How Many Calories Does Padel Burn?
Quick Answer: Most club players burn roughly 400 to 600 kcal an hour playing padel. The standard estimate uses padel's published MET value of 6.4: kcal = MET x 3.5 x kilos / 200 x minutes. An 80 kg player burns about 540 kcal in an hour and about 810 across a 90-minute match night.
Somebody always asks this in the car home, usually while deciding whether the burger is earned. The honest answer has a number in it and a warning label attached, so here are both.
The number, and where it comes from
Every calorie figure for every sport comes from the same place: a MET value. One MET is your body at rest. An activity rated at 6.4 METs costs roughly 6.4 times your resting metabolism for as long as you do it.
Padel's published value is 6.4, the figure used by burned-calories.com and repeated across the padel fitness literature. Put it in the standard equation and the whole model is one line:
kcal = MET x 3.5 x weight in kg / 200 x minutes
That is it. No heart rate, no age, no fitness level, no glass walls. Which is why the number that comes out is a band rather than a reading — useful for scale, useless as a budget.
A worked example: 80 kg, 90 minutes
Take a typical Tuesday: one court, four players, a 90-minute booking, and an 80 kg player who is on court for most of it.
- MET x 3.5 x 80 / 200 = 8.96 kcal per minute
- x 90 minutes = 806 kcal
Round that honestly and you get about 810 for the night, or about 540 for a single hour. For comparison, burned-calories puts a 180 lb (82 kg) player at 549 kcal an hour, which is the same arithmetic in different units.
Here is the same equation across the weights and durations people actually play at, at MET 6.4:
| Your weight | 60 minutes | 90 minutes | 120 minutes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60 kg | 400 kcal | 600 kcal | 810 kcal |
| 70 kg | 470 kcal | 710 kcal | 940 kcal |
| 80 kg | 540 kcal | 810 kcal | 1,080 kcal |
| 90 kg | 600 kcal | 910 kcal | 1,210 kcal |
| 100 kg | 670 kcal | 1,010 kcal | 1,340 kcal |
The padel calories calculator runs exactly this equation with a slider for weight and an intensity switch, and shows the arithmetic underneath rather than hiding it.
Intensity: the honest part
A "match night" is not one thing. Three of you rallying gently while the fourth ties a shoelace is not the same activity as a 40-40 point in the third set, and the MET model has no way of knowing the difference.
The usual fix is to move the MET value up or down by about 20% either side of the published figure:
| How the night actually went | MET | 80 kg, 90 minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Social rallies, long gaps, plenty of talking | 5.1 | 640 kcal |
| Real matches, competitive points | 6.4 | 810 kcal |
| Full send: fit players, long rallies, no standing around | 7.7 | 970 kcal |
That spread — 640 to 970 for the same player on the same night — is the honest width of the estimate. Anyone quoting padel calories to the nearest single kcal is quoting precision that does not exist.
The rotation problem
Here is the correction almost every online estimate skips.
The equation counts minutes played, not minutes booked. If five of you share one court for 90 minutes, somebody is standing behind the glass for a third of the night, and standing behind the glass burns roughly what standing anywhere burns. Enter 60 minutes, not 90.
The same applies to the sit-out rounds in any group format, to the ten minutes at the start where nobody is really moving, and to the last game of a night that has quietly turned into a chat. If your crew regularly plays five or six deep on one court, work out the real playing minutes with the rotation planner first and then do the calorie arithmetic.
Padel does have one thing going for it here. A 2025 study in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living comparing padel and tennis doubles found padel rallies lasted longer (6.50 seconds against 4.87), with 92 rallies per match against tennis's 67, and an average rest interval of just 17.4 seconds against tennis's 29.7. Padel does not ask for higher peaks. It asks for less time off.
Why your watch says something different
Your watch is not measuring calories either. It is estimating them from heart rate, and heart rate in padel is a noisy signal: it stays elevated between points, spikes on a single smash, and rises in a hot glass box for reasons that have nothing to do with work done.
A watch will usually read higher than the MET equation, sometimes by 30% or more. Neither is a measurement. The MET figure is a population average applied to you; the watch is your heartbeat interpreted by an algorithm that does not know you were arguing about a line call. Pick one method and use it consistently, and you will at least have a comparable series over weeks — which is the only thing either number is honestly good for.
The 2022 systematic review of padel match play in Kinesiology is worth reading if you want the physiological picture rather than the calorie one: it found moderate overall physiological responses, low anaerobic glycolytic contribution, and aerobic capacity rarely acting as the limiting factor. Padel is a repetition sport, not a lung-burner.
What the number does not mean
Two honest limits, and then the useful bit.
It is not a weight-loss promise. A 810-kcal night is real, and so is the appetite afterwards, and the second one has a habit of cancelling the first. Weight is settled mostly at the table; padel's contribution is that it is exercise you will still be doing in a year.
And it is not a licence. Padel's genuine advantage over the gym has nothing to do with the calorie number — it is that three other people are waiting for you at 19:00, which turns out to be a far better predictor of showing up than motivation is. That argument, with the comparison table against running and the gym, is in is padel a good workout. How many sessions a week is actually sustainable is in how often should you play padel.
If you want the number to mean something over a season, count sessions rather than calories. Four nights in a month is a fact. Four estimates of 810 kcal is arithmetic dressed up as one. The rest of what padel asks of your body — the injuries, the warm-up, the cost of playing it for years — is in the padel life guide.
FAQ
How many calories do you burn in an hour of padel?
Roughly 400 to 600 kcal for most club players. Using padel's published MET value of 6.4, a 70 kg player burns about 470 kcal an hour, an 80 kg player about 540, and a 90 kg player about 600. Heavier players burn more for the same work, and a genuinely intense hour can add 20% on top.
How many calories does a 90-minute padel match burn?
About 810 kcal for an 80 kg player at normal match intensity, 710 for a 70 kg player and 910 for a 90 kg player. Those figures assume you are on court for the full 90 minutes. If you are rotating with a fifth player, count only the minutes you actually played.
Does padel burn more calories than tennis?
Slightly more than doubles tennis, by the published MET values: padel is rated 6.4 against roughly 6.0 for tennis doubles, so the same 90 minutes gives padel a modest edge. Running is in a different bracket at about 9.8, which works out at roughly 1,230 kcal for the same 80 kg player and 90 minutes.
Is padel good for weight loss?
It helps, but not because of the calorie figure. Two sessions a week is a genuine weekly energy cost, and the social structure of a fixed group makes those two sessions far more likely to actually happen than two gym visits. Diet decides most of the outcome, and any MET-based estimate is a rough band, not a measurement.
What MET value is used for padel?
6.4, which is the value published for padel in calorie databases and used by the standard equation kcal = MET x 3.5 x kilos / 200 x minutes. Social play is often estimated around 5.1 and hard competitive play around 7.7, which is the published figure plus or minus about 20%.