Elliptical Trainer Calories

Elliptical trainers not only offer low-impact workouts that are easy on your joints than walking or running, they also help you burn more calories. Actually the two reasons are connected pretty closely; it’s easier to push yourself hard on an elliptical machine because your body feels like it’s doing less work. So basically, the calories burned on elliptical trainers feel like it took less energy than other forms of exercise. Couple that with a complete upper body workout and you’re looking at quite an efficient workout.

A lot of elliptical trainers feature some kind of calorie counter feature so you can track your progress. A typical elliptical calorie calculator offers a decent estimate, but the quality really depends on what kind of information you can enter into the console. The amount of calories burned on elliptical trainer machines depends on factors like your age, gender and weight as well your resistance settings, speed and stride length.

Elliptical machines with extended stride lengths ranging from 21” all the way up to 35” provide excellent cardiovascular workouts that burn a lot of calories. The deep elliptical motion works the legs, arms and core muscles and increases overall elliptical trainer calories burned. Higher resistance levels and incline also provide more of a challenge and help increase calories burned on elliptical trainers—the more effort you put into your elliptical workout, the more calories you will burn.

Estimated Calories Burned in 30 Minutes of Elliptical Workout

Weight vs Calories Burned
120 lb: 260 calories
150 lb: 325 calories
200 lb: 420 calories

Estimated Calories Burned in 1 Hour of Elliptical Workout

Weight vs Calories Burned
120 lb: 520 calories
150 lb: 650 calories
200 lb: 840 calories

Of course not only weight, but gender can play a role in calories burned. To get an idea how weight and gender may impact elliptical machine calories burned, a 150 pound woman might burn around 330 calories during a 30 minute elliptical workout while a 180 pound man may burn around 400 during the same workout.

It’s important to keep track of how many calories burned on your elliptical trainer or during any workout to avoid hitting an exercise plateau. Weight loss depends on burning more calories than consumed so an accurate elliptical calorie counter is an essential tool if your fitness goal is to shed pounds rather than build muscle or increase flexibility. Some experts suggest splitting up your workout into 2 shorter sessions to burn more calories since exercise temporarily increases your metabolism, thus increasing the amount of calories you can burn during a workout.

Regardless of your current fitness level or experience, elliptical machines offer the most efficient way to burn calories and reach your goals or maintain your health.