How Many Calories Does a Round of Disc Golf Burn?

Disc golf is an awesome sport. And it’s phenomenal for your health, too. You see, I was out on the course the other day and I was feeling good. I knew that I was not only improving at a sport that I love, but also improving my health by just playing and walking the entire course.

And I’ve known for a long time now about both the physical and mental benefits of disc golf. It’s a sport that affords us the benefit of being fun, challenging, and healthy for our bodies. But how healthy is disc golf for us? I started out my search with one question – how many calories does a round of disc golf burn?

In this post, we’re going to be going over the answer to that question, showing you a couple of the health benefits of disc golf, and then digging a little deeper into how healthy disc golf actually is so that you can use disc golf to help you stay fit and maintain a healthy lifestyle. So let’s get to it!

How many calories does a round of disc golf burn?

One single round of disc golf burns approximately 400 to 500 calories and consists of walking around 6000 to 7000 steps or about 3 total miles. With that being said, disc golf is a phenomenal physical activity and one that is awesome for your health and fitness.

A couple of health benefits of disc golf

1. Good exercise

In general, a round on the course gets you some good overall exercise. You’re breathing fresh air, walking multiple miles, and some of the time, you’re hiking over uneven terrain. That physical movement is good for every part of your body: physical and mental. This full-body workout can also strengthen your muscles to make you stronger for your next round and can boost your brainpower to help you strategize better, too.

2. Less stress

Almost every kind of exercise has been known to help with stress. Even before I looked up how exactly exercise can help with stress, I knew that this was the case. Workouts have always helped me to de-stress. But disc golf is not just any workout! With disc golf, you’re able to be social, have a ton of fun (which can also help with stress), and reduce any stress that you have with some great exercise.

If you want to know how exactly exercise can help reduce stress, check out the Anxiety and Depression Association of America’s post on that here.

3. Good for your heart

We already talked how exercise can help you strengthen your muscles and your heart is no exception. If you didn’t know already, the heart is actually a muscle. And getting in some good exercise helps your heart grow stronger. This increased heart strength allows your heart to pump better and more efficiently, allowing you to feel better and become much more healthy. If you want to read more about what happens to the heart when you exercise, check out Kaiserpermanente’s article on exercise and heart health here.

4. Sleep better

Some good exercise on the disc golf course can do wonders for your sleep. Believe me, as I’m sure you’ve already experienced, if you’ve ever played a couple of rounds in a day, you tend to sleep pretty well that night because your body is probably pretty worn out! Because this exercise helps to reduce stress and tire you out, that allows your body to relax and help you sleep deeper when you hop into bed. Check out Sleep.org’s article on sleep here to read more about it.

5. Lose weight

Lastly, disc golf can help you get healthier and lose some weight. There have been many disc golfers that have had success stories revolving around the fitness they’ve achieved with the help of disc golf. It’s actually pretty impressive and shows you what just a little bit of disc golf and a change to a healthy lifestyle can do for you if you’re looking to lose a little bit of weight.

The first post here on Discgolfanswerman’s blog is about disc golfer Ben Taylor’s weight loss journey with disc golf. This Reddit post is pretty inspirational and has some good discussion on the subject. And this Facebook group here is dedicated to getting healthy, losing weight, and playing disc golf. If that’s your goal, I highly suggest you ask for an invite.

If you want to read more about all of the health benefits of disc golf, check out our post here.

So, then, just disc golf?

It’s no secret by now that disc golf is good for your health. But I wanted to know more about how healthy disc golf actually is. So I started out as simple as I could and played a round to see how many miles I walked and how many calories I could burn. That quick yet leisurely round ended up like this:

Time: 1 hour 28 minutes

Steps: 7,480

Calories burned: 390

Total distance: 3.3 miles

How I felt after the round: somewhat tired but energized. I played this round after not being able to get out on the course for several months and skipping the gym for almost 2 weeks. So I was pretty sore the next day. But I did feel good and like I got a decent little 90 minute workout in.

