CrossFit Calories Burned Calculator

Calories burned in a CrossFit-style workout is the energy your body uses during the session, in kilocalories (kcal). This calculator estimates it from your body weight, your training time and the kind of work you do. The MET value for each kind of work shows how hard it is compared with sitting still.

What the Estimate Measures

It is a gross value, covering all the energy you use while training, including what your body would burn at rest anyway. It is an average for adults, not a reading of your own fitness, the weights you lift or your fat loss.

The Formula

Calories (kcal) = MET x body weight (kg) x time (hours)

Body weight (kg) = body weight (lb) x 0.45359237

The MET values come from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities, and one MET is about 1 kcal per kg of body weight per hour¹. The compendium has no separate entry for CrossFit, so this calculator uses the closest conditioning rows. The main one is vigorous circuit training "including kettlebells, some aerobic movement with minimal rest", which is close to a mixed class workout¹.

How This Calculator Computes Your Result

Enter your weight in pounds or kilograms, pick your age group, then choose how to enter time:

• Whole session: pick one workout type and enter how long you trained.

• Class parts: enter minutes for the warm-up, the strength part and the WOD (workout of the day), and pick a WOD type. Each part gets its own MET. Briefing, setup, sitting rest and cool-down time is shown but not counted (the compendium has no value for it), so the result is labeled active time only.

All calorie figures are rounded to the nearest 5 kcal. Calories per hour, per 30 minutes, and every workout type at your weight are shown too. If you are 60 or older, you see the adult result with a note that values for older adults may be lower. Under 18s get no CrossFit result, since children and teens have their own values in the Youth Compendium.

This calculator is not affiliated with or endorsed by CrossFit.

What Your Result Means

The type of work you pick has the biggest effect on your result. For a 70 kg (154 lb) adult, each workout type comes out like this.

An AMRAP is "as many rounds as possible" in a set time, and a metcon is a short, hard conditioning workout. The all-out metcon option uses the compendium's vigorous high intensity interval row, which lists burpees, mountain climbers, squat jumps and Tabata¹. Calories rise in step with body weight.

What Changes Your Burn in a CrossFit-Style Class

How the class is split. A class is not one hard block. In an ACE-sponsored study, each session had a 5-minute warm-up, a skill phase, the WOD and a 5-minute cool-down². For a 70 kg adult, a 60-minute class split into 10 minutes of warm-up, 20 of strength, 15 of mixed WOD and 15 not counted comes to about 330 kcal in Class parts mode. Entered as 60 minutes of mixed workout, it shows about 525 kcal.

WODs are hard but often short. In that study, 16 fit adults aged 20 to 47 did two WODs, including "Fran" (thrusters and assisted pull-ups in rounds of 21, 15 and 9 reps)². Heart rate reached about 90% of maximum and oxygen use averaged 80% of their maximum². Men burned about 20.5 kcal per minute and women about 12.3². But the average WOD took only about 6 to 9 minutes, so each burned about 64 to 170 kcal in total².

Workout format. "Cindy" is a 20-minute AMRAP of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups and 15 air squats. In 9 trained adults it averaged about 9.5 METs and 13 kcal per minute, or about 260 kcal in total⁴. Another study of 10 adults measured about 34 mL of oxygen per kg per minute in "Cindy" and 29 in "Fran", roughly 10 and 8 METs, with heart rate reaching about 90 to 95% of maximum³. These sit between this calculator's mixed workout (7.5) and all-out metcon (11.0) options. A 20-minute AMRAP at a steady pace can burn more in total than a short workout done for time.

Load, movements and rest. Heavy lifts with long rests between sets burn less per minute than fast kettlebell swings or burpees, as the compendium values show¹.

CrossFit-Style Workouts Compared With HIIT, Weight Lifting, Rowing and Running

Here is 60 minutes of each activity at two body weights, from 2024 compendium values¹.

A mixed workout sits just above moderate HIIT and steady rowing, and well above vigorous weight lifting. Running at a 10-minute mile beats a mixed workout but not an all-out metcon. Few people hold metcon pace for an hour, so that row is a rate, not a typical session.

Intensity and Safety

The studies above found very high effort: heart rate near 90% of maximum or more, and blood lactate above 10 mmol/L² ³. The lead ACE researcher said people "absolutely need to be properly screened" before starting, and warned that form can break down when people go all-out². The second study's authors noted that safety for this kind of training has not been defined³. If you have heart disease risk factors, talk to a doctor before starting high intensity classes.