The Best Sports for Weight Loss

People play sports for a variety of reasons. Some are good at a sport and find it fun, while others participate for social reasons. Like many adults, however, you may play sports as part of an overall physical fitness routine. If you’re playing for your health, you're probably more interested in the number of calories you burn than in the score of your game, match or round. Most sports help you trim a significant amount of calories, but some burn more than others.

  1. Court Sports

    • If you’re trying to lose weight, you probably can’t pick a better sport than handball. Handball is played on a small court, generally one-on-one, which keeps you in near perpetual motion. Additionally, you have to supply all the power with your arm, because you don’t hit the ball with a racket. If you weigh 155 pounds you’ll burn about 446 calories in 30 minutes of handball, according to Harvard Medical School. Racquetball is a similar sport -- although you hit the ball with a racket -- in which a 155-pound person can expect to burn about 372 calories per half hour.

    Water Sports

    • Competitive swimming is one of the best sports you can pursue if you’re trying to slim down. Thirty minutes of swimming the front crawl or butterfly stroke burns about 409 calories for a 155-pound individual. You’ll burn about 372 calories in a half hour if you race in a breaststroke event or 298 in a backstroke competition. Playing water polo, which alternates swimming with treading water while you toss a ball around, burns about 372 calories in 30 minutes.

    Team Sports

    • Playing competitive, tackle football burns more calories than most team sports, although your exact calorie burn depends on the position you play -- a linebacker who’s constantly chasing runners, playing off blockers and covering receivers will burn more calories than a punter, for example. On average, at 155 pounds you should burn about 335 calories in 30 minutes on the gridiron. Playing touch or flag football, as well as volleyball, hockey or basketball, should burn about 298 calories for every 30 minutes of action.

    Running

    • It’s well-established that running can help you lose weight. If you’re a competitive runner, the number of calories you burn depends on how fast and how long you run. If you can run a 6-minute mile, for example, at 155 pounds you’d burn about 20.5 calories per minute, or 123 for the race. Marathon runners weighing 155 pounds who finish in 3.5 hours burn about 465 calories per 30 minutes, or 3,255 for the race.