calories are tough to estimate, and the only real way to do so is to pick a number and use it and see how your weight behaves. Part of this is also how accurate your food logging is, and whether or not your weight loss goal rate is realistic.

  • claireychn074
    claireychn074 Posts: 1,608 Member
    naomiefaye wrote: »
    Hello, I am just getting back into this community for like the 100th time. I've been taking karate for over a year now and I've been averaging 9 hrs a week of practice. It's not all performed at the highest intensity, but I do work up quite a sweat in most classes. Does anyone have a more accurate source for how many calories are burned while performing karate? My fitness pals estimate seems really high at 1900 cal for 90 mins.
    Thanks

    My calorie burn for TKD varied from 300-600 per hour (based on calorie intake and weight lost / gained over a few years). A double sess when training with other Dans for a grading would burn 1200 - that was HARD. An average session was closer to 450 and a lighter session, maybe only partial sparring with lots of refereeing, was around 300. So the estimate above of 500 for an hour sounds much closer - depending on weight, intensity of training and fitness. Some users take 50% of MFP’s suggested calorie burn and find that is more accurate
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,216 Member
    One option would be to find a METS estimate for the activity, then use a METS calculator to estimate the calories.

    METS are a research-based way of estimating exercise calories using research about the effort (calorie) level, and making it adjustable by body weight and duration. It's not perfect, but it's not crazy, either.

    There's a central compendium of METS estimates for many activities here:

    https://pacompendium.com/

    There are METS estimates for several martial arts scenarios on this page there:

    https://pacompendium.com/sports/

    You can then plug a sensible METS number, the duration of work, and your current weight into a calculator like this one:

    https://ergo.human.cornell.edu/MetsCaloriesCalculator/MetsCaloriesCalculator.htm

    (There are other METS calculators, that's just an example one that lets you use METS values you find elsewhere.)

    You'd want to use the actual work time, or a close estimate. For example, I know that when I was doing kung fu, some sessions had a mix of senior folks/instructors demonstrating or explaining, then some time with the group actually doing the thing that was being taught. In that case, I'd use a reasonable estimate of the "doing the thing" time, not necessarily the whole session time.

    If I wasn't sure which METS value to use from the Compendium site, I'd probably pick one of the lower ones to be conservative, personally.

    If I used my current weight (let's call it 135 pounds), that would estimate that if I did "Martial Arts, different types, slower pace, novice performers, practice" for a solid hour, I'd burn about 325 calories, which doesn't seem crazy to me. A solid hour of "Martial Arts, different types, moderate pace (e.g., judo, jujitsu, karate, kick boxing, tae kwon do, tai-bo, Muay Thai boxing)" would be 632 calories. (I don't think I could do MA for a solid hour at that intensity level anymore, but that doesn't mean you can't ;) .) There are higher/harder METS levels there, too. These estimates don't seem crazy out of whack with what @claireychn074 was saying above that she experienced.

  • LiveOnceBeHappy
    LiveOnceBeHappy Posts: 448 Member
    Are you allowed to wear an Apple Watch while practicing karate? I'd use its its "move" calculator to monitor my heart rate to determine how much exercise I got. When your heart rate is high enough, it'll count it as exercise.

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