How many calories does Karate burn in an average training session?

Training Karate can be great fun, but it can also be incredibly tiresome and burn a huge amount of calories. The reason for this is that you’re basically doing a tough form of cardiovascular exercise inside a kimono. As expected, this will burn calories and does so in an enjoyable way whilst also learning a form of self defense.

As a practicing Karateka in Shotokan, I did an experiment and wore a calorie tracker watch whilst training. This device helps track the calories burned over a period of time. During this session, I did 40 minutes of kata, followed by 20 minutes of kumite at the end. Of course, depending on your training intensity – your calories burned will differ. For instance, if you did 60 minutes of kumite in a Kyokushin dojo, it would probably burn more calories compared to a training 60 minutes of kata in a Goju Ryu setting.

In short, each Karate style is different and it also depends on how long you spend sparring, how hot the building is and how good your own physicality is. For the record, I am a 28 year old male in decent shape. Demographically speaking, this probably represents the average age and gender of a typical Karate practitioner, whilst Shotokan is also one of the most popular forms of Karate. With this said, my findings may not be the most accurate ever, but they aren’t completely irrelevant too.

How many calories does Karate burn in an average training session?

After my training, I checked the calorie tracker and saw that I had burned a total of 752 calories. Before checking this, I didn’t look throughout training as it didn’t seem necessary. Here are a few things to note: Firstly, the warm-up and kata parts of training would not burn as many calories when compared to the kumite.

This is quite an obvious observation, but if your heart is beating quickly due to tough exercise, then you’ll burn more calories if compared to a warm up. At the same time, during the warm up and kata, calories would still be burned compared to most activities – so they aren’t ‘wasted’ in terms of health benefits. With this in mind, if you’re really after losing calories, then nothing beats hard sparring…just don’t go too hard to avoid burnout or injuries. Also, there are other variables too such as wearing the gi. If you train in the gi top then you’ll probably burn more calories as a percentage compared to going shirtless, especially on a hot day.

How does this compare to other exercise activities?

Looking on Google, the average 30 minute jog is meant to burn around 400 calories. This makes sense, as if you times this by two, making it a 60 minute exercise, you’d roughly burn 800 calories which isn’t far from 60 minutes of Karate. Having said this, if you trained Karate sparring for 60 minutes, then it would burn more calories compared to running. With this in mind, Karate can be considered as an effective way of burning calories. Especially if you’re a fan of Karate and find it enjoyable, then it’s a no brainer compared to training less fun activities.

Why Karate white belts will burn more calories than Karate black belts

If you’ve trained Karate, or any other martial art for that matter then you may know the answer to this. The reason is efficiency. Whether it’s kata or kumite, a Karate white belt will typically burn more calories due to inefficient movements. For instance, imagine throwing a kick but doing so with more muscle rather than finesse. The result would be that you would use more energy kicking in this manner, compared to the more effective way of moving your leg with more technique and less force.

Therefore, in theory a Karate black belt would burn less calories than a white belt – simply because their movements would take less energy. As a result, when it comes to kumite and competition, a black belt would fight more efficiently. If you’re training Karate with getting fitter in mind, then this means that it’s easier to do so as a beginner.

Summary

Overall, the above findings show that Karate is a great way to burn calories and is up there with some of the toughest ways to lose weight. If you train Karate, then you probably already knew this. However, if you’re unaware of the subject then it may be news to you. The reason it’s so effective is that Karate is a very cardiovascular activity and uses constant movements and a variety of different muscle groups.

As was outlined early on, there’s a number of variables such as age, weight, Karate style, and weather that will impact the number of calories burned in the average session. Nonetheless, as an average – it’s fair to say Karate burns around 700-800 calories in a typical session. In conclusion, this is a good amount and proves that Karate is healthy way to burn calories whilst learning a valuable skill.