March 2, 2025, 3:03 pm | Read time: 5 minutes
Even though push-ups are not a classic endurance exercise, they can also melt away the calories. And in a short time and with little effort! FITBOOK author Tony Poland, together with a personal trainer, explains the factors on which fat burning depends and how effective push-ups really are.
Even though this popular bodyweight exercise primarily builds strength in the upper body and at the same time promotes stability and coordination, push-ups have another advantage that should not be underestimated: they burn calories and can ultimately help you lose weight. Of course, not everyone burns the same number of calories — after all, everyone is different. However, if you integrate push-ups into your daily training routine and keep a few basic things in mind, you’ll be able to burn off those excess calories!
Overview
Various Influencing Factors
There is no general answer to how many calories you really burn with a certain number of push-ups. This is because it depends on a number of parameters. The first of these is sex. It is important to know that men normally burn more calories than women due to their higher proportion of muscle mass. The second important factor is weight. The heavier a person is, the more calories they burn, as they simply have to expend more energy for the same exercise. Of course, age is also not insignificant. The metabolism works faster in younger people, so they burn more calories doing the same activities.
Factors such as body size, personal fitness level, the duration and intensity of the push-up workout, and the correct form and technique also influence fat burning. What is particularly interesting is that the higher the basic fitness level, the lower the calorie consumption. This is because the body is more efficient in trained people. In return, this group can train longer and more intensively.1
Example: This Is How Many Calories Push-Ups Burn
A calorie calculator can help check how many calories you really burn. You can easily find these tools on the internet. If you enter your initial values into such a calculator, you will quickly see the result. As a rough estimate, a single push-up burns around 0.3 to 0.6 kilocalories, ten push-ups three to six calories, and 100 push-ups 30 to 60.
Man: Calories Burned in One Minute
35 years old, 1.80 meters, 80 kilograms
For example, a 35-year-old man with a height of 1.80 meters and a weight of 80 kilograms would burn around nine calories if he performed push-ups at a moderate pace (approx. 20 per minute) for one minute.2
Woman: Calories Burned in One Minute
35 years old, 1.66 meters, 70 kilograms
In contrast, a woman of the same age (1.66 m, 70 kilograms) would lose around seven calories in the same amount of time.
Calorie Consumption for Classification
If we take the above calculations, this would be around 90 calories burned by a man and 70 by a woman in ten minutes of push-ups. That’s not a lot because doing push-ups for that long in one go is not possible for the general public, explains Cologne-based personal trainer Markus Bremen in an interview with FITBOOK. His experience: “Most people have to get push-ups right first — and that’s not easy at all,” says Bremen. If you then tell them that they have to do ten minutes of push-ups to burn 90 or 70 calories, that’s “actually utopian.”
The calorie consumption of endurance sports such as running, cycling, or swimming is significantly higher, and you usually last much longer. According to the FITBOOK calorie calculator, the man mentioned would burn around 745 calories while running and the woman mentioned would burn around 597 calories — at a pace of ten kilometers per hour, mind you!
But still, if you do regular push-ups, you shape your body and increase your basal metabolic rate. And more muscle mass leads to higher calorie consumption (even at rest), so this can be increased by doing push-ups.
How to Increase the Calories Calories Push-Ups Burn
Push-ups can also be made even more effective. At least advanced users who have mastered the technique can increase their training effects and calorie consumption. The most straightforward method is to enhance the intensity and number of repetitions. In other words, the faster and more explosive the push-ups (for example, with additional clapping) and the longer you hold out, the more you burn.
It is also advisable to incorporate different push-up variations. For example, you can do push-ups on one arm while the other arm is crossed behind your back. Close push-ups or diamond push-ups, in which the hands are positioned close together in a diamond shape, are also particularly popular. This close hand position puts a particular strain on the triceps. Or you can focus on plyometric training by jumping off the floor explosively during the push-ups and then catching yourself on both hands again in a controlled manner. Push-ups can also be ideally integrated into a HIIT workout, for example, in combination with burpees, squats, or skipping.
Regardless of the program design and chosen exercises, all the aforementioned variations stimulate muscle growth and enhance calorie burning.
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What the After-Burn Effect Does After Training
After exercising, our body requires significant energy. On the one hand, it is for regeneration, and on the other, it is to replenish oxygen stores. Energy turnover and metabolism are, therefore, increased during the after-burn effect, which means that calories are also burned after training. This can contribute to weight loss, as the body uses the stored fat as a source of energy for recovery and muscle maintenance.
Research indicates that the greater the effort, the greater the afterburning effect! Another advantage of push-ups with the highest possible intensity.