Which Olympic sports burn the most calories? And which ones have less

The topic of losing excess weight is very relevant and widely discussed, and we decided to figure out what physical activity is best for losing weight.

Let's say you want to lose excess weight as quickly as possible. Which method is most effective for burning fat? A few hours on the treadmill? Speed ​​running uphill? Squats and bench press? Most likely, you already know what is best for you. If not, then in this article you will find the information you need, since we will talk about the difference in the results of these types of training.

Not all athletes burn the same amount of calories

Professional athletes tend to burn a lot of calories during training and competition. But not the same amount. There are sports where the most energy is expended, and therefore calories are burned, and vice versa.

So which Olympic disciplines are the most and least “energy-intensive” and why? Let's figure it out.

Runners leave the starting block to begin the men's 100m final during the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Adam Pretty/Getty Images

• Calorie burn is a reflection of intensity, duration, body size and metabolism.
• Marathons, marathon swimming, and triathlons burn the most calories during competition.
• Short, intense bouts of exercise can burn more calories.

When Olympic athletes hit the track or court or dive into the pool, they are not looking to burn calories—they are looking to win.
But it's important to know how many calories they burn during training and competition so they can eat properly and recover. see also

Why doesn't running bring results?
We have 5 reasons for this. Too much food will lead to a feeling of heaviness. Too little will lead to weakness or, worse, loss of muscle, bone mass, and hormonal imbalance as the body begins to look within for energy.

Sports and competitions vary greatly in their ability to burn calories, which depends not only on the actual exercise, but also on the athlete's body weight and metabolism.

Insider spoke with personal trainer Craig Weller of Precision Nutrition about which athletes in Tokyo are likely to burn the most and least calories.

What are the most effective workouts for losing weight?

From the comments to the article about running, I realized that people have the opinion that you can only lose weight through aerobic training, or more precisely, through running.

So, let’s meet today’s “competitors”:

• Cardio exercise: This includes anything that, when done for a fairly long time and at a relatively low intensity, increases your heart rate. Regular aerobic exercise, jogging a few kilometers, exercising on a treadmill for an hour, walking on an elliptical for twenty minutes, etc.
• Interval training: running, cycling, walking on an elliptical trainer with varying speed and intensity. For example, run at speed for 30 seconds, then jog for 90 seconds, and repeat this cycle for 20-30 minutes.
• Strength training: strength exercises using your own weight or weights, often performed in cycles.

Thousands of studies have been devoted to this topic, and I have also done a lot of work in this area. I will present the most effective workouts for weight loss at the end of the article. However, before we begin, I would like to highlight the following thing:

If you want to get in shape, then you need to start by reviewing your diet.

What you eat determines 80-90% of your success or failure in losing weight. As I said, even if you spend 10 hours a week training, you still have 168 hours left during which you can nullify the results of your efforts. If all you want is to lose weight, then a crash diet is the fastest way. Keep the amount of calories you consume under control, forget about fast food and soda, eat only natural and healthy foods - fruits, vegetables and lean meat.

All clear? Fine.

However, if you want to lose more weight than your diet allows, then you need to exercise. Let's talk in more detail about each of the “competitors”.

Cardio training

Cardio exercises are the most obvious and trivial to do when it comes to losing weight. To explain clearly, if you burn more calories per day than you consume, then your weight will decrease. Run about five kilometers on a treadmill and you'll burn about 300 calories. You won't need any weights or super-complicated exercises, just comfortable shoes and, in fact, your legs. This is why most people start with a treadmill or an ellipsoid - it’s quite difficult to do something wrong, and you don’t really need to use your head.

As for the disadvantages of cardio - firstly, it is quite boring and can get boring quickly. (Running outside is a completely different story). Secondly, when it comes to getting in shape, cardio is not the most effective exercise for this purpose. Finally, although cardio increases your heart rate during exercise and thus trains the heart, it does not prepare it for stress because there are no rapid changes in load during cardio training (explained in detail in the next section).

