Wellness
I love to exercise. Correction: I like to exercise.
Correct correction: I like to exercise when the workout routine requires anything but running.
I know, I know. I've heard it all before, "If you run often enough, you'll eventually love it."
Nevertheless, I loathe the exercise that requires me to put one foot in front of the other for long periods of time. And no matter how often I do it, I find that no amount of suffering through it makes me enjoy the experience anymore.
I get it, some people naturally love running. However, I and many others are just not built for it and all its wonders. Even though we are happy to be left out of the strenuous activities running entails, this hatred does, admittedly, leave us out of the calorie-burning benefits running has to offer. So, what do we do?
10 Exercises That Burn More Calories Than Running
Don't sweat it. For those of us who hate running, or like running but want a change, here are some calorie-burning alternatives that don't require you to give into the peer pressure of being about that running life. Besides, these exercises burn more calories than running anyway. Check them out:
Average Calorie Burn: 20.2 calories per minute
Kettle bell swings help you burn calories and sculpt a lean figure, which is great for shaping the glutes and quads while giving your body an overall workout. No longer do you need to have the age-old debate of cardio v. strength. With kettlebells, you can do both.
According to the American Council on Exercise (ACE), kettle bell workouts have grown immensely over the last decade due to the number of calories that can be burned in such a little time. An average person can burn "400 calories during a 20-minute workout," simply by adding a kettle bell to their fitness routine. In terms of burning calories, these results are comparable to running the pace of a six-minute mile, or uphill cross-country skiing at fast pace.
Bonus: Kettle bells are also known to alleviate lower back problems, improve posture, build muscle, and boost your endurance.
Average Calorie Burn: 14.3 Calories per minute
Due to its label of an intense full body exercise, Burpees make the perfect calorie-burning machine. The intensity and the number of muscles needed to perform this exercise results in a large calorie expenditure. Meaning: your body will still be burning calories long after this exercise is complete.
With Burpees, an average person can burn the usual of 10 calories per minute. However, high-intensity workout intervals with burpees can burn up to 14 calories per minute. Many fitness buffs are choosing burpees over running because, "if [they] complete burpees at a sprint interval pace, [they] will burn more calories post-exercise than steady state cardio long-distance running."
Bonus: Just like the Kettlebell Swings, Burpees allow you to get cardio and strength training, simultaneously. Burpees train your whole body, focusing on large major muscle groups like the chest, back, thigh muscles, and the smaller accessory muscles in the torso, shoulders, and arms.
Average Calorie Burn: 13 calories per minute
Unlike running, when you jump rope, you experience only moderate joint activity. Your wrists and ankles get most of the work, and your elbows, calves, and shoulders get a slight bit of involvement.
Compared to running, much of the impact of jumping rope is taken through the leg muscles. The erect posture and long spine force the abdominal muscles to hold your core tight and work in perfect coordination with the back muscles to form the same kind of internal pressure as a weight belt. All of this supports your torso and transfers energy more efficiently through your body. Long story short: jumping rope is better on your body than running. It also helps you burn more calories.
According to Harvard Health Publications, "An 155-pound person will burn about 596 calories running at five miles per hour for an hour, [meanwhile,] the same person will burn 744 calories in an hour of jumping rope."
Bonus:Jump rope will increase your stamina, reduce health risks, and manage chronic condition such as high blood pressure and cholesterol.
Average Calorie Burn: 10.3 calories per minute
Sculpting your arms, shoulders, and back, while burning calories has never been so easy. Battle rope combines elements of resistance training and cardiovascular exercise, to create the ultimate calorie burner. The main advantage this exercise holds over traditional running is that not only is the calorie burn per minute higher during your workout, but you also burn more calories and fat for up to 24 hours after finishing.
As identified by a study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, swinging battle ropes "for 10 minutes burns 112 calories." In addition, the average person can burn from anywhere in the range of 300-500 calories per half hour.
Bonus:The ropes can be whipped, slammed, or dragged to create a versatile workout plan. In addition, battle ropes provide a dual-force dynamic effect to improve physiological response, less injuries and more results, stronger muscles, mobility, and stability.
Average Calorie Burn: 8 to 10 calories per minute (500 to 900 calories per hour)
Exercise is all about engaging your muscles — from your heart to your biceps and quads — and asking those muscles to perform work. The more muscle groups that are activated, the more calories you burn. And when it comes to activating and training a diverse range of muscles, few exercises contend climbing.
