Yoga vs. Pilates: Which is Better for Burning Calories? Both exercises are known for benefits that go far beyond burning calories, but does one really come out on top? We decided to find out.
Yoga and Pilates have gained a lot of popularity in recent years # Yoga (Opens in a new tab) And # Pilates (Opens in a new tab) Attracting billions of views on platforms like TikTok. Both are popular mindfulness practices that focus on connecting the breath, mind, and body through movement. But while you won’t reach that high a calorie-burning number, there are yoga and Pilates exercises that can increase it—although don’t count as outdoor cardio to match the likes of spinning or HIIT.
Before we go into detail, the number of calories you can burn per day depends on various factors, including general activity levels, gender, age, and body composition. We also burn calories in more ways than just exercising — like when we eat and sleep, believe it or not. However, you can calculate how many calories you can expect to burn after just one hour of yoga or Pilates. Get one of the best yoga mats for Pilates and yoga, and find out more.
Yoga vs. Pilates: The Benefits
Have you ever wondered what a yoga clock does to your body? A lot, it turns out. research (Opens in a new tab) He tells us that regular yoga can build muscle strength, improve flexibility, balance, and sleep, and boost mood. During a yoga class, you’ll adopt a series of yoga poses that form a sequence, targeting most major muscle groups, including the legs, back, chest, shoulders, and core muscles.
However, different styles of yoga serve different purposes. Dynamic, fast-paced yoga classes such as yoga or power yoga will increase your heart rate and benefit cardio fitness through continuous flowing movement. Slow-paced, restorative classes like Yin focus on developing flexibility in major muscle groups using long static stretches.
Pilates offers the same benefits, but the practice is known for its ability to develop your core strength, including your abs, lower back, and pelvic floor muscles using a low-impact environment. Pilates focuses on repetitive, precise, controlled movements of high reps, which can improve strength and endurance in major muscle groups and the smaller muscles required for stability. You can find out what an hour of Pilates can do for your body here.
Yoga vs. Pilates: Which Burns More Calories?
Aside from metabolic factors (such as hormones and body weight), sleep, and age, exercise intensity is the main determinant of how many calories you’ll burn during and after your workout. Neither yoga nor Pilates are typically high-calorie subjects, but if weight loss is your fitness goal, you can discover how to calculate your body fat percentage and why it matters here. If you want more specific stats, we recommend wearing one of the best fitness trackers or other wearables that scores based on your heart rate and profile.
In general, you will burn more calories during yoga if you exercise for a longer period or at a higher intensity and if you weigh more. The type of class will also determine your calorie burn; Hot yoga classes and hot Vinyasa classes get your heart rate up and can make you work harder. Again, strength or rocket are two of the faster and more challenging classes that can improve your calorie burn.
On average just like this Calorie counter (Opens in a new tab) (Similar to physical activity feed) You can expect to burn between 150-400 calories per hour from yoga. And exercise that meets a MET (measurement of energy cost) score of three or more can burn more calories. For example, a person who weighs 160 pounds and does a lighter-intensity class (MET score of 2.5) for 60 minutes can burn about 200 calories, while strength yoga (MET score of 4) can burn 305.
Getting more specific, one Stady (Opens in a new tab) It was found that men burned approximately 460 calories compared to women, who burned about 330 calories during Bikram (hot yoga).
Pilates relies on the same factors. Classes that use active sequence, resistance, and weights can increase intensity and heart rate—I’ve taken some of these classes, and they’re more challenging than some strength programs I’ve encountered. To make things even more confusing, Pilates classes are divided into three ability levels: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced—advanced classes tend to burn more calories, and Inferno Pilates (high-intensity hot Pilates exercises) can burn more.
Using the same metrics above, expect to burn approximately 230 calories per hour during a Pilates class. I dug a little deeper with a file calculator (Opens in a new tab) That allowed me to split between mat, general, and reformer: Results based on the same metrics showed that “general” Pilates (MET score 3) burns about 230 calories, mat Pilates estimated 267 calories (MET 3.5), and reformer 248 calories (MET score). ) 3.25). So, if you’re considering pilates for weight loss – intensity matters (again).
How to burn more calories
If you want to burn more calories during yoga or Pilates, consider a faster or more challenging class to get your heart rate up and work your muscles harder. Your muscles require energy for fuel, repair, and growth, so doing so may help you burn more calories, too.
A popular school of thought is that hot classes burn more calories, but even though your body has to work harder to cool you down, there is limited evidence as to whether it burns a lot of calories overall.
During pilates you can add the best resistance bands, small hand dumbbells, and other pieces of equipment to increase the intensity, and I love using the reformer to train my muscle groups hard.
The yoga and Pilates workouts we swear by
The breathing and meditation components of yoga and Pilates can reduce stress levels by regulating the nervous system. Calming the nervous system moves the body from the sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic system – a state of rest and repair.
If you want to start doing yoga or pilates, I do yoga every day and here’s what happened to my body, or try this yoga workout for knee pain. Also, our fitness editor did pilates every day for a month, this at-home workout with weights builds strength, and these are the 9 best pilates exercises that target your core.
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Yoga outperforms Pilates in terms of overall calorie burning. However, your metabolic responses to exercise and factors such as stress, sleep, and exercise intensity will affect the number of calories you burn during and after exercise. So if you want more accurate results, I recommend wearing one of the best fitness trackers or the best smartwatches to measure your specific responses to exercise.
Next: I do not recommend counting calories, And here she is 5 exercises that burn more calories than runningAnd Does jumping rope burn more calories than running??