09/27/2026
How many calories do you really burn playing pickleball? 🏓🔥
There isn’t one number.
Calorie expenditure depends heavily on body weight and intensity. Using METs (Metabolic Equivalents), a standard method in exercise science for estimating energy expenditure, we can show how dramatically the numbers change.
An hour of doubles pickleball can range from roughly 190 calories during light play to 870 calories during sustained high-intensity play, depending on the player.
That’s the philosophy behind SportsEdTV. We don’t just tell you what happens in sports. We dig into the science to explain why.
With thousands of free articles and videos online, we go beyond technique to explore performance, training, fitness, nutrition, recovery and the science behind the sports we love.
Play. Learn. Improve.
Where does your pickleball game fall: Light, Moderate, Vigorous or High Intensity?
