How many calories does bench press burn

When it comes to upper body exercises, the bench press is a great once. Since it's a compound movement, you're working several muscles at once. Your triceps, pectoral muscles, and deltoids get a great workout, and even your lats put a bit of work in.

While the bench press is a great way to tone — or grow — your upper body, it's not a great fat burner. You'll only burn a small number of calories when you do the bench press. You can, however, still lose weight by following a well-rounded workout routine that includes bench presses.

Tip

Bench pressing won't help you lose significant stomach fat, but it can give you a toned chest.

Burn Some Calories

If you're looking to slim down your stomach, you need to burn more calories than you eat. When you take in fewer calories than your body needs — a state called a calorie deficit —– you'll start burning stored fat tissue for energy, which will help you slim down.

Each pound of weight loss requires burning around 3,500 calories more than you ate — so at 500-calorie deficit per day, you'd lose about a pound a week. A 5-minute session of bench pressing burns a measly 37 calories if you weigh 150 pounds. That means that if you did 5 minutes' worth of bench presses 3 times a week, it would take you more than six months to lose a pound.

Weigh 200 pounds? Your calorie burn jumps to a whopping 49 calories. Doing bench presses three times each week would add up to a pound of weight loss after about five and a half months.

Up the Burn

Clearly, simply bench pressing won't slim you down — but lifting weights can be a great strategy for weight loss. A 155-pound person will burn about 223 calories in a 30-minute session of vigorous weightlifting. If you did that three times a week, you'd burn enough calories to lose about 10 pounds in a year — that's without any extra cardio or making changes to your diet.

Perform bench presses as one of several compound movements in your workout. Squats, lunges, push-ups, rows and deadlifts all work multiple muscles to help you burn calories.

Arrange your workout as a circuit, moving from one exercise to another to another without any rest in between. This minimizes your "down time" and keeps you active and burning calories.

And, of course, alternate strength workouts with cardiovascular fitness to torch more calories. The 466 calories you might burn from 30 minutes' vigorous stationary cycling, for instance, will help you slim down — so you can see more and more of your toned upper body when you lose stomach fat.

A few factors determine how many calories you burn during various exercises -- the intensity of the exercise you are doing, how much you weigh and how much muscle mass you have. Also how long you rest between sets can factor in to your total calorie count. Given information on this criteria, you can get a good idea of about how many calories you burn when you are doing chest presses.

Calories Burned

Harvard Health Publications reports that when weightlifting at a high intensity, a 155-pound person burns 233 calories in 30 minutes. If you weigh 30 pounds more, you burn about 40 more calories; if you weigh 30 pounds less, you burn about 40 less calories. When weightlifting at moderate intensity, the number of calories burned are about half of the numbers for high-intensity weightlifting. These numbers are a good starting point to determine how many calories you burn doing chest presses.

Determining Workout Intensity

MayoClinic.com describes weightlifting intensity levels. At moderate intensity, your breath is fast, but you are not out of breath; you can carry on a conversation but not sing, and you develop a light sweat after 10 minutes. If you are working out at high intensity, your breathing is deep and rapid; you develop a sweat after a few minutes, and you can't say more than a few words without pausing for breath.

Muscle Mass

The more lean muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn. Muscle tissue burns more calories than fat tissue, and the more muscle you have, the more your metabolism increases. This means you burn more calories during activities as well as when you are at rest. If you have weight loss goals, a combination of cardio and strength training will up your metabolism, create more muscle mass and help you burn calories and fat.

Rest Time Between Sets

If you are looking to get the maximum calorie burn out of your weightlifting, limit your rest time in between sets. A study published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology reveals that keeping your rest intervals between 30 and 45 seconds burns up to 50 percent more calories than three-minute intervals. Try doing eight repetitions of chest presses for three sets, resting for 30 seconds between each set.

References

Resources

Writer Bio

Based in New York City, Rebecca Jones has been a writer, reporter and researcher for more than 20 years. Her reporting and researching has helped inform the pages of Glamour, Giant, and Ladies' Home Journal among other publications. In addition to her professional work in the editorial departments of magazines, Jones is an avid poet and as yet unpublished fiction writer.

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