How Many Calories will I Burn During a Personal Training Session?

If you’re going to pull on your finest Lulu-Lemons, enlist the help of a personal trainer and set to work trying to make that fat cry; then you deserve the right to understand how many calories you will be burning for all your efforts.

The very short, dull and black and white answer to this question is roughly 500 calories. However, nothing is that simple, plus, this would make for a dull blog post if I finished up on the second paragraph. Stick around and I will break down how many calories you will burn doing a range of different activities. This will help you see why Personal Training is a smart choice for hitting your weight loss goals.

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The Technical Answer (Weight Loss By Numbers)

Let’s start with an hour’s circuit training, a type of exercise intensity very similar to Personal Training.

A 5ft 5 female weighing 64Kg (10 stone) circuit training for an hour will burn in the region of 537 calories.

A 5ft 10 male weighing 76Kg (12 stone) circuit training for an hour will burn in the region of 638 calories.

As you can see from our example the lighter your starting weight, the fewer calories you burn per session/hour. Therefore training intensity must build as you lose weight, otherwise as you will burn fewer calories for the same workout, as you get lighter.

To lose one pound of fat per week you need to create a calorie deficit of 500 calories per day and 3500 calorie deficit each week from diet and exercise combined. You can see from our example that personal training is a great way to achieve part of that calorie deficit, especially if you are able to do multiple sessions each week.

If however, you decided that you would rather do lighter intensity exercise like walking for example then that too can be a great way to burn additional calories, however, you will need to do a lot more to achieve the same outcome as a high-intensity session like Personal Training.

Let’s look at a few other comparisons.

Exercise	Duration	Calories Burnt 76Kg Male	Calories Burnt 64Kg Female
Personal Training	60mins	638Kcal	537Kcal
Walking 3mph 20 min mile pace	60mins	230Kcal	273Kcal
Light Weight Training	60mins	228Kcal	192Kcal
Hard Weight Training	60mins	456Kcal	384Kcal
Yoga	60mins	273Kcal	230Kcal
Low impact Aerobics	60mins	410Kcal	346Kcal
High Impact Aerobics	60mins	547Kcal	460Kcal

You can see quite easily – how you train and importantly how hard has a serious impact on your results. These calorie burns are based on average male and female examples and will vary based on your own height and weight.

The session lengths in the examples are also based on 60mins, but it’s worth considering how long your typical training session lasts and its intensity before assuming your calorie burn is the same as the examples above.

The Non-Technical Answer (Why you really burn more with a PT)

So, having crunched the numbers we can start to understand how many calories we should burn if we train hard in our PT sessions when compared with other types of exercise. This is important but not the only factor as to how many calories you will burn in a personal training session.

Let’s step outside the technical for a moment, if you have a trainer who gets you engaged with your goals, who can inspire you to push harder and remain focused for longer, then this is something you will not find in a solo exercise session. The accountability of a good coach can be priceless when pushing towards a challenging goal and is often the voice of reason when you’re ready to quit.

A good personal trainer will push you further than you thought possible and all with a smile on your face and a sense of satisfaction that you are taking on your idea of impossible and winning. The act of committing to personal training also makes people more engaged and invested in their goals and more willing to try new things. Personal training is about committing to your goals and getting a professional in your corner who can get you across that finishing line.

So yes, on the face of it you will burn 500 calories per session, however if you train inconsistently on your own, if you train at too low an intensity, If you never know what to do when your in the gym, if you skip sessions frequently, or if you give up on your goals after a couple of weeks then understandably you will fail to hit your goals, including that 500 calorie deficit each day.

Commit to personal training three times per week over six months and that’s 39,000 calories burnt you might well have missed out on.

Now I know you can play with numbers all day long to prove a point, but the point is you will burn more calories than if you train on your own and quit. A Personal Trainer can also build your confidence and skill to train more effectively when not in a PT session, meaning your weekly calorie burn also jumps up significantly.

Commit to personal training, commit to your goals and ignite the fire enthusiasm and the calorie burn is literally limitless…

If you would like to learn more about how our Personal Training Programs might be able to help you then why not check out the “Programs” section of the website, or you can request a complimentary consultation below.

Andy Strong