Why is cardio not the most effective solution for burning calories?

Supplemental oxygen consumption (EPOC) after cardio training is very low - this means that calories are burned only directly during running, and after it this process practically stops. If you want to learn more about this topic, check out the NYT article entitled "Physical Education: Why Exercise Doesn't Lead to Weight Loss?" which is chock full of research and references on the topic.

Benefits of Cardio. What's great about cardio training (besides how easy it is to do) is that you can do it for hours, day after day, and not feel exhausted. If you have the desire, you can burn calories all day long.

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

High-intensity interval training is much more effective at burning calories than cardio. It's all about additional post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) - this process continues many hours after exercise, metabolism occurs faster, more calories are burned. This means that fat burning occurs even while you sit and re-watch the fifth season of the series or play video games.

How it works?

High-intensity interval training forces your heart to adapt to changing patterns: speed running, jogging, speed running, jogging, uphill running, downhill running, and so on. The heart learns to work in unusual formats, and your body adapts to the changes. This boosts your metabolism for hours after your workout. Below is a quote I liked from Mark's Daily Apple:

“In a study conducted by the University of New South Wales, scientists tracked changes in the appearance and body composition of forty-five women with weight problems over a period of fifteen weeks. The women were divided into two groups and given the task of cycling, but the first group had to do interval training, the second - regular training. Each interval workout took 20 minutes, during which you alternated between an 8-second strenuous ride and a 12-second easy ride. The second group performed a continuous 40-minute ride at an average speed. The study showed that women in the first group lost three times more excess weight than women in the second group (interestingly, women who did interval training mostly lost weight in the legs and buttocks).”

Three times the calories burned and half the training time? Sounds good to me. If you read the entire article from which the quote was given, you will learn all about the benefits of alternating speed and intensity during interval training compared to regular cardio. The disadvantage of high-intensity interval training is that the body requires a significant amount of time to recover, and you can only do it for 20-30 minutes, after which your body will most likely begin to hate you.

Power training

So, cardio burns calories during exercise, high-intensity interval training burns calories both during and after exercise, but what about strength training? Highly respected fitness expert Alvin Cosgrove devoted an article entitled “The Hierarchy of Weight Loss” to comparing strength and cardio training. Here is the best excerpt from this article:

“Overweight subjects were divided into three groups: the first group included people who adhered to a certain diet, the second group included people who combined diet and aerobic exercise, and the third group included diet and aerobic exercise in addition to strength exercises. The first group lost 6.5 kg in 12 weeks, the second - 7 kg (training was carried out three times a week for 30-50 minutes for 12 weeks).

The third group lost 9.6 kg (which is 44% and 35% more than the first and second groups, respectively). Thus, adding aerobic exercise alone to your diet does not have a significant effect on weight loss.

Thirty-six 50-minute sessions is too much to pay for losing an additional 0.5 kg of weight. However, adding strength training greatly accelerated weight loss."

The lessons to be learned from this information are: What and how you eat plays a decisive role in whether you lose weight or not. Aerobic exercise helps speed up the process of weight loss, but not as much as you think. Strength training, along with diet and aerobic exercise, is the most effective method of burning fat.

Thus, if you eat right and do strength training, your calorie expenditure will increase significantly compared to those who give themselves only aerobic exercise. That is, you understand that you can either run or swing, or you can combine them and get a more intense calorie burning.

What are the best exercises to do to lose weight? According to Alvin, the best options are exercises that use as many muscles as possible (squats, lunges, kettlebell swings, burpees, pull-ups, push-ups). Perform these exercises in a cycle without stopping for 8-12 repetitions, and in addition to fat burning (which, by the way, continues for 48 hours after strength training), you will build muscle mass.

Is it that simple?

