Understanding Active Calories Burned During Exercise

Understanding Active Calories

When it comes to calories burned during exercise, not all calories are created equal. The calories you burn can be broken down into two main categories: active calories and passive calories. But what exactly are active calories and how are they different from other calories you burn?

Defining Active Calories

Active calories refer specifically to the calories you burn while engaging in physical activity. This includes calories burned while doing activities like walking, running, swimming, strength training, sports, etc. Essentially, any movement of the body that raises your heart rate and requires exertion on your part results in burned active calories.

More specifically, active calories are tied directly to the movement and exertion of your larger muscle groups. When your legs, core abdominal muscles, back muscles, chest muscles, shoulder muscles, and arm muscles are contracting powerfully and dynamically, you burn active calories.

How Active Calories are Calculated

The number of active calories you burn depends on a few key variables related to your body and type/intensity of exercise:

• Your weight - Heavier people burn more calories for the same exercise.
• Intensity of exercise - More strenuous exercise burns more calories.
• Duration of exercise - Longer exercise sessions burn more calories.
• Muscle mass - More muscle mass results in more calories burned.

There are also various formulas that take these variables into account and calculate closely approximate active calorie numbers during various activities and exercises.

Benefits of Burning Active Calories

Burning active calories, rather than just passive calories that are expended at rest, has some major health and fitness benefits including:

• Increased calorie deficit for weight/fat loss when combined with proper diet
• Cardiovascular health improvements
• Increased endurance
• Muscle toning and fitness
• Mood boosting qualities

Active calories also tend to boost your metabolism for longer after exercise than passive calories burned at rest. This can create more significant calorie deficit and therefore more weight loss over time.

Contrast With Passive Calories

To fully understand what defines active calories, it helps to contrast them with passive calories that are burned without physical activity.

Passive Calorie Expenditure

Passive calories, often referred to as resting calories, are the calories your body burns just to perform its basic bodily functions throughout the day. This includes processes like:

• Breathing
• Blood circulation
• Controlling body temperature
• Digestion
• Brain function
• Muscle movement for posture and fidgeting

The number of passive calories you burn in day depends on factors like your basal metabolic rate (BMR), age, body size/composition, etc. But in general, these calories burned at rest make up 50-70% of your total daily calorie expenditure.

Passive vs. Active Calories Comparison

When comparing passive and active calories, the most significant differences are:

• Exertion - Active calories require physical effort, passive calories do not.
• Energy systems used - Active uses carbohydrates and fats mainly. Passive uses a higher % of fats.
• Afterburn effects - Active calories boost metabolism more after exercise.
• Health benefits - Active calories provide cardiovascular, weight loss, and other fitness benefits that passive calories do not.

In summary, passive calories make up your resting energy expenditure while active calories come from additional physical activity and movement.

Factors That Impact Active Calories Burned

As mentioned earlier, the main factors that impact active calories burned are body composition, workout duration, workout intensity, muscle mass, age, gender, and more. Here is more detail:

Body Size and Composition

Quite simply, the bigger you are in terms of weight and size, the more calories you will burn in a given exercise session. There are a couple reasons for this:

1. Having a higher percentage of body fat leads to burning more calories lifting/moving that weight during exercise.
2. The heavier you are, the harder your cardiovascular system has to work during exercise like jogging, swimming, etc.

This leads to increased calorie burn. Muscle mass percentage also plays a key role that will be discussed more below.

Exercise Intensity and Duration

Another obvious factor in how many active calories you will burn is dependent on your workout intensity and duration.

High intensity interval training will burn calories at a very high rate in a short workout duration. Longer steady state moderate intensity workouts (e.g. 60+ min) will burn high total calories but the rate per minute may be lower. In short - burn calories based on effort and time working out.

Muscle Mass Percentage

The amount of muscle your body contains also has an effect on calorie burn. Muscle tissue requires more energy at rest than fat tissue. So the more muscle contained on your body, the more calories you burn, even at rest.

When you factor in physical activity, having more muscle mass also allows your body to burn more calories during exercise. Resistance training to build muscle can help increase your calorie burning potential.

Additional Factors

A few other elements that impact your rate of burned active calories include:

• Age - younger people tend to burn more calories
• Gender - men often burn more calories than women
• Genetics and fitness level - metabolism differences between people

Understanding how these and other factors impact the rate at which you burn calories can help you create the optimal exercise plan for weight loss, fitness, health goals.

How to Maximize Active Calories Burned

If your goal is purely to maximize the amount of active calories you burn during exercise, there are some effective strategies you can apply:

Increase Exercise Frequency and Duration

One of the simplest approaches is to increase the total time you exercise in a week. More minutes of exercise directly equals more calories used to fuel that exercise.

Aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise per week as a baseline. Go longer for increased caloric expenditure.

Incorporate High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

HIIT workouts feature short periods of maximum intensity effort followed by brief rest periods. Done correctly, these workouts can burn more calories in less time due to their intensity.

Aim for 2-3 HIIT workouts weekly in 25 minute sessions. Mix these sessions with some moderate cardio days.

Build Lean Muscle with Resistance Training

Resistance training with free weights, bands, machines, or bodyweight exercises builds metabolically active lean muscle. That extra muscle will then burn extra calories at rest and during workouts.

Perform resistance training 2-4 times weekly focusing on large multi-joint lifts that engage the most muscle, along with some isolation exercises.

Maintain Workout Intensity and Tracking

To ensure you are actually burning maximum active calories in workouts, be sure to maintain intensity. Using technology like heart rate monitors helps. Also, tracking total daily and weekly calories provides useful feedback and accountability.

If increased fat loss is the goal, also couple workouts with a controlled nutrition plan to create optimal caloric deficit through diet and exercise expenditure.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult with a healthcare professional before starting any new treatment regimen.