If you want to lose weight quickly, steady 30-minute cardio workouts may have you making slow progress. In addition, if your body is accustomed to the workouts, you may hit a plateau and stay at the same weight. Adding intensity to your workouts by sprinting can help you burn more calories. Knowing how many sprints to do will help you create a successful weight loss plan.
Sprinting Toward Weight Loss
The formula for weight loss is burning more calories than you consume, and it takes about 3,500 calories to burn 1 lb. of body weight. Running burns more calories than any other cardiovascular exercise. However, sprinting burns more calories than relaxed pace running. The exact amount of calories you burn depends in part on your weight -- the more you weigh, the more calories you will burn. Use the HealthStatus calories burned estimator to help you determine how many calories you burn in a running workout.
Speed
The amount of intervals you need to do to meet your weight loss and calorie-burning goals also depends on your running speed. The faster you run, the more calories you'll burn. A 200-lb. person who runs 20 minutes at 8 mph burns 408 calories, according to the calories burned estimator at HealthStatus.com. The same person will burn about 676 calories by running 20 minutes at 12 mph.
Distance
The amount of calories you burn sprinting also depends on the distance that you run. In general, if you run at a constant speed -- the longer the duration of your sprints -- the more calories you will burn. If you run six 400-meter sprints at 7 mph you will burn more than if you run six 200-meter sprints at the same pace. The key to burning more calories is to balance your speed and distance. If you run too far, you will slow down and won't burn as many calories. If you do short sprints of around 100 meters, do more repetitions to boost your calorie-burning power.
Considerations
To keep your calorie-burning power high, do slow jogs between your sprints for active recovery. Your recovery time should be equal to your interval time. So if you run 400 meters in 90 seconds, for instance, your recovery period should be a slow-paced, 90-second jog before doing your next interval. Circuit training is another way to boost your fat- and calorie-burning power from sprinting. Between sprints, alternate doing different strength training exercises. For example, alternate sprinting for 400 meters with two minutes of pushups, two minutes of squats, two minutes of lunges and two minutes of crunches. Do a slow jog before and after each sprint workout to warm up and cool down your muscles.
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