Of course not. Of course, 30 minutes of strength training burns more calories than 30 minutes of high-intensity interval training, which in turn is more effective than 30 minutes of cardio. However, you can do strength training and high-intensity interval training for only 30-45 minutes before muscle failure, and then take a few more days to recover. Cardio does not put as much stress on the body, so it can be done for several hours at a time every day.

Medhi's post "Why High Intensity Interval Training Isn't the Best for Fat Loss" on Stronglifts.com highlights this point. In general, since you are so limited in your ability to perform strength training and high-intensity interval training, the number of calories you can burn is also limited. If time is not an issue for you, spending more time in the gym doing cardio every day will burn more calories than doing strength training and high-intensity interval training three times a week.

Short bursts of powerful movements mean more calories will be burned after the event.

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Compared to regular competition, sports that require short periods of hard work, such as sprinting, soccer and pole vaulting, appear to continue to burn calories at a higher rate after athletes cool down. One study found that doing just five 30-second bouts of intense exercise—2.5 minutes total—burns about 200 extra calories per day.

This is one reason why coaches love high-intensity interval training for non-Olympians: although controversial, some research suggests it can promote weight loss while preserving muscle, which is why sprinters tend to have a more muscular figure than distance runners distances, Weller noted.

Burn calories after training: why and how?

Energy from EPOC is used to maintain normal body temperature, restore muscle fibers, and synthesize spent neurotransmitters and enzymes. But since oxygen consumption is increased, it means that muscles can still burn fat! (Remember that with the help of oxygen, muscles use fat and carbohydrates, and without oxygen, they use only carbohydrates.)

“It is important not to equate the processes of burning calories and fat,” recalls Maxim Oborin, an expert in the area of ​​gyms at the federal network of fitness clubs X-Fit. “Many people believe that the more calories they burn, the more weight they lose. This is not entirely true. When the pulse becomes more than 60-70% of the maximum value, an “oxygen debt” arises: there is not enough oxygen in the tissues, and the body begins to take calories not from fats, but from carbohydrates (glycogen).”

Is it possible to somehow influence this process? Yes, experts say. “The most active fat burning occurs after workouts, which increase energy expenditure,” explains Sergei Cherednichenko, trainer and instructor at the fitness gym.

It turns out that after training, the body continues to burn fat “as usual”, since it still needs an increased amount of energy: recovery is a costly process.

What is body drying

The so-called drying effect came to amateur sports from professional bodybuilding, where this process is used regularly by athletes before the competitive season. In essence, all drying activities come down to getting rid of subcutaneous fat without losing the accumulated muscles. This will significantly increase the body's definition. In combination with intense training, proper nutrition is also necessary. In particular, it is necessary to minimize the amount of carbohydrates in the daily diet in order to enhance the use of fat deposits and, at the same time, increase the number of proteins, which will help preserve muscles from destruction during this period.

How to eat during cardio training

Even with intense cardio, it is not always possible to achieve the desired result. In addition to the fact that you need to put in effort on the machines, you also need to follow proper nutrition, which allows you to further tune your body to fat-burning processes. The first and most important rule is that you need to consume fewer calories per day than you burn. This is the only way to activate mechanisms in the body that will begin to break down fat reserves. In addition, the food consumed must be supplied in fractional format, which will speed up metabolism. You will also have to give up such things as fast carbohydrates.

In addition, the use of special fat-burning supplements developed in various formats by sports nutrition manufacturers will provide a good additional effect. In combination with well-structured training and the right diet, they will significantly increase the intensity of burning subcutaneous fat.

Swimming

Depending on the intensity, in an hour of swimming, you can burn from 260 to 500 kcal/hour , while avoiding static loads (if this is what you don’t like or yoga is not suitable for).

When swimming, we also use many muscle groups, stimulating their development. Swimming has a very beneficial effect on the functioning of our cardiovascular, lymphatic and autonomic systems. Thanks to swimming, we can significantly strengthen our immune system and develop our lungs.

Swimming in sea water, we also expose the body to the beneficial effects of natural salts, which replaces a salon massage.

