Loading page
About this tool
Calories burned lifting weights, counting working sets and rest between sets separately using Compendium MET values.
Most calorie calculators ask how long you were in the gym and multiply by one number. That is the wrong shape for weight training, where a ninety-minute session might contain fifteen minutes of actual work and an hour of standing between sets. This calculator times the three phases separately and applies the published MET value for each: 3.5, 5.0 or 6.0 for the working sets depending on what you lifted (Compendium codes 02054, 02052 and 02050), 1.5 for resting on your feet between them, and 2.3 for the warm-up. Energy comes from the ACSM oxygen-cost equation, kcal = MET x 3.5 x kg / 1000 x 5 x minutes, and the breakdown shows exactly how much of the total each phase contributed — usually a surprise the first time you look.
Open Weightlifting Calorie Burn Calculator on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Enter the values you already know.
Fine-tune the options to match your scenario.
Read the result and use it in your planning or reporting.
Twenty sets have nineteen gaps between them, not twenty, and each gap is priced at 1.5 MET rather than the lifting MET.
Every intensity carries its 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities code so you can check the source rather than take the number on trust.
The net figure subtracts the resting metabolism you would have spent anyway over the same minutes — the only figure that belongs in an energy-balance calculation.
For an 80 kg lifter doing twenty 45-second working sets of compound lifts with 90 seconds of rest and a 10-minute warm-up — about 53 minutes in the gym — the total is roughly 197 kcal, of which 105 comes from the sets themselves and 60 from standing around between them. Scale roughly with body weight: a 60 kg lifter doing the same session lands near 148 kcal.
Wrist trackers infer energy from heart rate, and heart rate is a poor proxy during resistance training: it stays elevated between sets from the pressor response rather than from oxygen consumption, so the device keeps billing you for work that is not happening. The MET method prices the actual oxygen cost of each phase, which is why it comes out lower and why it is the method used in the research literature.
Some, through excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, and the extra muscle you build raises resting metabolism a little over months. Neither is included here, because neither has a MET value and both vary enormously between people and sessions. This tool reports the session itself and says so rather than padding the figure with a guess.
It raises the number in this calculator, because you replace 1.5 MET minutes with nothing or with more 5 MET minutes. Whether it is a good idea depends on what you came for: short rest suits hypertrophy and conditioning, but it costs you load on heavy compound work, and the handful of extra calories is a poor trade for a worse training stimulus.
Add the Weightlifting Calorie Burn Calculatorwidget to your blog or website — free, responsive, no signup. Just keep the “Widget by AltFTool” credit link visible.
<iframe src="https://www.altftool.com/embed/widget/weightlifting-calorie-burn-calculator"
title="Weightlifting Calorie Burn Calculator — free AltFTool widget"
width="100%" height="640" style="border:0;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden"
loading="lazy" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade"></iframe>
<p style="font-size:12px;margin:4px 0 0">Widget by <a href="https://www.altftool.com/tools/all/weightlifting-calorie-burn-calculator?utm_source=embed&utm_medium=widget">AltFTool — free online tools</a></p>