How many calories does kitesurfing burn?

Nowadays kitesurfing is considered an extreme sport and one of the most exciting activities that exist. Are you wondering if kitesurfing is also an appropriate sport to burn calories?  If you want to find out how many calories you can burn in kitesurfing, you are in the right place!

Kitesurfing is not only exciting and fun, but the regular practice of kitesurfing has many benefits for the health and well-being of those athletes who jump into the water with their board.

You don’t need to be an athletic person to take part in Kite Surfing. You can still enjoy the sport and benefit from the variety of health rewards!

These are the benefits of kitesurfing to burn calories and feel good in your body and mind:

1- It improves general muscle tone all over since it is an exercise using your full body. It requires a variety of strength, both to avoid falling and to perform the different manoeuvres that make up kite surfing. Within this full body workout, the arms, back, buttocks and legs are especially enhanced.

2- It is constant work, as when you are in the water there are no breaks. At all times you are working to keep your balance and not get carried away, which would cause constant falls. This means that not only power is maximised, but also the cardiorespiratory system, and resistance in low and high-intensity exercises.

3- Kitesurfing helps burn fat due to its caloric expenditure. It is estimated that 350-400 calories can be burned with each 30-minute kitesurfing session. Besides, being high-intensity training, once it is finished, calories are still burned for a while.

4- Like snowboarding, in kitesurfing with a twin-tip board, the fact of having fixed feet without being able to change the position of the legs (beyond bending or stretching them) strengthens the sense of balance, since you have to play with it. centre of gravity and the whole body to stay upright.

5- The speed with which kitesurfing is practised in the sea and the small waves, ensures that the athlete is constantly aware of any change that in seconds could throw him, or make him lose an opportunity to perform acrobatics, and that favours him to enhance reflexes and concentration.

6- Performing jumps and pirouettes not only helps to provide greater muscular strength but also requires a progressive increase in motor coordination and flexibility.

7- Like all physical activity, it helps to release tension and daily stress thanks to the secretion of endorphins, which eliminates problems of anxiety and depression. On the other hand, it generates a feeling of well-being when practised in open natural spaces.

8 – Concentration is probably another important factor when we talk about burning calories in Kitesurfing. The mental factor is a key in kitesurfing, especially for those who are in the first steps of this sport

Losing weight while doing sports is the main objective of many athletes who flock to gyms and sports clubs in search of improving their physical condition.  However, if we can lose calories on the beach and do what we like the most, better, right? For all kitesurfers, we can say that kitesurfing is the best sport if you want to burn calories in the healthiest and most fun way possible!

Do you want to burn calories while kiting? Come to visit us in Sri Lanka!

How many calories are burned in Kitesurfing?

Finding the sport that burns the most calories can be the priority of those who want to lose weight and see in numbers the results of their activity. For this reason and to clarify how many calories are burned in each sport compared with kitesurfing, we have prepared this guide.

Obviously, calories are not the only thing that counts when it comes to striving for a flat stomach, defined abs, or getting slim legs. Don’t be obsessed with adding hours of cardio. Try to tone different muscle groups during exercise and, following the WHO guidelines, lead a healthy lifestyle that, through a varied diet and control of your daily NEAT, allows you to keep weight at bay.

It is important to emphasise that it is not as easy to measure the calories burned in kitesurfing as the calories burned in other sports.

Kitesurfing is comprised of many different movements; from surfing the waves to making big jumps and recovering the board. Moreover, beginners usually burn more calories as they always need to be more focused and struggle a lot (especially, with what we call the “walk of shame”). A beginner usually spends a lot of time walking upwind on the beach with the kite and doing body dragging in the water. In these 2 actions, a lot of calories are burned.

This table shows how many calories you burn while taking part in 30 minutes of sport.  According to Harvard University, running at a fast pace is the best way to burn calories and from looking at the data, we can also conclude that kiteboarding is a good way to burn calories!

The values that are displayed next in the table are totally indicative, since each weight profile of a person presents a different calorie expenditure. The values ​​are per hour of training and per sport modality. Routine variants such as HIIT training (high-intensity training) are not taken into account.

