Plank Calories Burned Calculator

Calories burned planking is the energy your body uses to hold your trunk straight and still against gravity. Nothing moves, but your abdominal, back, shoulder and hip muscles work the whole time. Your body weight and your total time in the hold decide most of the number.

What Plank Calorie Estimates Measure

The result is the full energy cost of your plank holds, including what your body would burn at rest anyway (a gross figure). It also shows the extra part above resting, so you can see how much more a plank uses than sitting still. It does not measure core strength or endurance, which are the real reasons to plank.

The Formula

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

Plank MET = 2.8 (compendium code 02024)

METs scale everything against quiet sitting, which counts as 1. The 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities has no plank-only entry. It names plank only inside one row: "Calisthenics (e.g., curl ups, abdominal crunches, plank), light effort", at 2.8 METs¹. This calculator uses that value.

How This Calculator Computes Your Result

Choose your age group, enter your weight in pounds or kilograms, then your hold time per set in seconds and your number of sets. Only hold time counts, not rest between sets. You see total calories, calories per minute of holding, calories per set, the extra above resting, and a table of common hold times at your weight. Totals under 50 kcal are rounded to the nearest 1 kcal and larger totals to the nearest 5 kcal.

The plank type you pick (forearm, high, side or a harder variation) adds a short note but does not change the number, because the compendium has one value for all planks. For side planks, count each side as one set. There is no result under 18, since youth values differ, and a note appears at 60 and over.

What Your Result Means

Your result is the energy those holds used. For most adults it is a few calories per minute.

A common routine of three 1 minute planks burns about 10 kcal for a 70 kg adult, and about 6 kcal of that is extra above sitting still. To burn 100 kcal from planks alone, a 70 kg adult would need to hold for about 31 minutes in total.

What a Lab Study Found During Plank Holds

Only one study we found has measured oxygen uptake during planks. Eleven young, active men held a forearm plank as long as they could, and on another day did three 1 minute planks with 1 minute rests². Near the end of the long hold they used about 33.5% of their maximal oxygen uptake, against 27.7% in the shorter holds². By our rough conversion of those averages, that is about 3.2 METs and 2.7 METs, close to the compendium's 2.8.

Heart rate stayed below the anaerobic threshold (the point where effort turns hard), though blood lactate rose and the authors found much of the energy came from anaerobic sources². Oxygen measures can miss part of that, so a hard hold may cost a little more than shown. Systolic blood pressure rose higher in the long hold (about 154 mmHg) than in the short holds (about 142 mmHg)².

What Changes Your Burn

• Body weight: more weight to hold up means more calories per minute.

• Total hold time: seconds and sets add up in a straight line.

• Harder variations: a long-lever plank (elbows further forward) with a posterior pelvic tilt raised abdominal muscle activity compared with a standard plank³. It likely costs a little more energy, but no study has measured how much.

• Holding to failure: the longer, shaking hold leaned more on anaerobic energy in the lab study².

• Moving drills: mountain climbers are cardio, not a hold. The compendium lists them in a vigorous interval training row (11.0 METs)¹.

Planks Build Core Endurance, Not a Big Calorie Burn

Planks are built to train the muscles that keep your trunk steady. Researchers use the prone forearm plank as a test of trunk muscle endurance. In 471 college students, men held it for 124 seconds and women for 83 seconds on average, and students who trained more than three times a week held it longer⁴. That is the payoff of planking: a stronger, more durable core, not a large calorie burn.

Here is a fair per-minute comparison, for 10 minutes of each activity, rounded the same way as the calculator (nearest 1 kcal under 50, nearest 5 kcal from 50)¹:

Minute for minute, a plank burns about as much as push-ups with rest breaks, less than a steady walk, and less than half of continuous push-ups or jumping jacks. Few people plank for more than a few minutes, so the daily total stays small. For calorie burn, cardio does more; keep planks for core strength.