Wednesday, January 18, 2012

What to Know About Calories Burning With Running With Weights?



The amount of energy you need to move your body over a distance, such as when you run, is measured in calories. Because your body contains mass, it interacts with the earth’s gravity to exert a force. The more mass your body has, the more energy it takes to move it against that force. The more weight you carry while running, the more calories you need to produce the energy to move a given distance.

Mass and Gravity

The earth weighs about 5,974,200,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms, whereas a 150-pound person weighs about 68 kilograms. Objects with greater mass attract objects with less mass. The Earth exerts a force, called gravity, on humans and other objects with mass. The more mass the object being attracted has, the greater the force required to separate the two. Therefore, the more mass your body has, the more force the earth uses to pull your body back toward it. This force can be calculated in weight, which is why you weigh less on a planet with less gravitational pull.

Calorie Expenditures

When you exercise, you move your body through space, which requires energy. Your body gets energy from the foods you eat. A calorie is a measure of energy, so a food containing 100 calories has 100 units of energy. Some of that energy is stored in your bloodstream and organs for immediate use, and the rest is stored as fat. The more mass you move, the more energy, or calories, you need. Therefore, a 200-pound man running alongside a 150-pound man will burn more calories. The 200-pound man needs more energy and burns more calories to move 200 pounds over the same distance as the 150-pound man because the Earth exerts a greater force on the man with more mass.

Running With Weights

Adding more mass to your frame when you run increases the force exerted upon you. You require more energy to move the additional weight away from the earth. Adding weights when you run, in the form of a weight vest, hand or ankle weights, increases the amount of energy you expend when running. Expending more energy requires you to burn more calories. When you burn more calories than you take in, you lose weight.

Calories Burned

According to the National Institutes of Health, if you weigh 154 pounds, you burn about 590 calories running at a speed of about 5 mph. If you weigh 164 pounds, running at the same speed, you burn about 630 calories, or an additional 40 calories. Therefore, adding 1 pound of weight while running at a rate of 5 mph burns about four additional calories per hour. You can burn more calories by running faster. A 154-pound person running 10 mph burns about 1,256 calories, while someone weighing 164 pounds burns 1,338, an additional 82 calories, or 8.2 calories per additional pound of weight.

 
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