If you’re a seasoned sim racing driver, you might be wondering how many calories you’re burning during your online races.
That’s because you might be interested in new ways to improve your fitness.
Or maybe you’re just getting started and were curious to know wether you could eat that chocolate cake after a 2 hours race on Assetto Corsa 😉
Fortunately for you, we did some research and we’re happy to share our results with you.
First of all a mall disclaimer: the amount of calories you’ll burn obviously depends on each person metabolism, age and body composition.
Therefore we can’t quite give you an accurate number, but we’ll do our best to give you a good estimation.
Now let’s get to it!
Table of Contents
Do you burn calories with sim racing?
Well, of course you burn calories while sim racing.
By definition, we humans burn calories even by standing still and doing nothing.
Our metabolism is a “calory-burning” machine and will consume calories even being inactive, not just while running for a marathon.
So having said that, let’s have a look at exactly how much calories we burn wile racing on Assetto Corsa or iRacing.
So how much calories do I consume?
Assuming you’re an average male of the age of 23, you will burn around 170 to 220 calories per hour with sim racing.
That might not sound like a lot, but keep in mind that it’s about 2-3 times how much you’ll burn when beinginactive.
That’s not the same as the actual F1 drivers where reports show that they can even burn up to 1000 calories per hour! (yes, I’m jealous!)
Of course you need to consider all those extra g force and sweating they go through the race as well as the adrenaline rush, which all contribute to the high number of calories burnt.
I remember when racing in Formula 2 and F3 that I would feel so hungry at the end of each race that I’d be looking for some food to grab inside the garage.
How do you burn calories in sim racing?
This is actually ne of the most frequently asked questions.
Despite not feeling the same G force as you do in a real Gt3 or F1 car, you actually still have to do some physical activity such as braking hard with your left leg in order to brake late and improve your lap times.
And also by applying power to the steering which has quite a good amount of force feedbcak (FFB).
So you’ll also use some force by turnning the steering wheel and shifting gears, which all add up to the calories count burned.
Yeah, it’s nowhere near the physical effort needed to drive like in real like but definitely there’s some serious work involved.
Time to wrap up:
So, to summarize, if you’re an average male of 23 years old, you’ll burn around 170 to 220 calories per hour sim racing.
Take in consideration that this number is also 2-3 times higher than when you’re being inactive.
Despite not being as physically demanding as driving an F1 car, there’s still quite some work involved, both with steering and applying the brakes hard with the left leg.
All of this combined will make you work up a bit of a sweat and help you burn some extra calories.
So the next time you’re feeling hungry after a race, don’t worry, you’ve earned that chocolate cake!
As always, happy sim racing!
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