Activity Burn at Different Paces

Summary

Using data provided by Arizona State University, we analyzed Activity Burn©, or the total number of calories burned due to Activity, over various distances depending on the pace of walking, jogging, running, and cycling. The analysis revealed interesting observations including:

• Pace on foot over any distance has a minor impact on Activity Burn, with a correlation of only 46%.
• Jogging at 5.2 mph is the optimal “sweet spot” for Activity Burn at 18% above the average.
• The relationship between leisure cycling speeds to Activity Burn is statistically insignificant.
• Walking 2 miles or cycling 5 miles satisfies the recommendation of having 30 minutes of daily exercise.

Read the rest of the article below to learn about these and other interesting findings.

Introduction

If you like to walk, jog, run, or cycle for exercise, then you should be interested in knowing your Activity Burn, or how the number of calories you burn doing these activities. It might come as a surprise that your pace has a minor impact on Activity Burn over any given distance. Using the industry-standard metabolic equivalents data table [see footnote 1] provided by Arizona State University in the 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities [2], we calculated Activity Burn at different paces over the course of different distances for these different activities. Here are the most interesting observations we found in the analysis:

Observations

• Pace on foot over any distance has a minor impact on Activity Burn, with a correlation of only 46%.
• Jogging at 5.2 mph is the optimal “sweet spot” for Activity Burn at 18% above the average.
• Completing a marathon should result in burning almost one pound of fat.
• Going faster does not always produce optimal Activity Burn.
• Increasing your speed from walking at 3 mph to an optimal jogging pace of 5.2 mph can happen in 5 months.
• Walking faster or slower than 3 mph can burn more calories.
• Walking 2 miles…