Let’s then establish the burned calories in kitesurfing for an average of 20knots and an intermediate rider:

 With an average of 20 knots of wind, an 80 kg rider can burn between 1,000 and 1,200 calories per hour.

Calories burned in kitesurfing Vs calories burned in other sports

calories burned running vs calories burned kiteboarding

You don’t have to be an expert to know that running is one of the sports most used to lose weight. Running burns a lot of calories and although the data varies a lot depending on the intensity of the session, at a medium-high pace you can spend 700-800 calories per hour of training. Running at higher rates and a higher intensity can cause a caloric expenditure close to or greater than 1000 calories per hour, the same as kitesurfing

Running is a very complete workout sport. In addition to improving lung capacity, it works all kinds of muscles such as calves, thighs, and buttocks. The big problem with running continues to be the direct impact that this sport has on the joints. Knees and ankles are the main joints at risk of injury.

Calories burned cycling vs calories burned kiteboarding

Cycling is a sport that many people who initially seek to lose weight are hooked on. It’s a sport that provides numerous  health benefits and that adapts as few modalities to all athlete profiles. Playing with factors such as average speed, power, unevenness or distance will allow us to achieve different objectives.

Since each person and each organism is different, determining how many calories are burned while riding a bicycle is not as easy as it may seem. Despite everything, it is stipulated that in the case of road cycling, said caloric expenditure can range between 400 and 1000 calories per hour. A volume of calories as spectacular as it is effective, even more so considering that we rarely get on the bike to ride for just one hour.

Also, another great attraction to attract new cyclists is its reduced risk of injury since pedalling does not generate a direct impact on any joint. Cycling is a grateful sport like few others since hopefully, the only discomfort you will feel after doing a quality training will be the typical leg pain. For everything else, the body adapts quickly to the physical level, offering the overweight athlete a great margin to lose weight.

Calories burned swimming vs calories burned kiteboarding

The lack of sweating makes many people think that swimming does not burn fat; Big mistake. Swimming is one of the most all round sports that exists and one of the least aggressive from the joints point of view. Swimming has great benefits for the body and is usually the indicated sport to start a recovery period after an injury. Alternating the different styles we can tone and strengthen muscles of the back, arms, shoulders and chest. We can say that while swimming you can burn the same amount of calories as in kiteboarding.  An hour of swimming can burn up to 1,100 calories. Besides, swimming can be practised throughout the year and at a relatively low cost. What more can you ask for from a sport?

Calories burned boxing vs calories burned kitesurfing

Fighting sports not only allow you to burn fat and calories but also help to release tension. In the case of Boxing, for example, the body is in constant motion. Small jumps, side steps and a slight sway, that although may not seem like it will increase our caloric expenditure, definitely does. Don’t forget the adrenaline that this type of sport has. An aspect that is hardly tangible but without realising it will leave you exhausted. Fighting sports help to connect body and mind, considerably improving our coordination. In one hour of fighting, between exercise and adrenaline, it is estimated that 600-700 calories can be spent. In a workout using the bag, the expense could go down to 400 calories per hour. This ratio is quite far from the calories burned in kitesurfing though.

Calories burned bodypump vs calories burned kitesurfing

In the catalogue of classes at most gyms, it is common to find different “body workouts”. Although there can be a variety of different sessions, they all have a common denominator. They are directed by an instructor, with background music and don’t exceed one hour. for example, In a 60 minutes Body Pump class, you can burn around 500-600 calories. It is also a perfect sport to tone the different muscles of the body and to burn localised fat. The classes are very fun and the countless exercises that are carried out allow us to adapt the classes to different profiles of people. The distribution of weights with which the exercises are carried out will also depend on factors such as age, physical condition or gender of the individual.

In a nutshell…

 When it comes to losing calories, kitesurfing is right up there with high-intensity exercises like running at a fast pace or swimming butterfly style. You really lose a lot of calories when you kitesurf.

Kiteboarding is probably the most complete sport to burn calories, even better than regular sports like football or basketball . If you are up for losing weight and want to feel fit your body, you should be happy to know kiteboarding is your best friend to achieve these goals. What are you waiting for? Let’s jump in the water!

Discover with Margarita kite school the top kitesurfing locations in Sri Lanka