Does Body-weight Training Make You Lose Weight?

If you enjoy working out at home or don’t like the regular gym with equipments more the fitness sense, body-weight exercises make a valuable addition to your workout regimen. These exercises don't provide the quickest way to burn calories, but when you combine them with aerobic exercises and a healthy diet, you can burn enough calories each day to lead to fat loss.

Body-weight Training

Body-weight exercises use just the weight of your body as resistance. Instead of needing free weights or accessories such as stability balls and resistance bands, you can perform these exercises whenever you wish. Common examples of this type of exercise include pushups, situps, crunches, planks, squats and lunges. Each exercise is effective at building muscle but doesn't burn calories at a high rate.

Losing Weight

Losing weight or, more specifically, losing fat, occurs when you burn more calories than you consume. One pound of fat equals about 3,500 calories, which means you must create a calorie deficit of 3,500 calories to lose 1 pound of fat. Picking exercises that burn calories at a rapid rate, such as aerobic exercises, can help you meet your fat-loss goals.

Exercise Calories Burned

Body-weight exercises burn calories at a lower rate than aerobic exercises. According to HealthStatus, a 150-pound person will burn 114 calories in 20 minutes of moderate-intensity pushups and 192 calories in 20 minutes of vigorous pushups. The same person will burn 102 calories in 20 minutes of moderate-intensity crunches and 183 calories in 20 minutes of vigorous crunches. Comparatively, a 150-pound person will burn 261 calories during a 20-minute run at 7 mph.

Considerations

Technically, body-weight exercises such as pushups and crunches can help you lose fat. If you burn an additional 350 calories per day through this type of exercise, for example, and don't replace those calories with food, you'll eventually lose weight. On their own, however, body-weight exercises will result in fat loss at a very slow rate. Complement these exercises by adding such aerobic exercises as running, cycling and swimming to your workout regimen; each exercise burns calories at a rapid rate to help you lose fat.

Circuit Training

Circuit training, which includes aerobic and strength-training exercises, is an effective way to burn calories at a rapid rate to help you lose fat. This type of workout boosts your metabolism to help you burn calories at an elevated rate even during rest. Alternate one-minute bursts of pushups, crunches, squats or lunges with one-minute bursts of jumping jacks or running on the spot and continue this pattern for 30 minutes.