What are jumping jacks? Jumping jacks is a full total body cardiovascular workout that is a combination of aerobics and plyometrics. This type of exercise works the heart, lungs and every muscle in the lower and upper body.
What are jumping jacks? iStock-photo credit: Dragonimages
If you want to stay away from jogging or walking up the steps than jumping jacks is a great alternative way of doing cardio. A 150-pound person that does a two minute session of jumping jacks can burn around 19 calories.
If you have knee or ankle joint issues, then jumping jacks may not be an ideal exercise for you. Most people of all ages can safely do jumping jacks such as older adults, children and adolescents. In fact, jumping jacks has always been part of most normal PE physical activity in school.
A study that was done on rats showed that jump training improves bone health in rats. The bone density was showed before and after the jumping regimen and it showed phenomenal gains in the control group. They were able to maintain these gains when the training was reduced by 11% to 21 jumps per week.
There was one study where rats were doing 200 jumps per week with 40 jumps per day for a total of 5 days.
How to do a basic jumping jack exercise is the following:
- Stand with your legs straight and your arms to the side.
- Jump and spread your feet while bringing your arms above your head.
- Jump again while lowering your arms and bring your legs together.
A good workout if you want to do jumping jacks is 3 sets of 10 jumping jacks. That’s a good starting range for this exercise.
The Bottom Line is jumping jacks is a full total body cardiovascular workout that combines aerobics and plyometrics. It is a good alternative cardiovascular workout if you choose not to jog or walk-up steps.
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References
- Tayrose GA, Beutel BG, Cardone DA, Sherman OH. The Masters Athlete: A Review of Current Exercise and Treatment Recommendations. Sports Health. 2015 May;7(3):270-6. doi: 10.1177/1941738114548999. PMID: 26131307; PMCID: PMC4482301.
- My Fitness Pal- https://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/lookup?correlationId=ad18a1c9-537d-4515-ad2f-87a8584f5dac
