TreadCalc – Treadmill Calorie Calculator

Heart Rate Method – Based on your age, sex, weight, heart rate, and duration. This reflects how hard your body worked.

Effort-Based Method (MET) – Uses your speed and incline to calculate effort using METs (Metabolic Equivalents), a research-backed measure of treadmill intensity.

Average Calories – A midpoint between the two methods for a balanced estimate.

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Effort Level (ml/kg/min) – Your estimated oxygen use, tied to workout intensity.

METs – A scale of energy used, where higher numbers mean more intense effort (e.g. 1 is resting, 6+ is a brisk walk or jog).

These numbers help you get a more complete picture of how your workout impacts your body.

The heart rate method uses your age, sex, weight, duration, and average heart rate to measure total effort. It often shows higher calorie burn than fitness devices, especially during intense workouts.

Treadmill distance is also more accurate than fitness trackers, which can lead to even higher estimates when factored into the calculation.

TreadCalc is more accurate than most treadmill displays because it combines multiple workout metrics, not just one. By factoring in both your effort and workout intensity, it gives a more well-rounded estimate of calories burned.

TreadCalc uses two well-known methods to estimate calorie burn:

• Heart Rate Formula – Based on your age, sex, weight, heart rate, and workout duration. This approach estimates how much energy your body used based on cardiovascular effort.
• MET-Based Effort Formula – Uses your speed and incline to calculate METs (Metabolic Equivalents), a research-backed scale of exercise intensity. This method reflects how hard the treadmill workout was, regardless of heart rate.

These two estimates are averaged together to give you a balanced and more realistic calorie number.

Yes, you can use this calculator for outdoor walks, runs, or other cardio sessions. Just keep in mind that incline is a key factor in calorie burn, and we won’t be able to account for that unless it's entered. If you're logging a flat workout like a walk around the neighborhood, simply enter 0 for incline.

Because treadmill speeds often change during a workout, we calculate your average speed using distance and duration. This gives a more accurate reflection of your effort across the entire session. It ensures the calorie estimates are based on the full workout rather than just a single speed input.

The intensity you choose reflects your fitness level and adjusts the final calorie estimate to account for efficiency. More experienced users typically burn slightly fewer calories doing the same workout due to improved cardiovascular performance and conditioning.

Here’s how each level affects the estimate:

• Beginner – 100% of calculated calories (no reduction)
• Intermediate – 95% of calculated calories (5% reduction)
• Advanced – 90% of calculated calories (10% reduction)

This adjustment is applied after the average calorie value is calculated from heart rate and MET-based methods.

Entering your email is completely voluntary and not required to use the calculator. It's only used to link and retrieve your workout history. If you choose to save workouts, just use the same email each time to view or access them later. We don’t send marketing emails, and your information is never shared.

The system stores your workouts for up to one year. When you view your workout history on the site, you'll only see the seven most recent workouts. We're currently working on a feature that will let you download or receive your full workout history by email.