Home demolition is strenuous, often hazardous work that includes swinging sledge hammers and carrying a massive amount of heavy debris. It's no wonder that construction cleanup workers tend to be in impressive physical condition. Although the heavy lifting does more to build muscle than to burn calories, you can still get an impressive burn from a few hours of this sort of labor.
Calorie Basics
A calorie is defined as the amount of energy it takes to warm 1 g of water by one degree centigrade. The calories talked about in nutrition and weight loss are actually kilocalories -- 1,000 of the calories that physicists describe. Your body takes in calories when you eat, and burns them through activity. The more vigorous the activity, the more calories you burn. It takes approximately 3,500 calories worth of food, or the same calories worth of activity, to gain or lose 1 lb. of body fat.
Demolition Activities
Demolishing a home is not a single unified task, but rather a project involving many different steps. According to Oregon-based general contractor Mike Byers, the active parts of home demolition include breaking drywall or thin wood planks, using power tools, gathering debris and moving trash from the work site to a disposal site. However, Byers also notes that demolition workers will spend roughly the same amount of time in less strenuous activities, such as setting up safety tools, spotting other workers and light cleanup.
Calories Burned
Health resource website HealthStatus.com offers calorie burn calculations for a variety of activities. Although no readily available sources give exact figures for home demolition, HealthStatus does provide calculations for roughly equivalent activities. Based on Byers' description, demolition involves equal parts of work about as hard as chopping wood, about easy as loading a car and about as strenuous as general housework. According to HealthStatus.com, a 180-pound person will burn about 374 calories per hour of this kind of work.
Variables
Calorie counting is an inexact art rather than a precise science. Heavier people will burn more calories in most activities than people carrying less body weight. Other factors that can affect your actual calorie results include the air temperature, your body fat percentage, how fast you work and even your mood.
Bottom Line
Demolishing houses is hard enough work to help you burn calories and lose weight. However, at 370 calories per hour, it burns less than half the calories of vigorous cardio workouts like running, swimming and high-impact aerobics. If your primary purpose is to burn calories and lose weight, better -- and safer -- choices exist than demolishing a house.
References
- "Eat, Drink and Be Healthy"; Walter Willett, et. al; 2004
- Mike Byers; General Contractor; Corvallis, Oregon
- HealthStatus: Calories Burned by Exercise
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