Work out roughly how many calories and kilojoules a curling session burns, based on your body weight and how long you were on the ice. Curling combines a low, controlled sliding delivery with short, genuinely vigorous bursts of sweeping — this calculator gives you a single overall estimate for a typical session rather than breaking out each role separately.
Curling has a MET value of 4.0, which sits in the moderate-intensity band — lower than a running-based team sport, but higher than most people expect from a game that looks slow and controlled on television. Calorie burn is estimated as calories = MET × body weight (kg) × time on the ice (hours). A 75 kg curler on the ice for a 45-minute session burns roughly 225 kcal, about 941 kJ. Most of that comes from the lunge-style delivery of each stone and the short, hard bursts of sweeping in front of a moving rock, rather than from the low-effort standing and sliding that dominates the TV picture.
| Session Length | Calories | Kilojoules |
|---|
The calculation multiplies three inputs together: a MET (Metabolic Equivalent of Task) value for curling, your body weight, and the time you actually spent on the ice. The 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities lists "curling" under code 15170 with a MET value of 4.0, which the calculator multiplies by your weight in kilograms and your session time in hours to produce an estimated calorie figure, then converts that to kilojoules for Australian food-label comparison.
Curling is often assumed to be a low-effort activity because so much of a televised match is players standing still, watching a stone glide down the sheet. In practice, a curling session is a genuine mix of three different effort levels. There's a lot of low-intensity time — standing, waiting your turn, and watching play, which barely registers as exercise. Then there's the delivery itself: pushing out of the hack in a controlled lunge, with one leg extended behind you and your weight balanced low over a sliding foot, which asks a fair amount of your legs, hips and core even though it looks smooth and unhurried. And then there's sweeping, which is where curling earns most of its calorie burn — short, hard bursts of full-body effort, gripping the broom and driving it back and forth across the ice ahead of a moving stone, often at a near-sprint pace for ten or fifteen seconds at a time, sometimes repeated several times in a single end. A session's overall intensity depends heavily on how much sweeping you actually do versus how much time you spend standing and watching, which is part of why a single MET value can only ever be a rough average across a whole session.
It's worth being upfront here: curling is a niche activity in Australia, and this calculator shouldn't be read as suggesting otherwise. The sport requires a dedicated ice sheet, which limits it to a small number of indoor ice rinks and curling clubs around the country, rather than the widespread grassroots access enjoyed by most Australian sports. That said, Australia does have a small but organised curling community, with clubs linked to a handful of ice rinks, and the country has fielded players in international curling competition at various points. If curling is available near you, it tends to be through one of these dedicated clubs rather than a general sports centre, so it's worth checking what's realistically accessible in your area before assuming you can just turn up and try it.
This table holds session length constant at 60 minutes of curling, so you can see how much body weight alone changes the total.
| Body Weight | MET | Calories (60 min) | Kilojoules |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60 kg | 4.0 | 240 kcal | 1,004 kJ |
| 70 kg | 4.0 | 280 kcal | 1,172 kJ |
| 80 kg | 4.0 | 320 kcal | 1,339 kJ |
| 90 kg | 4.0 | 360 kcal | 1,506 kJ |
| 100 kg | 4.0 | 400 kcal | 1,674 kJ |
Because body weight is a straight multiplier in the formula, a 100 kg curler burns two-thirds more than a 60 kg curler over the identical hour on the ice — a modest but real difference, in keeping with curling's overall moderate-intensity profile.
Here body weight is fixed at 75 kg while session length changes, since time actually spent delivering and sweeping varies a lot between a short practice, a club match, and a longer bonspiel session.
| Session Length | Hours | Calories | Kilojoules |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 minutes | 0.25 | 75 kcal | 314 kJ |
| 30 minutes | 0.5 | 150 kcal | 628 kJ |
| 45 minutes | 0.75 | 225 kcal | 941 kJ |
| 60 minutes | 1.0 | 300 kcal | 1,255 kJ |
| 90 minutes | 1.5 | 450 kcal | 1,883 kJ |
Australian nutrition panels list energy in kilojoules, not calories, so it helps to see your session in the same unit your food and drink packaging uses. Multiply your calorie figure by 4.184 to get kilojoules. A 75 kg curler on the ice for 45 minutes burns about 225 kcal, which is roughly 941 kJ — a modest but genuine amount of energy, reflecting curling's moderate overall intensity alongside its short bursts of harder effort.
