In this post, we are going to attempt to answer the question – how many calories does badminton burn? Not an easy question to answer because it’s hard to get an accurate measure of how many calories we burn when performing any activity.  But we can get an estimate of the number of calories you’re likely to burn that’s in the -10% to +10% range with a high level of confidence.

To accurately determine how many calories you’re likely to burn during a game of badminton, we have to take a few individual factors into consideration: gender; intensity of play; height; weight; age; and duration of play. Let’s take an in-depth look at each of these factors and how they affect the number of calories that you burn during a game of badminton.

6 Factors that determine how many calories you burn while playing badminton

Gender

Known fact, men burn more calories than women – even from the simple task of brushing their teeth, or kissing! And this is mainly due to 2 factors. Men generally have more muscle mass than women – and this means they are always burning more calories.

The fact that the average man has roughly twice the muscle mass percentage means that men burn 5 percent to 10 percent more calories than women of the same weight. And because men tend to be larger, they usually burn a higher number of calories than women. On average, men are 5 inches taller and weigh 26 pounds more than women.

Intensity of Play

If you perform any activity or exercise at a higher intensity, you are going to burn more calories. So, if you play badminton competitively you are going to burn more calories than if you play badminton socially. If you wish to burn more calories, you need to play the badminton at a higher intensity – at least break a sweat!

Badminton is an aerobic and anaerobic sport – it’s one of those great sports that demands strength and endurance. Which means that if you play badminton at a good intensity, you’re going to get a full body workout.

Height

A study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 1998 found that the taller the individual, the lower the gross metabolic rates. In other words, with all other factors being equal, shorter people burn more calories than taller people.

Weight

The more you weigh, the more calories you burn when exercising, because your body has to use more energy and work harder to move itself. The more you weigh, the harder you’ll have to work to do any activity and thus you burn more calories while playing badminton.

Age

As you grow older, you lose muscle tissue and organ activity decreases – younger people burn more calories! The older you grow, the harder you’ll have to play badminton to burn the equivalent number of calories.

Duration

This is an easy one. The longer you play badminton, the more calories you are going to burn.

Determining the number of calories burned while playing Badminton

Now that you have a good understanding of the factors that affect how many calories you burn while playing badminton, let me introduce the badminton calories calculator.  This calculator takes into account the 6 main factors that determine the number of calories that you burn.  Input your gender, intensity of play, height, weight, duration, and age and it will give you an accurate estimate of how many calories you burn while playing badminton.

Please note that the badminton calories calculator uses the Metric System. So your height needs to be in centimeters (use the height conversion table below), your weight in kilograms (divide your weight in pound by 2.2 to determine your weight in kilograms), and duration in hour ratios (divide number of minutes by 60. So, 30 minutes = 0.5 hours, 15 minutes = 0.25 hours etc.)

For the geeks

The Badminton Calories calculator estimates the number of calories burned during a match by using the Corrected MET values from the Compendium of Physical Activities. The Harris-Benedict equation is used to correct for gender, height and age.

References.

Harris J, Benedict F. A Biometric Study of Basal Metabolism in Man. Carnegie Institution. 1919.