Does Shaking Your Leg Burn Calories?

Shaking your leg will burn calories. Depending on how much you shake your leg, and how aggressively you do it, you’ll burn anywhere between 50 to 400 calories a day from leg shaking. However, leg shaking is not an easily measured form of exercise, so it’s not a good substitute for a diet and health plan. If you’re looking to burn calories, periods of dedicated exercise are your best option.

Why Does Shaking Your Leg Burn Calories?

Every action your body takes burns calories. Involuntary actions such as breathing and the beat of your heart burn calories from food. Similarly, every voluntary action—from tapping your fingers to running a marathon—also burns calories. So, fidgeting activities like shaking your leg burn calories.

• All physical activity burns calories. This includes breathing, fidgeting, and running.
• Shaking your leg requires some physical activity, so it contributes to the total number of calories you burn.
• Shaking your leg burns a very small number of calories.

As far as physical activity goes, shaking your leg doesn’t burn many calories per day. It is a very mild form of activity. However, because it requires your muscles to contract to move your leg, it does burn some calories.

Can You Shake Your Leg to Lose Weight?

Shaking your leg is not a good way to burn calories for weight loss. For starters, you will burn very few calories. Shaking your leg nonstop for an hour will only burn between 30 and 50 calories. Second, fidgeting activities like leg shaking are typically actions you don’t concentrate on. You may shake your leg more or less some days, so it will be hard to know how many calories you’ve burned.

• Shaking your leg or tapping your feet are not good weight loss tools.
• You will only burn 30–50 calories in an hour of leg shaking.
• You may shake your leg less on some days, so it can be difficult to measure your activity.
• Fidgeting is a habit that some people have—it can be difficult to stop or start the habit.

NEAT activities (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) are typically subconscious activities that you don’t focus on. So, if you naturally shake your leg while you sit, it’s often a habit that you don’t start or stop on purpose. Similarly, if you’re not a fidgeter, you can’t train yourself to shake your leg to lose weight.

What is the Best Way to Burn Calories?

In order to increase your metabolic rate and burn body fat, incorporate regular exercise into your schedule. By adding aerobic exercise, such as running on a treadmill for simply 15 minutes, into your daily activities, you’ll burn more calories. This study suggests that weight loss is achieved by performing concentrated exercise that burns 300 or more calories at least 3 times per week. You won’t get that from shaking your leg.

• Weight loss is best achieved by performing exercise at least 3 times per week.
• Aim to burn 300 calories per workout to kickstart weight loss.
• Dedicated exercise is far more effective at fat-burning than fidgeting movements like leg shaking.

A dedicated period of aerobic exercise for 30 minutes 3 times per week is a great tool for losing body fat. By concentrating on the workout during this period you’ll be able to track your effort and the number of calories burned. Tools like treadmills have calorie-tracking tools that help you measure your energy expenditure and get results.

Is Shaking Legs Bad for Your Health?

There is very little evidence that suggests shaking your leg while you sit is bad for you. Like most forms of fidgeting, it’s a harmless activity. If you’re one of the people who fidgets naturally, it may be a natural process that helps you pay attention. The bonus of being a fidgeter is that you’ll burn a few extra calories throughout the day.

• Shaking your leg is not bad for your health.
• Individuals with ADHD often fidget, which helps them pay attention in class and work environments.
• Those that don’t fidget simply burn a few less calories during the day compared to fidgeters.

Because there are no negative health effects to shaking your leg, there’s no need to stop doing it. However, if you’re not someone who naturally fidgets, that’s fine too. You may burn fewer calories during daily activities, but that difference can be made up with a little exercise.

Can You Burn Calories by Shaking Your Leg?

If you’re wondering about the calories you burn while shaking your leg restlessly, here are the most important facts:

• Leg shaking and other fidgeting activities burn calories.
• An hour of fidgeting burns about 37 calories.
• Fidgeters burn more calories throughout their normal activities than non-fidgeters.
• Leg shaking is not a good weight loss or calorie burning tool.
• Rather than relying on fidgeting, use an exercise plan to lose weight.

Although leg movements like shaking and toe-tapping are interesting habits that can help some people pay attention, they aren’t a significant source of energy expenditure. So, even if you’ve got a restless leg, you still need to get to the gym to burn off excess calories.