What type of Exercise Burns the Most Calories?

Let’s face it, most people workout to burn calories!  Even though working out has a long list of benefits, from better health, longevity, better sleep, the fountain of youth, healthier joints, balanced hormones, improved mood and decreased stress, anxiety, and depression, the list goes on and on!  Yet, most people only step into a gym thinking they want to lose weight.  Don't get us wrong, weight loss is a great goal!  In fact weight loss will lead to all those wonderful benefits whether the individual sought to attain them or not. 

So if the goal is to burn calories to lose weight then you need to make your body use those energy stores, aka extra calories for the extra movement, aka exercise you are about to do, AND make sure not to eat more calories than you burn. There is a problem though, many individuals are short on time and do not have hours to spend working out, leading us to the question which type of exercises or what specific exercise burns the most calories in the shortest amount of time.  Below we cover 5 of the best exercises to do to simply burn calories in the most efficient time.

Running

One of the most popular pieces of equipment in a gym is the treadmill, and there is a reason for that.  It is because running is the most effective way to burn calories. Even though not all types of running burn the same amount of calories in the same amount of time. Five minutes of sprinting or high speed running burns much more calories than 5 minutes of moderate running or jogging. So although running does burn a ton of calories, if you can not push yourself while running, running may not actually be the most effective calorie burning exercise for you!

Cycling

Cycling is another great form of cardio and it can even be a bit easier on the joints and lower impact than running, making it a great option!  Both indoor and outdoor cycling are suitable options, although indoor cycling is more controllable and you can more easily set the intensity.

Swimming

Swimming is entirely underrated!  Swimming continuous laps is extremely challenging, while being low impact on all your joints. Olympic swimmers literally need to eat 1000s and 1000s of calories simply to maintain their weight. Some of the larger men have even reported eatin up to 10,000 calories a day!

Bonus! The resistance water also makes swimming a good strength building workout!

Jumping Romp

Jumping rope is not just for school girls!  It is a great cardiovascular workout, strengthens your calves, ankles and feet, plus it helps build coordination and mobility!  It is one of the main forms of conditioning for boxers and MMA fighters and it is because it works!  It gets your heart rate up and muscles working!

Rowing

Rowing is great for strength, especially for the posterior chain, meaning all the muscle on the back side of your body. The rowing machines can even be adjusted to make them easier and harder as you progress or to alter the intensity for intervals.

Weight lifting

Alright we are adding a sixth calorie burning exercise because we want to make sure you understand calorie-burning exercises are not limited cardiovascular exercises.

Strength training is an extremely efficient way to burn calories.  The body requires large amounts of every to lift heavy weights and recover, meaning a high calories burn!  Not to mention as you build muscle your body burns more calories on its own!  This is because every pound of muscle burns about 50 calories more a day than one pound of fat!

What should you do?

Choose the exercise you enjoy and can push yourself the hardest in. If you can only jog then try cycling where you may be able to push all out more and get a more effective workout in a shorter period of time.  The most important thing is to move in the way that you can!