Does it ever feel like you’re spinning your wheels with your workouts? You bust your butt to reach your fitness goals, but your progress remains maddeningly slow. You’re not alone. Many people face this frustrating, confusing plateau, and if you’ve ever wondered how many calories Pilates burn, you’re in the right place. Understanding how Pilates contributes to your fitness goals—calories burned, muscle engaged, and more—can help you break free from your workout rut. This article will help you learn accurate estimates for how many calories Pilates burns, what factors influence your results, and how the exercise can help you reach your fitness goals.
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Pilates is a low-impact exercise that has the extra benefit of helping you lose weight while also enhancing your posture, flexibility, and core strength. Because it is low-intensity exercise, your heart rate is maintained at roughly 50% of its maximal capacity. Unlike high-intensity workouts like running and CrossFit, it doesn't drive your body to the ultimate limit because it involves slower, deliberate motions.
Although Pilates doesn't burn as many calories per hour as these high-intensity exercises, it still works your entire body, so you'll burn calories that can help you lose weight.
Pilates helps you lose weight when done consistently, along with a nutritious diet! Consistency is key if your fitness objective is to burn fat and tone up because it takes 3,500 calories to burn one pound of fat.
Pilates is a low-intensity workout that can be performed regularly, making it a lasting fitness routine that may be performed several times each week. Many individuals find Pilates enjoyable and calming, in addition to being low-impact and decreasing the likelihood of overexerting or hurting themselves.
As for Pilates and calories burned, as a form of moderate strength training, Pilates has a vital role in a weight-loss program and will help you burn calories. There are many ways to perform Pilates—including equipment-free or using equipment like the classic Pilates reformer—and certain moves will help you burn extra calories, including:
How to:
With this no-equipment move, you’ll work your arms, legs, and core.
Planks, a classic full-body move, get an upgrade with the addition of jacks.
How to:
How to:
Doing Pilates for an hour on a mat burns about 170 to 250 calories if you’re a beginner—more if you’re doing an intermediate or advanced workout. Where you fall on that range depends on your weight. A 120-pound person will burn 171 calories per hour of Pilates. A 150-pound person will burn 200 calories with mat Pilates, and a 180-pound person could burn 257 calories doing Pilates for 1 hour.
Remember that a calorie is a unit of measure for energy or heat. Your body converts calories from food and stored nutrition (mainly fat) into energy through a thermal metabolic process that releases heat—thus, the term burning calories. Your body needs several calories to stay alive and function normally. That is your basal metabolic rate (BMR). Your BMR is influenced by:
Exercise, including Pilates, helps to increase your daily caloric burn.
If you’re new to Pilates and do it for an hour on a mat, you’ll burn around 170 to 250 calories. The number of calories you burn depends on your weight. If you weigh 120 pounds, you’ll burn about 171 calories. If you weigh 150 pounds, you’ll burn around 200 calories; if you weigh 180 pounds, you’ll burn up to 257 calories during a one-hour Pilates session. You may burn even more calories if you do an intermediate or advanced Pilates workout.
Michele Olson, a Pilates expert with a Ph.D., conducted a study with 12 people to see how many calories they burned during Pilates. The study divided the participants into beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels of Pilates workouts, and they did the exercises on a mat without any extra equipment.
The researchers closely monitored the subjects’ heart rates and found that Pilates can help you burn calories, especially if you do intermediate or advanced workouts. The study also found that if you want to lose weight doing Pilates, you need to do it at least four times a week for 45-60 minutes each session.
The study found that doing a beginner Pilates workout burns about four calories per minute, an intermediate workout burns about six calories per minute, and an advanced workout burns about 7.5 calories per minute. So, during a one-hour session, you can expect to burn around 240 to 450 calories, depending on the level of your Pilates workout.
“Calories burned in Pilates 30 minutes” is one of the most researched queries online. Honestly, there is no exact answer to this question. In a 30-minute Pilates session, a person does different exercises to improve:
Pilates is an excellent option for a quick exercise routine with many benefits. It’s essential to remember that Pilates is just one part of a complete fitness and wellness plan. The number of calories burned in 30 minutes depends on the practitioner’s:
An average person can normally burn 120-240 calories. You might burn a few more calories if you weigh more or do more intense exercises. Doing more challenging Pilates exercises, like using resistance bands, can help you burn over 300 calories in 30 minutes. Ultimately, the number of calories burned will depend on your movements and body type.
Several variables are involved in measuring the exact calories burned in a Pilates workout. When you add to that the vast differences in workout intensity available in Pilates—and workouts with versus without equipment—it is impossible to identify a specific number of calories burned that would apply to everyone. You can estimate your calories burned using an activity calculator.
Remember that most online calorie calculators only ask for your weight and duration of exercise. They do not reveal the population their baseline is taken from (such as gender, weight, level of fitness, etc.), nor specify the level and kind of Pilates being performed, such as mat exercises versus equipment exercises or beginner versus advanced. These numbers must be regarded as extremely general. Also, if you are "guesstimating," remember that men typically burn more calories than women doing the same activity.
If you’re new to Pilates, try practicing 2 to 3 times per week to experience all its benefits. You can also try more advanced Pilates classes, such as Pilates reformer classes, and combination classes like Piloxing (Pilates and boxing) or Yogalates (yoga and Pilates). You’ll burn more calories in these full-body classes than in a traditional Pilates mat class.
If you’re trying to lose weight, participate in these combination classes a few times weekly for the best results. You can also alternate Pilates classes with strength training sessions (with weights) and cardio exercises. Combining Pilates with other forms of cardio exercise, strength training, and a healthy diet is an effective way to tone your muscles and help you achieve your weight loss goals.
One of the most accurate ways to estimate calories burned is with a heart rate monitor. Because the body requires oxygen to burn calories and the heart pumps oxygen through the body, there is a relationship between how hard the heart works and your body's demand for oxygen to burn calories.
Some heart rate monitors project calories burned based on your BMR and your average heart rate during the exertion period. Quality monitors will also have inputs for other personal data, such as weight and gender.
Heart rate-based calorie burn calculators can also help determine your calorie burn, and you can do it all online. As technology improves, activity monitors can more accurately predict calorie burn during Pilates exercises—but they are not yet developed to monitor activity in multiple planes of movement.
While you can track your exertion level with a heart rate monitor, you can also use the rating of perceived exertion scale (RPE). The scale uses a subjective experience of breathing rate, fatigue, and sweat measured on a scale from 6 (no exertion) to 20 (the most exertion possible) to help you gauge your exertion rate.
Check your RPE during your workout. If it's easy, your RPE will be close to 11 or 12. If you're performing a challenging workout or high-intensity interval training, you may be closer to an 18 or 19. Keep calculating your RPE throughout your Pilates session to see how hard you work and how many calories you burn.
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