Calories Burned Calculator
Estimate how many calories you burn during a strength training session — personalized to your age, weight, height, and sex for a more accurate result.
How Many Calories Does Weight Lifting Burn?
Strength training typically burns between 150 and 400 calories per hour, depending on your body weight, age, height, sex, and how long you train. Heavier and younger individuals burn more — but the exact number varies significantly from person to person.
Most calorie calculators use a simple formula based on the Metabolic Equivalent of Task (MET), which measures the energy cost of an activity as a multiple of your resting metabolic rate. For resistance training with 8-15 reps at varied resistance, the standard MET value is 3.5 (from the Compendium of Physical Activities).
This calculator goes a step further by using the Corrected MET method. Instead of assuming the same resting metabolic rate for everyone, it calculates your personal RMR using the Harris-Benedict equation — factoring in your age, height, weight, and biological sex — and applies the 3.5 MET to that personal rate. This produces a more individualized estimate than the standard MET approach.
Keep in mind that any calorie estimate is just that — an estimate. How long you rest between sets, which exercises you do, your training experience, and your individual metabolism all affect the real number. For the most accurate picture, pair this estimate with a workout log so you can see how your training volume and effort change over time.
How the Calculation Works
This calculator uses the Corrected MET method — the same approach we use in RepCount — which personalizes the estimate to your own metabolic rate instead of assuming everyone burns the same energy at rest. Here's exactly how it works:
Step-by-Step Calculation
Step 1: Calculate Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR)
First, we calculate your personal resting metabolic rate using the Harris-Benedict equation, which factors in your biological sex, height, weight, and age:
RMR = 66.473 + 5.0033 × height(cm) + 13.7516 × weight(kg) − 6.755 × age
RMR = 655.0955 + 1.8496 × height(cm) + 9.5634 × weight(kg) − 4.6756 × age
Step 2: Convert RMR to calories per minute
Next, we turn your daily RMR into a resting energy rate per minute:
Step 3: Apply the resistance training MET
A MET value says how many times your resting rate an activity costs, so we multiply your own resting rate by the MET for resistance training:
The standard MET for resistance training (8-15 reps at varied resistance) is 3.5, based on the Compendium of Physical Activities. Because it is applied to your personal resting rate rather than a fixed 1 kcal/kg/hr assumption, the result reflects your age, height, weight, and sex.
Step 4: Calculate Calories Burned
Finally, we multiply that rate by how long you trained:
Why Use the Corrected MET Method?
Most calorie calculators use a one-size-fits-all approach, assuming everyone has the same resting metabolic rate. This leads to significant inaccuracies — especially for individuals who are older, younger, taller, shorter, or have different body compositions.
The Corrected MET method accounts for individual metabolic differences by calculating your personal RMR first and building the estimate on top of it. Resting metabolism falls with age and rises with body size, so two people doing the same session rarely burn the same amount — which is why a personalized calculation beats a generic one.
Sources & References
- • Compendium of Physical Activities — Provides standardized MET values for different activities (pacompendium.com)
- • Harris-Benedict Equation — Widely validated formula for estimating resting metabolic rate
- • Corrected MET Methodology — Uses your own resting metabolic rate in place of the standard 3.5 ml/kg/min assumption behind traditional MET calculations
Individual calorie burn varies based on exercise selection, rest periods, training intensity, and personal metabolism. These estimates are calculated from the formulas and data listed above, but actual values may differ.