How many calories does curling burn?
For a 75 kg curler on the ice for a typical 45-minute session, curling burns roughly 225 kcal, about 941 kJ. This uses a MET value of 4.0, reflecting a mix of standing time, lunge-based deliveries and short bursts of sweeping, and scales directly with your own body weight and time on the ice — use the calculator above for a figure based on your details.
Is the curling MET value based on published research?
Not entirely — it's worth being upfront about this. The 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities lists "curling" under code 15170 with a MET value of 4.0, but flags this specific code as an estimated value, shown in red in its source table. That means the figure is a reasonable planning estimate assigned by the Compendium's editors rather than a number confirmed through dedicated published research measuring curling specifically. It's still the best available published figure for this sport, but treat it as an approximation rather than a laboratory-measured result.
Is curling actually good exercise, or does the sweeping just look easy on TV?
It's more physically varied than the TV picture suggests. A lot of a curling match is genuinely low-effort standing and watching, which is why the overall MET value of 4.0 sits in the moderate rather than vigorous band. But sweeping specifically is hard, short-burst, full-body effort — gripping the broom and driving it across the ice ahead of a moving stone at close to a sprint pace for several seconds at a time — and the delivery itself is a controlled lunge that works your legs and core more than it appears. Judge the sport by its busiest moments rather than its stillest ones.
Is curling popular in Australia?
No, and it's worth being honest about that — curling is a genuinely niche sport in Australia. It requires a dedicated ice sheet, so it's only available through a small number of indoor ice rinks and curling clubs around the country, rather than being widely accessible. There is a small, organised curling community in Australia, and the country has fielded players in international competition, but participation remains modest compared with mainstream Australian sports.
How do I convert calories to kilojoules for curling?
Multiply your calorie figure by 4.184 to get kilojoules, since Australian nutrition panels list energy in kJ rather than kcal. For example, a 75 kg curler burning 225 kcal in a 45-minute session has burned about 941 kJ — useful for comparing against the energy values printed on food and drink packaging.
Does my role — skip, sweeper, or thrower — change how many calories I burn curling?
This calculator uses a single general MET value for curling and doesn't split results out by position. In practice, players who sweep more often during a match likely burn more than a skip who spends more time directing play from the house, and a curler who delivers several stones per end does more lunge-based work than one who mostly sweeps for teammates. Treat the result as a whole-session average rather than a role-specific figure.
How does curling compare to other winter and ice sports for calorie burn?
At a MET of 4.0, curling burns calories at a noticeably lower rate than continuous-movement ice sports like ice hockey or recreational ice skating, which involve sustained skating effort rather than curling's mix of standing, lunging and short sweeping bursts. It sits closer to a light-to-moderate activity overall, even though individual sweeping efforts within a session can feel considerably harder.
What are the limitations of this calorie estimate?
This calculator uses a single population-average MET value — one the Compendium itself flags as estimated rather than research-confirmed — multiplied by your body weight and time on the ice. It can't account for how much of your session was spent sweeping versus standing, your position within the team, how many ends you played, your fitness level, or individual differences in effort. Treat the result as a rough planning figure, not a precise or clinically measured number.
Do I need to be fit or experienced to try curling?
No — curling is generally considered an accessible sport for beginners of a range of fitness levels, since much of a session is low-intensity standing and the delivery technique can be learned gradually with instruction. The sweeping bursts are the most physically demanding part, but new players typically aren't expected to sweep at full intensity for an entire match straight away. As with any new physical activity on an ice surface, take balance and fall risk into account when starting out.