How Many?

• How many calories can you burn lifting weights? The short answer is, it depends. Many factors influence coming up with an actual number answer to the question. The more practical answer is probably, more calories than you do sitting on the sofa watching television. Basically, depending on your size, shape, age, sex and style of workout, you could burn anywhere between 180 and 500 calories an hour lifting weights.
  
  

Facts

• The general rule of thumb for exercise, weight lifting and calorie burning is that a pound of muscle burns more energy (a calorie is a unit of energy) than a pound of fat. A pound of muscle also weighs more than a pound of fat. So you could conceivably have a body made up of mostly lean muscle mass and weigh more than you did in your former shape that was made up of more fat pounds.
  
  Statistically, a pound of muscle burns about 6 calories a day compared to only 2 calories per pound of fat. That means someone made up of more muscle actually burns more calories just sitting restfully than someone made up more of fat.
  
  

Factors

• Many factors impact how many calories you burn during any activity. Age, weight, height and sex are the most immediate differentiators. Cardiovascular efficiency and body mass index are two others.
  
  The type of exercises you do also affects the number of calories you can burn. Doing circuits of weight exercises broken up with cardiovascular exercises with little to no break time in between will burn more energy than maxing out and resting 5, 10 or 15 minutes in between sets of exercises. That's not to say that exercises where you max out are not valuable. Quite the contrary. They are very valuable for building strength and muscle mass, they just don't burn as many calories at a time.
  
  

Expectations

• Depending on these factors, the average adult can expect to burn between about 180 and 500 calories an hour lifting weights. Cardiovascular exercises like running, biking, walking and swimming tend to burn more calories than static exercises that don't raise the heart rate as much like weight lifting. Also, a smaller, lighter person will usually burn fewer calories doing the same workout as a heavier person. But calories are only one measure of weight loss and management. Actual weight, body mass index and simply how you feel in your clothes can mean more.