Pickleball Calories Burned Calculator
Enter your weight, how long you played and what kind of game it was. The number updates as you type, and every value it uses is shown below, including which ones are measured and which ones are estimates.
Calories burned
527
About 351 per hour of casual doubles.
- Roughly 105 minutes of walking
- 1.8 slices of cheese pizza
- 5.3 light beers, if that is where the group goes after
MET 4.1, measured in recreational doubles (Smith et al., 2018).
Calories burned per hour, by weight
| Weight | Casual doubles | Competitive doubles | Singles | Drills and practice |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 130 lb | 254 | 341 | 433 | 217 |
| 160 lb | 312 | 419 | 533 | 267 |
| 190 lb | 371 | 498 | 633 | 317 |
| 220 lb | 430 | 576 | 733 | 367 |
How the calculation works
Calories per minute = MET × 3.5 × weight in kg ÷ 200. A MET is how much harder an activity is than sitting still. The values used here:
- Casual doubles: MET 4.1. Measured in middle-aged and older adults playing recreational doubles (Smith et al., 2018, International Journal of Research in Exercise Physiology).
- Competitive doubles: MET 5.5. Our estimate, by comparison with tennis in the Compendium of Physical Activities.
- Singles: MET 7. Our estimate, by comparison with tennis in the Compendium of Physical Activities.
- Drills and practice: MET 3.5. Our estimate, by comparison with tennis in the Compendium of Physical Activities.
The 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities, the standard reference for these values, does not list pickleball yet. Most calculators online present one number as fact; we would rather show you which part is measured and which part is a reasonable guess.
What changes the number most
Body weight moves it the most: a heavier player burns more doing the same thing. Time actually moving comes next. Open play with long waits between games burns far less per hour on the clock than back-to-back league matches.
If you want the higher end of the range, play singles, keep points going, and cut the time on the bench. If your knees have opinions about that, the older players collection was made for you.
Questions people ask
How many calories does pickleball burn per hour?
Recreational doubles burns roughly 293 to 391 calories an hour for a 150 to 200 pound player. Singles can reach 500 to 667, because one player covers the whole court. The exact number depends mostly on body weight and how much of the hour you spend moving.
Is pickleball good exercise?
Yes. Measured recreational doubles averages about 4.1 METs, which counts as moderate intensity, in the same range as brisk walking, with bursts of higher effort. An hour of play several times a week meets the usual guideline of 150 minutes of moderate activity.
Does singles burn more calories than doubles?
Yes, noticeably. In singles you cover the full court alone and there is less standing between shots, so the effort is closer to singles tennis. This calculator uses a MET of 7.0 for singles against 4.1 for casual doubles.
Can you lose weight playing pickleball?
It helps, because it is exercise people actually keep doing. Burning 350 calories three times a week adds up to about a pound of body fat a month, as long as the post-game food and drinks do not cancel it out.
Where do these numbers come from?
The standard formula: calories per minute equal MET times 3.5 times body weight in kilograms, divided by 200. The casual doubles MET of 4.1 comes from Smith et al. (2018). The 2024 Compendium of Physical Activities has no pickleball entry, so the other MET values are our estimates by comparison with tennis, and they are labeled that way.
For the hour after all those calories
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