So we can see that disc golf is fairly good exercise and is definitely good for your health. But based on just one round per week, those numbers don’t say that disc golf by itself will keep you fit and healthy. If you only play disc golf, at a rate of just a couple hundred calories per week, that doesn’t help you get healthy and fit. One cheeseburger can equal the same amount of calories as you would have burned from one round of disc golf. BUT any exercise is good exercise. And if you can get out and play, that’s at least doing something.

But what about if you want to lose weight, get more fit, and become a healthier person? Disc golf can be a vital part of that equation. But you have to play more disc golf AND you have to make your lifestyle revolve around being more healthy.

So is disc golf enough to lose weight and get fit? The answer is no.

Want to get fit? You need more than just disc golf…

A healthy lifestyle is about changing multiple parts of your life and disc golf is just one small part. Here are 5 different ways that you can start changing your life so that you can lose weight, get more fit, and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

1. More disc golf

If you’re truly serious about losing weight and getting healthy, you’ve got to play disc golf and exercise way more. One round of disc per week and nothing else in your life won’t cut it. You have to play at least two rounds per week. Now you’re starting to make some progress with your health and fitness.

2. Workouts (of the course)

Like I said, you need disc golf and more. Aside from any disc golf rounds I play, I try to go to the gym and workout my body at least 3 or more times per week. Sometimes I can get in the gym Monday through Friday and then get a good round of disc golf in on Saturday. You need to take this approach and find ways to workout off the course. That continued exercise, in the form of weightlifting, cardio, other sports, crossfit, or whatever peaks your interest can help you continue to be healthy. Check out a couple of our best disc golf off-the-course workouts below ⬇️.

The 12 Best Disc Golf Exercises to Keep You Fit

The Only Disc Golf Core Workout You’ll Ever Need

3. Your nutrition

You need to also think about how you treat your body in the remaining 22-23 hours of your day. And a lot of that has to do with how you eat. Like I said earlier, if you exercise, but eat cheeseburgers, those are going to negate your workouts and make you unhealthy. You need to eat better, healthier foods and cut out as much fast food, sugary food, and other sweets as you can.

On top of that, sodas, energy drinks, and alcohol can hurt you as well. Try less of that and more water. Water can also help you curb cravings so that you can eat a little bit less. Check out our post, “7 Ways Drinking Water Can Improve Your Disc Golf Game.”

4. Your recovery

Like I just said, what you do the remaining 22-23 hours of the day can determine your health, fitness, and ability to lose weight. Recovery is allowing your body to heal after exercise. Good nutrition is one way to help your body heal. Another way to let your body heal is to allow certain muscle groups to heal for at least 48 hours. That’s why I never recommend doing leg workouts and disc golf rounds on consecutive days or playing intense rounds for multiple days in a row. Your body needs to heal. And if it can’t do that, you could get injured. So if you want to play twice a week (or even three times), try Tuesday and Saturday rounds or Monday-Thursday-Saturday rounds so that your body can recover fully before the next round.

Also, stretching, heat, and ice can help to speed up recovery between rounds. Pair that with good nutrition and a lot of water to hydrate and you’ll be great. Here are a couple of great recovery posts to help you out ⬇️.

The 11 Step Plan to Recover After a Disc Golf Workout

The 17 Best Disc Golf Stretches to Improve Your Game

Oh yeah, but there is one other thing…

5. Your rest

Sleep is SUPER important. It’s what you do for a quarter or more of your life. And it’s one of the best ways to help your body recover back to fighting shape. Try to aim for at least six hours or more per night. That’s a fairly adequate amount of sleep and more than enough to help you recover fully.

So that’s it!

Disc golf is pretty great. And it’s good for your health, too. So it’s a no brainer that I’ll be hitting the course to not just have some fun, but to get a fairly decent workout in. I take my disc golf rounds, mix in some workouts off the course, try to eat healthy, drink a ton of water, allow my body to recover, and get as much sleep as I can so that I can stay healthy and fit. So thanks for reading, disc golfers. Now get out there and go throw!

Before you go, check out the book!

Before you go, don’t forget to check out the best beginner disc golf book on the planet, “The Disc Golf Player’s Manual.” This ebook is packed with over 200+ pages of the best tips, tricks, and advice for new players