When it comes to finding out how many calories* you can burn on a rowing machine, several factors come into play. We will look at how many calories a person weighing 125 pounds can burn in a 30-minute exercise session on a rowing machine at different intensity levels. This will give you a relatively good idea of how many calories you can burn on a rowing machine. But, keep in mind that these figures are estimates.
*The unit of measure commonly called a “calorie” is actually a “kilocalorie” – however, “calorie” is so commonly used, we will use the shorter term here.
Contents
Rowing Machine Calorie Calculator
Enter your weight, exercise type & time taken into the calculator, for an estimate of how many extra calories a rowing machine can help you burn:
Total Calories Burned:
Before using any data obtained using this calculator, please consult with your doctor!
Light-Intensity Exercise
Rowing at a low resistance setting, using around 100 watts of energy, can be considered to be a moderate-intensity workout on a rowing machine. A person who weighs around 125 pounds on a rowing machine at this pace can expect to burn just over 200 calories in 30 minutes. A person weighing more than 125 pounds will burn more calories, depending on the weight. This will not make a massive difference to your daily calorie consumption.
Medium-Intensity Exercise
Now, if you step up your game and use the rowing machine with a vigorous effort of 150 watts for 30 minutes, you can burn more calories. This effort will allow a person weighing 125 pounds to burn just over 250 calories in half an hour. The heavier the person, the more calories will be burned. While this is an improvement over the lighter-intensity exercise, it is still not a significant fat burner, and you should not expect it to affect your overall weight loss efforts by a huge margin.
High-Intensity Exercise
If you really pick up your pace, you can enhance your weight loss efforts and bring the scale down a bit. For a person weighing 125 pounds using high resistance & high cadence, burning 200 watts on the rowing machine, an estimated 357 calories can be burned on the machine in half an hour.
How to Maximize Calories Burned On A Rowing Machine
If you really want to push yourself and make the rowing machine a useful tool to help you lose weight, you might want to take things up a notch. If you can use bursts of high-intensity effort at 200 watts throughout a 30-minute session with a few seconds gaps in between, you could burn over 300 calories per 30-minute session.
Of course, the key is to be consistent in your workout efforts. Make sure that you stick to either the medium or high-intensity workouts with the high-intensity interval sprints from time to time to maximize the number of calories you burn.
Further Reading
All figures used in this article & the calculator are derived from research published at the Compendium of Physical Activities.
