What Exercise Burns the Most Calories

What is the highest burning calorie exercise or activity that ever existed on this planet ?

That's what we're gonna talk about today .

Now this information is based on a person that weighs about a £155 , and all of these activities are based on one hour of doing them .

A lot of these exercises cannot be performed for a whole hour , but just to give you a relative comparison per unit of time , I'm gonna list everything by calories burned .

And then when we're done , I wanna clarify some really important points on calories because it's not all about burning calories .

We start with sleeping .

You'll burn 50 calories per hour when you're sleeping .

And then we graduate to sitting , being sedentary , sitting on the couch , 65 calories per hour .

You can burn just by doing nothing .

And just as a side note , if you chew gum , you can burn a few more calories an hour .

If you laugh , you can burn a few more calories per hour and if you fidget , you can burn a few more calories per hour .

All very insignificant .

So when you're sitting there watching TV at night , eating popcorn , find a comedy , start laughing , fidget while you're chewing gum and eating the popcorn at the same time .

Then we have standing .

It takes a little more energy to stand .

So we have a 110 calories .

Sex .

It's not an exercise .

I guess it could be .

You'll burn about 200 calories an hour , but most people do not spend an hour performing that exercise .

Probably more like , I don't know , 4 minutes , maybe 10 minutes .

Then we have planks .

If you did plank for an hour , you'd burn 240 calories .

That seems pretty strange because it seems like a plank would burn way more calories .

I'll have to double check that one , but I tell you one thing .

I don't think most people can do a plank for more than , you know , 5 , 10 minutes , let alone an hour .

Okay .

Then we have walking moderate pace about 3 miles an hour .

You'll burn about 240 calories an hour .

Bowling is 250 calories .

House cleaning vigorous effort , 250 calories .

Gardening or yard work is 270 calories .

Yoga , you can burn 280 calories .

Walking briskly at 4 miles an hour , 340 calories .

Golfing , 360 calories per hour .

And then if you do the elliptical training , moderately , it's about 400 calories an hour .

Now a more high end yoga like a power yoga would you could burn about 400 calories .

Okay .

And then the next series of exercise all burn about roughly about 420 calories , softball , baseball , rollerblading , roller skating , bicycling at 10 miles an hour , weight lifting vigorous effort , Zumba dance workout , and aerobics moderate effort .

All are 420 calories per hour .

Then we have like aerobic dancing vigorously .

That's 440 calories per hour .

Volleyball is 450 , calories per hour .

Hiking with a backpack , 450 calories per hour .

Playing tennis , it's 450 calories .

Rowing , 470 .

Bicycling , about 12 to 14 miles an hour is about 470 calories .

And then the next series of exercises all burn about 480 calories per hour .

Basketball , soccer , running 5 to 6 miles an hour .

Elliptical training vigorously all 480 calories per hour .

And then we have swimming .

Moderate effort is 510 calories .

Cross country skiing .

I've done that .

It's a pretty serious workout .

That's 550 calories per hour .

Then we have martial arts , judo , karate , etcetera , 560 calories an hour .

Jumping rope , 560 calories an hour .

I wanna see you jump rope for an hour .

Rock climbing , indoor and outdoor , 570 calories .

And , of course , that all depends on , you know , how many breaks that you're taking in between the rock climbing .

I don't think anyone could rock climb for a straight one hour .

Then you have rowing vigorously , 570 calories .

Kickboxing , 580 calories .

Bicycling vigorously at 14 to 16 miles an hour , 5 90 calories .

Then we have running at 6 to 7 miles per hour , 5 90 calories , swimming vigorously , high intensity interval training , CrossFit , all of them are 5 90 calories an hour .

Now , of course , they're not factoring in the rest periods and all that because obviously when you're resting , you're gonna burn less calories .

Running up a hill , 800 calories per hour .

Yeah .

I like to see you run up a hill for an hour .

I think I can make it about 15 to 20 seconds before I have to take a break .

Now we have running at 10 miles an hour .

That's pretty fast .

Over 1,126 calories .

Of course , no one's gonna be able to run an hour at that speed .

But just to look at how many calories you would burn comparatively , it's quite a few .

Oh , check this out .

Chopping wood with an axe .

1,196 calories per hour .

And then we have the top exercise that burns the most calories , and that's a flat out sprint .

That's at 1200 calories per hour .

We know that's ridiculous , but if you're doing a flat out sprint and you're using every bit of energy , you're gonna burn some serious calories .

Now that's all really interesting , but I need to explain some key things about burning calories .

What is the purpose of burning calories ?

Why do you want to burn calories ?

Chances are it's probably to lose weight .

Right ?

Now we have to ask the question , what type of calories do you want to burn ?

Do you want to burn your sugar calories or do you wanna burn your fat calories or do you wanna burn your protein calories , your muscle protein ?

