What Burns More Calories, Elliptical Exercise or Weight Lifting?

Cardiovascular exercises – such as using an elliptical machine – and weight lifting each provide you with health benefits. In fact, the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans suggests performing strength-training exercise, such as weight lifting, at least two times weekly in addition to getting in 150 to 300 minutes of cardiovascular exercise each week. Although you’ll burn more calories participating in elliptical exercise, weight lifting can help increase your overall daily calorie expenditure.

  1. Elliptical Exercise

    • Elliptical exercise is a high-calorie-burning workout requiring an elliptical machine. During your workout, you’ll likely burn more calories using an elliptical machine compared to weight lifting. Harvard Health Publications reports that a 125-pound person burns 540 calories per hour using an elliptical machine, a 155-pound individual expends 670 calories and a 185-pound person burns about 800 calories per hour completing an elliptical-training workout. If you’re overweight or obese, expending just 500 more calories than you eat daily helps you shed about 1 pound weekly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Weight Lifting

    • Although weight lifting helps you build lean muscle mass, it often burns fewer calories than using an elliptical machine. Harvard Health Publications reports that a 125-pound person burns 180 to 360 calories per hour weight lifting, a 155-pound individual expends 224 to 446 calories in an hour and a 185-pound person burns about 266 to 532 calories during an hour-long weight-lifting session. Your individual calorie expenditure depends on the intensity of your weight-training workout.

    Considerations

    • Although elliptical exercise is a high-calorie-burning workout, weight training helps boost lean muscle mass -- which means you’ll burn more calories throughout the day, even during periods of rest. The American Council on Exercise reports that muscle tissue burns more calories than body fat, and increases your resting metabolic rate. ACE suggests working all major muscle groups and performing at least one to two sets of 12 to 15 weight-lifting repetitions for each exercise.

    Maximize Calorie Expenditure

    • Even though you can burn a large number of calories on the elliptical trainer, you can burn even more calories choosing running, swimming or even jumping rope instead. According to Harvard Health Publications, if you weigh 125 to 185 pounds, you’ll burn 600 to 888 calories per hour jumping rope or running at a pace of 6 miles per hour, and 660 to 976 calories in an hour running at a pace of 6.7 miles per hour or swimming the crawl stroke.