The 39 best ways to burn the most calories in an hour

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• This list shows how many calories you burn while doing a number of popular sports, from running to swimming to rock climbing.
• But the best exercise to burn calories is one you like enough to do regularly.
• You can always make a sport more or less intense by pushing yourself harder or taking a breather.

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There are a lot of great reasons to exercise. But one of the most basic goals is to burn calories.

So what's the best way to do that?

You should pick something you like enough to do regularly over time. But if you are deciding between a few different activities, you could pick the one that burns the most energy.

The Mayo Clinic, drawing on research published by the National Institutes of Health, ranks 36 popular forms of exercise based on their caloric impacts. We've ordered them from least to most intense, and listed the approximate calories burned in an hour for a 160- and a 200-pound person (in that order). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American women weigh 168.5 pounds on average, compared with 195.7 pounds for the average American man.

We also calculated the values for several other sports, including soccer, rock climbing, and kayaking, based on NIH data, and included stats for a few other popular activities as well. 

39. Hatha yoga: 183 calories/hour | 228 calories/hour

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Hatha yoga, a version of the practice centered on specific poses and mental exercises, sits at the bottom of this list, burning an average of about 183 calories an hour in a 160-pound person.

38. A slow walk (2 mph): 204 calories/hour | 255 calories/hour

Flickr / Ed Yourdon

35. Bowling: 219 calories/hour | 273 calories/hour

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Bowling can help you burn a few hundred calories an hour, but the alley snacks may counteract that.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

See Also:

• How often you need to exercise to see results, according to the scientist behind the viral 7-minute workout
• How often you need to exercise to see results, according to the creator of the viral 7-minute workout
• The creator of the viral 7-minute workout says this is the best way to prevent a fitness injury

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