Probably not .

So you probably wanna burn fat .

Right ?

So if you actually consume sugar , you're gonna burn sugar .

If you consume fat without sugar , you will burn fat .

And when your body starts burning off your own protein , your muscle , that's in a situation where you are overtraining .

You haven't slept .

Maybe you're doing prolonged fasting .

And in addition to that , you've tapped out , like , not just your glycogen reserve , but your your fat reserves .

And then now the muscle is gonna be the last thing to be burned , and that's called starvation .

With some of these long distance runners , they have a bit of atrophy because they're generating so much energy and burning so many calories .

It's very difficult to maintain a large volume of muscles because if you keep the intensity high and you increase duration , you also increase cortisol .

Cortisol destroys the muscles .

It's very important as we're talking about calories to make sure you never over train .

So if we take a look at what's really happening inside yourselves when you exercise , you're using energy through the machine called the mitochondria .

The amount of calories that you're burning really is dependent on how healthy that mitochondria is .

How do you know if you have a good mitochondria ?

Well , take a look at your energy .

How much energy do you have ?

Can you exercise and have more endurance and have more energy even after you work out to some degree ?

Certain medications destroy the mitochondria , like statin drugs which block cholesterol .

And one of the big reasons is because it depletes a very important nutrient that's needed by the mitochondria to make energy .

And that's called coenzyme q10 .

Also L Carnitine is another one as well .

So there are several things that can help increase the number of mitochondria and the strength .

Of course , exercise will do it , but only if you're resting between your exercise and you're fully recovering .

Having a good thyroid can help the number of mitochondria .

Increasing more muscle mass will automatically give you more mitochondria .

And this is why it's important if you want to improve your metabolism to make sure you have sufficient muscle mass .

And even people doing Ozempic , right , what they do is they lose weight , but they also lose muscle as a side effect .

I mean sometimes people have this idea that oh , yeah , I'll be on this medication the rest of my life .

Really ?

I don't think so .

So you might start out losing weight and then all of a sudden lose your mitochondria .

Doing intermittent fasting can also stimulate the production of more mitochondria .

But I want to say something .

There's a fascinating test that can look into the mitochondria .

It's called metabolomics , and determine if you're getting enough fuel to even feed the mitochondria , especially if someone is exercising .

It's very important to get enough fuel to feed the machine .

One of the best fuels for the mitochondria is meat .

Meat apparently has , all the cofactors , the b vitamins , the trace minerals , and the most protein to feed that mitochondria and make it strong .

Cold immersion therapy or cold showers can actually do some interesting things because it forces the mitochondria to generate a tremendous amount of energy from your food .

There's been some data that resveratrol can help stimulate more mitochondria .

If you have insulin resistance , which probably 90% of the population has , that can severely destroy your mitochondria .

It can prevent you from using glucose .

And if you keep eating glucose , we can't burn ketones .

So in other words , to get into fat burning , you need to cut down your carbs .

Now , the other topic is growth hormone .

Growth hormone can also help reduce this insulin resistance .

It can also help you build more muscle , can help you burn more fat , even though you might be sprinting for 10 to 15 seconds and then resting for 4 minutes .

You might not be burning a lot of calories , but what's going to happen is you're going to increase growth hormone 24 to 48 hours later while you're sleeping .

So you're going to be burning fat while you're sleeping .

And this is why you have to look beyond just the mechanics of burning calories because there's other factors involved .

One other big mistake that a lot of exercisers do is when they try to burn calories with exercise , they're putting tremendous amounts of energy out at the gym and their , their diet is too high in carbs .

So they'll end up burning off the sugar .

Now they're hungry and they're craving sweets and sugar , and they keep putting the carbs back in having these little snacks .

So they never really lose a lot of weight because they're running their body on glucose and they're just putting it right back .

So if we're talking about weight loss , exercise accounts for 15% of your gains , whereas the diet can be about 85% of your gains .

Because regardless of how many calories you're burning , what if you could just focus on burning fat calories ?

Wouldn't that be a smart thing to do Versus increasing the metabolism to burn off more sugar calories , which you then replace with sugar .

Doesn't make sense .

But if we're talking about exercise and we want to do an exercise that burns the most calories , you'd want to keep the intensity , the highest possible intensity you can do , and involve the most muscles : upper body and lower body .

Recently I was doing a metabolomic test on my mitochondria .

I exercise a lot .

I run up hills .

I do all sorts of things .

I was over training .

So I cut that back , got more sleep , and now the mitochondria is better .

So that's why the metabolomic testing , I think , is going to be the wave of the future because you can predict things well before they become symptomatic .

For more information on the best diet that you should be on to be able to have really healthy mitochondria , you should probably study this video right here .