If you're looking to maximize your workout without changing your pace, the answer might be right under your feet. Research shows that walking on hard dirt burns approximately 7% more calories than walking on smooth pavement at the same speed.

The difference comes down to surface stability and muscle recruitment. When you walk on pavement, your foot lands on a predictable, uniform surface with consistent energy return. Dirt paths, even when packed hard, create subtle variations that force your stabilizer muscles to work harder with every step.

Why Surface Matters

Your body's center of mass needs constant redirecting as you walk, and uneven surfaces amplify this effect. On dirt, your ankles make micro-adjustments, your core engages more to maintain balance, and your leg muscles work harder to push off from a less responsive surface. These small differences add up over the course of a walk.

A study published in PLOS One compared energy expenditure across five outdoor surfaces and found that calorie burn increased progressively from sidewalk to dirt to gravel. The researchers used portable oxygen consumption monitors to measure metabolic cost in real-world conditions.

The Surface Spectrum

Hard dirt is just the beginning. Here's how different surfaces stack up for calorie burn:

Pavement/sidewalk: Baseline energy expenditure
Hard dirt: About 7% more calories
Gravel: 10-15% increase
Grass: 15-20% increase
Woodchips: Up to 27% more than pavement
Soft sand: 50-100% increase (can double your burn)

Uneven Terrain Amplifies the Effect

Another study in the Journal of Experimental Biology found that walking on terrain with just 2.5 cm (1 inch) of surface variability increased metabolic cost by 28%. That's energetically equivalent to walking up a 2% incline—and it's the kind of natural variation you'd find on most dirt trails.

The rougher the surface, the harder your body works. Loose sand can require more than double the energy of pavement, which explains why beach walks feel so much more exhausting than sidewalk strolls.

So next time you're choosing a walking route, consider ditching the sidewalk for a dirt path. Your muscles—and your fitness tracker—will notice the difference.

Related Tags