Treadmill calorie calculator

MET values are the 2024 Adult Compendium's treadmill walking codes 17349 to 17367 and its general running codes 12028 to 12132. The Code column on each table is the entry every row came from.

The incline table uses the ACSM walking equation, VO2 = speed x 0.1 + grade x speed x 1.8 + 3.5, speed in metres a minute and grade as a fraction, with METs as VO2 divided by 3.5.

Every figure is shown as the mid value plus and minus 15%. That band is a plain acknowledgement that a population figure applied to one person is approximate. It is not a confidence interval from a study and is not presented as one.

DPublisher stated, Independent publication

MET values for walking and running, and the kcal/min formulaCompendium of Physical Activities (Ainsworth et al.)2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities, walking and running tablesOpened 19 September 2026The reference set exercise science uses for the energy cost of an activity. Energy is estimated as MET x 3.5 x kg / 200 kcal per minute. It is a population average by design: it describes an activity, not a person, which is why every calorie figure here is shown as a range. We read the walking and running tables directly, at pacompendium.com/walking/ and /running/, and every value we use carries the activity code it came from. An entry covers a speed BAND rather than a single speed, so a speed is looked up in the band it falls inside rather than rounded to a nearby value.

DPublisher stated, Independent publication

The ACSM walking and running metabolic equationsTexas Tech University, Kinesiology and Sport ManagementACSM Health Fitness Instructor workshop, metabolic calculations (sample problems)Opened 19 September 2026Sets out both equations and works examples with them. Walking: VO2 = speed x 0.1 + grade x speed x 1.8 + 3.5, speed in m/min, grade as a fraction. Running uses 0.2 and 0.9. Our implementation reproduces the document’s own two worked examples exactly, 17.44 ml/kg/min at 2.5 mph and 6%, and 44.6 at 6.5 mph and 4%, which is how we checked it. GRADED D, NOT B, DELIBERATELY: the site’s B means corroborated across two or more independent sources, and this is one teaching document. We looked for a second open source stating the same coefficients and did not find one in the time we gave it, so the grade says what is true, that we took it as published and did not verify it against a second.

ENot established

The speeds the ACSM equations are valid overNo primary source we could openThe figures are commonly quoted as about 1.9 to 3.7 mph for walking and above 5 mph for runningThe equations are sourced; their valid range is not. The figures above trace to a certification-prep site that attributes them to "ACSM’s Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription" without naming an edition or page, and we could not open a primary statement of them. So the incline calculation here applies the WALKING equation only, stops at the top of that commonly quoted band, and says so rather than extrapolating past a boundary nobody has shown us.

BIndependently verified, Independent publication

One mile is exactly 1.609344 kmNIST (US National Institute of Standards and Technology)SI units — lengthOpened 19 September 2026Corroborated byWeights and Measures Act 1985 (UK)Schedule 1, Part VI: Mile = 1760 yards; YARD = 0.9144 metreOpened 19 September 2026NIST states that the inch has been exactly 25.4 mm since the international yard and pound agreement of 1959. A mile is 63,360 inches, so it is exactly 1,609.344 m. UK statute gives the same number by a different route: Schedule 1 Part VI of the Weights and Measures Act 1985 sets "Mile = 1760 yards" and "YARD = 0.9144 metre", and 1760 x 0.9144 is 1,609.344 exactly. THE CAVEAT, because it is the reason this is a B and not higher: both descend from the same 1959 international agreement, so they are independent publications rather than independent measurements. Neither copies the other, and an error in one would not reach the other, which is what the B test asks. It is a definition rather than a measurement either way, which is why every conversion on these pages is exact.

A MET value describes an activity, not a person. Two people of the same weight at the same speed do not burn the same energy, and nothing here accounts for fitness, age, gait, efficiency or what you did earlier in the day.

The figures also assume the belt holds its speed and the console is accurate, neither of which we have measured on any machine. Nothing on this page is advice about weight, diet or health: it is arithmetic on a published table, and it says which table.