Aqua aerobics

Thanks to the pressure and resistance of water, we spend a lot of kilocalories per hour of water aerobics - 700 per hour - one of the best indicators today.

Among other things, we also spend more calories due to increased energy consumption due to increased heat exchange with water.

Aerobics is also good because there is no impact load on the legs, which significantly reduces the risk of injury from this type of physical exercise.

How many calories are burned?

Let's start with the fact that every living organism has a Basic (basal) Metabolism (BM). Basal metabolism is the proportion of daily energy expenditure for the activity of internal organs and tissues, for constant physiological functions (breathing, blood circulation, muscle tone, etc.) [1] Basal Metabolism is measured on an empty stomach in a supine position at an air temperature of 18 - 20 C. On average in an adult, the OO value is 1 kcal per kg of weight per hour. For example, if you weigh 80 kg, then your daily OO will be 1 kcal x 80 kg x 24 hours = 1920 kcal. The OO figure will be slightly different for boys (14-17 years old), whose OO is significantly higher - 1.7 kcal, for girls, their OO is 1.2 kcal, for people over 40, their OO, on the contrary, becomes less by 4-5% , and at an older age it decreases even more significantly - by 10%. [1]

Basic Metabolism is, as it were, the starting point for calculating energy expenditure, to which additional calories are added as household/work or sports activity increases. The energy consumption figures are quite clear; they are measured using the calorimetry method, so it is quite easy to calculate the final energy consumption figure. In particular, according to the “Physiology of Nutrition” [1], “background” household energy consumption - for housework, walking to the store or work, personal hygiene, etc., is generally considered to be 2 kcal. The cost of mental activity, say, office work, is like 1.5 kcal. Energy expenditure on physical work, of course, is already large and, for example, the work of a bricklayer or miner is 6 kcal.

Now, knowing the figures for energy expenditure during various types of life activities, we can calculate the above example of an 80-kilogram person more accurately. Let's assume that he gets 8 hours of sleep, he works as a manager in an office (8-hour work day) and there is no training today. (in fact, training energy expenditure will be given separately, since this is what the emphasis is on in this article).

So, the daily energy expenditure of a person weighing 80 kg on a working day (8 hours) by a manager will be:

• Sleep: 8 hours x 1 kcal/hour x 80 kg = 640 kcal
• Work: 8 hours x 1.5 kcal x 80 kg = 960 kcal
• Background activity of the day: 8 hours x 2 kcal x 80 kg = 1280 kcal
• TOTAL: 2880 kcal

Walking

It’s worth noting that we’re not talking about a walking step here—that’s clear. However, if you are in the habit of walking at a speed of about 6 kilometers per hour, then you will spend about 350 kilocalories .

Therefore, don’t be lazy and try to get off a few stops before yours and walk more at a brisk pace.

In addition to burning calories, quality walking helps strengthen leg muscles, prevents the development of cardiovascular diseases, improves well-being, relieves stress and increases performance.

How to properly replenish water consumption

Drinking water to restore balance in the body is necessary both before and after exercise, and during exercise. The distribution of volumes directly depends on what time of day the training process is carried out. If the workout is scheduled for the first half of the day, then before starting classes you should drink no more than one and a half glasses of water, since more can lead to a worsening of the condition during classes. The main mass should be consumed after all exercises during the day. If the training takes place in the evening, then the situation is mirrored. At the same time, we must not forget about drinking during exercise. At high intensity exercises, you should drink up to one and a half liters of clean water per workout.

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Calorie consumption table for different types of physical activity

RUNNING/WALKING

FITNESS / STRENGTH TRAINING / GYM WORKOUTS

GAME SPORTS / SKI / SKATES

ACTIVE LIFESTYLE / ACTIVE HOBBIES

WORK/STUDY/HOBBY

HOUSEHOLD CHORES

BABY CARE

REST AND HYGIENE