A research study, conducted by Purdue University, estimates that "rock climbing equates to 244 steps per minute, putting it slightly above the 222 steps per minute estimated by running a 10-minute mile. In addition to the calorie-burning power of climbing, rock climbing provides an effective strength-training workout." In other words, climbers can burn more calories climbing than running.
If you're looking for a new way to burn calories, build strength, coordination, and fitness, adding a weekly climb to your regimen is a fantastic way to do it.
Bonus:Rock climbing gives you cardio and strength building in one workout, muscle groups are strengthened during rock climbing, rock climbing improves flexibility, reduces stress, mental strength, and endurance.
Average Calorie Burn: 210 to 311 calories per half-hour for moderate pace, 255 to 377 per half an hour for vigorous rowing
Due to the utilization of the muscle in your arms, legs, and back for efficient strokes, rowing is a great total-body workout.
Most of the muscles you use in running are in your lower body: your quads, hamstrings, glutes, hip flexors and calves. However, rowing activates requires "nine muscle groups and 85% of the body's musculature." Meaning that when you row, both upper-body and lower-body muscles serve as your primary movers, and you strengthen many more muscles than when running.
This means that although running on a treadmill, or traditionally running, will burn more calories during the workout, rowing will burn more calories in the long run. The more muscle groups used, the more those groups are strengthened. And more muscle mass means more muscle tissue to burn more calories—even when you're at rest—than body fat.
Bonus: Rowing is an effective aerobic exercise, helps with weight loss, provides an upper and lower-body workout, low impact cardio, increased endurance, and is easy to use!
Average Calorie Burn: Varies depending on time, weight, and pace
Boxing provides you with a full body workout that is guaranteed to get your heart pumping and those calories burning. Whether cardio boxing or running burns more calories completely depends on what exactly you do and how much you weigh.
Meanwhile, kickboxing for half an hour can burn up to 444 calories. The calorie burn for kickboxing is similar to activities such as jumping rope, treading water, and running at six miles per hour.
Bonus:Boxing, in addition to its calorie burns, enhances cardiovascular health, improves total-body strength, assists with hand-eye coordination, decrease stress, and improve body composition.
Average Calorie Burn: 13 calories per minute
Crossfit Workout of the Day pairs three exercises — 5 pull-ups, 10 push ups, and 15 air squats — that work different major muscle groups. The idea of the workout is to do as many rounds of the three exercises in 20 minutes.
This exercise burns more calories than running because of the use of various positions and muscles groups required for work out. As mentioned by Kennesaw State University scientist, "Any routine that takes you from standing, down to the ground, and back up to standing again is an amazing calorie burner, because it really spikes the heart rate."
The bottom line is like high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workouts before it, Crossfit is effective in helping individuals improve their aerobic fitness while also burning a great number of calories in the process, all within a relatively short amount of time.
Bonus:Crossfit Workout of the Day builds muscle to boost metabolism, provides quick and efficient workouts, and improve coordination, agility, balance, strength, and stamina.
Average Calorie Burn: Depends on the exercise, experience, and level of intensity.
A form of HIIT (high intensity interval training) workout can burn more calories than running.
Short and effective workouts, HIIT can burn calories and build muscle without the need of fancy equipment in a combo of body weight strength movements and cardio movements. HIIT workouts can consists of jumping jacks, alternating side lunges, tricep dips, and squats or squat jumps, etc. All you would need is a timer and a target number for your chosen exercises, then do as many rounds as you can in that time.
Bonus: HIIT not only burns calories and fat in a shorter time period, but it also helps build endurance, boosts metabolism, good for heart health, and is physically challenging.
Getty Images
Average Calorie Burn: 585 calories per hour (breaststroke)/540 calories per hour (backstroke), or 784 calories per hour (butterfly) at a moderate to vigorous pace.
Like the exercises beforehand, the calorie-burning advantages for swimming outweighs running. When you swim, you get a full-body workout that is easier on your joints than running. Running requires the majority of the lower-body muscles while swimming also requires your lower-body, such as the glutes, hamstrings, calves, and quadriceps. It also requires upper body muscles to pull the body through the water, therefore, building upper-body strength that running does not.
Based off studies conducted by RI Health and Fitness Magazine:
"You can burn off roughly 350 calories during a vigorous, intense 30-minute swim. If you burn 500 calories more than you eat every day, you can lose a pound a week. You can lose almost 90% of your body weight with swimming. It takes more physical effort to swim two miles than it does to run two miles. In other words, swimming takes more of a cardio effort than running does."
Bonus: Swimming not only burns more calories than running, but it is also low-impact, provides a total body workout, helps those with asthma, and improves body awareness.
Featured image by Getty Images
Originally published January 25, 2019
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