A calorie is a unit of measurement for potential energy/heat conversion. One calorie roughly equates to the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of about One litre of water by one degree Celsius. Food calories or Kcal as they are also known, are a unit of 1000 calories. So how many calories do we burn while participating in a particular sport or exercise. Well in my opinion it's not an exact science, as different people burn calories at different rates, but as a guide, competing in certain sports will burn off the following amount of calories per hour.

Kickboxing, Judo and Karate will burn off between 500-600 calories, the variation taking account of age, weight and height etc. I recently had the pleasure of a ringside seat to watch local legend Marlon Hunt win yet another kickboxing world title. Marlon probably burned less than 500 calories, while his opponent looked like he burned off twice as many, but then anyone getting in the ring with Marlon isn't going to have an easy time of it.

Playing Tennis will see you getting through about 400-500 calories, so John Isner and Nicolas Mahut who played the longest ever recorded tennis match (11 hours) at this years Wimbledon, would have burned off around 5000 calories each by the end of the match (that's about two days worth of food!) For the less active, 5000 calories would allow you to play a game of pool or darts for about sixty hours!

Cross country running will burn up 500+ calories, although if you have Steve Benson (local GB coach) as your trainer, it perhaps won't feel like it as Steve is one of the best endurance coaches in the country. Finally; on the subject of GB... Football will burn up around 400-500 calories an hour.

So I would estimate that at this years World Cup, the England team players must have burned up about 12 calories each! Must try harder than that if you want to be world champions, boys.

Until next time...you know where to come.


—Ant