Pickleball may be a lesser-known sport, but it’s a great sport to try out if you’re looking to be a little more active. The exact number varies from person to person, but on average, you’ll burn about 75 calories for every 10 minutes of pickleball you play.
Today, we’ll be taking a look at pickleball and sharing with you all the information you might want to know about playing pickleball as a form of exercise.
Calories burned Playing Pickleball Calculator
How Many Calories Do You Burn Playing Pickleball?
As we’ve stated, the average person burns about 75 calories for every 10 minutes they spend playing pickleball. However, as you may already know, this exact number will change depending on things like your height, weight, and resting metabolic rate.
At this point, you might be asking yourself “what even is pickleball?” You can be totally forgiven for not knowing; pickleball is a relatively new sport, having only been invented in 1965. Despite its status as a new sport, pickleball has a pretty decent following; current estimates suggest that there are over 3 million active pickleball players today.
For the sake of concision, we won’t be going over the rules of pickleball here; if you’re interested in that, we’d suggest you check out the official website for the USA Pickleball Association. To summarize, though, pickleball is essentially a combination of tennis, badminton, and ping-pong.
Pickleball is played on a court similar in size and layout to a badminton court, but the net used and the actual rules of the game are more similar to those found in tennis. In addition, the ball used in pickleball is more like a Wiffle ball than anything else.
How Many Calories Can You Burn Playing Pickleball for 30 Minutes?
The exact number of calories you’ll burn from playing a half-hour of pickleball is going to vary depending on you. As we’ve mentioned previously, the calories you will burn from any kind of physical activity are affected by your physical size and your own metabolism.
If you want to know exactly how many calories you’ll burn from playing pickleball, then you’ll need to do some math and figure it out for yourself. However, if we assume that you’re a person of average height and build, then we can use the 75 calories per 10 minutes figure to get an estimate of the calories you’ll burn in half an hour.
Using this figure, the average person will burn about 225 calories for every half-hour of pickleball they play.
What Burns More Calories, Pickleball or Tennis?
If you’re a fan of racquetball sports in general and you’re thinking about trying one out as a way to lose weight, you might be wondering which sport is the most effective for weight loss. So, how does pickleball compare to tennis in terms of the calories you can burn while playing it?
While pickleball and tennis are pretty similar in terms of the range of motion they involve, you’re probably going to burn a bit more calories playing tennis than you will from playing pickleball.
This is due to a couple of reasons. The first is that tennis is simply played over a wider area than pickleball. Tennis courts are larger than pickleball courts, so if you’re playing a full game of tennis then you’re going to be moving around more than you would during a full game of pickleball.
In addition, playing a full game of tennis generally takes a bit longer than playing a full game of pickleball. Of course, this can all change depending on how long you play for and the intensity at which you’re playing, but in general, tennis burns more calories than pickleball.
Can I Lose Weight by Playing Pickleball Every Day?
Absolutely! While pickleball might not be as intense as tennis, it’s still a sport that makes you get out and be active. As such, if you consistently play pickleball every day, you’ll almost certainly be able to lose some weight.
Plus, the fact that pickleball isn’t as intense as tennis means it’s a more accessible sport for a first-time athlete to get into. Playing pickleball every day will give you the same benefits as any other kind of cardiovascular exercise, such as lower blood pressure, decreased cholesterol, and a better response to insulin.