100 Jumping Jacks A Day: What Can It Do?

Workout challenges can be a fun way to move more. Find out what results you can expect from doing an extra 100 jumping jacks a day.

The result that is easier to put into numbers is that the average person will burn around 20 to 34 calories during the 100 jumping jacks.

Even if you do this amount of jumping jacks for 30 days or more, you will have to pay attention to other lifestyle habits like your diet to see a lot of weight loss results.

Some other things that can happen by implementing 100 repetitions a day include small improvements in your cardiovascular health, muscle endurance, sleep, coordination, and bone density.

That being said, short movement sessions like doing 100 jumping jacks are mostly helpful for getting into the habit of exercising more and preparing your body for intenser workouts.

You likely want to consider these more intense exercise routines over time to get the health benefits of jumping jacks to a larger extent.

Benefits of 100 jumping jacks a day

Implementing more jumping jacks into your routine can definitely offer a few valuable positive results.

One important thing to note is that while it is often better than nothing, doing 100 jumping jacks will only take around 2.5 minutes to do.

To get these benefits to a larger extent, you can consider doing longer workouts when your body is strong enough for these.

100 jumping jacks a day burns extra calories

Your body requires energy throughout the day to function. By moving more intensely during something like jumping jacks, you also increase how much energy, measured in calories, you use.

There are some ways to predict how many calories you will use per minute of jumping jacks.

This together with the information that the average person does around 40 jumping jacks per minute allows you to estimate what 100 repetitions a day will do.

People with certain body weights will burn more or less the following amounts of calories while doing 100 jumping jacks a day:

• 125 pounds (56 kg) body weight: 20 calories
• 155 pounds (70 kg) body weight: 24 calories
• 185 pounds (83 kg) body weight: 29 calories
• 215 pounds (97 kg) body weight: 34 calories

One important thing to note is that the actual number of calories you personally burn will likely be slightly different due to details like body composition, hormone levels, exact jumping jack intensity, etc.

Additionally, these estimations are for during the workout. They don’t include any afterburn effects you could get by doing the 100 jumping jacks at a high intensity.

Will it help you lose weight?

Burning more calories sounds helpful but most people are actually interested in the potential weight loss effects and all the physical and mental benefits this offers.

To lose weight you need to make it so your body requires more energy to function than is coming in from food. At this point, you start using energy stores like body fat to get the remaining needs.

That means doing 100 jumping jacks can potentially help you get to this point or increase the difference to speed up your results.

At the same time, whether jumping jacks help weight loss or not also depends a lot on how many you do and other lifestyle habits like your diet.

Additionally, when you know that one pound (0.45 kg) of body fat is around 3500 calories, it becomes clear that only 100 repetitions a day won’t offer crazy results. Even if you keep this up for a month or longer.

Can help you make exercise a habit

As mentioned before, the 2.5 minutes it takes to do 100 jumping jacks is only a relatively short workout. That being said, this can be one of its benefits.

Even if you know that hour-long workouts with intense cardiovascular movements and lifting weights could be better for your health, actually having to implement these can be overwhelming as an exercise beginner.

Starting with something that does not require a lot of time and effort instead can help you get into the habit of moving more.

After you get used to this, you can still consider implementing more optimal workouts to get more positive effects.

100 jumping jacks a day could improve cardio slightly

Jumping jacks are mainly a cardiovascular workout. In simpler words, that means this type of movement will mostly be challenging for your cardiovascular system which includes your heart, lungs, and blood vessels

This system is responsible for extracting oxygen from the air and moving the oxygen, nutrients, and waste products around your body.

When you move more intensely during a workout, these things have to happen to a larger extent. In turn, your cardiovascular system has to work harder.

Challenging this system enough (but not too much) can make it stronger. This is a benefit of jumping jacks because it tends to reduce the risk of related conditions (1, 2, 3).

To make the most of the 100 jumping jacks in this area you want to do them at a fast speed. Even then, you may need to consider more intense workouts to keep seeing progress.

May improve muscle endurance slightly

Even though jumping jacks will mainly work your cardiovascular system, this exercise also works a variety of muscles to a certain extent.

For most people, jumping jacks will not be enough to actually grow muscles. However, engaging them can still offer improvements in endurance.

Some of the muscles you use in jumping jacks include your deltoids (shoulders), latissimus dorsi (middle/upper back), inner thigh muscles, outer thigh muscles, calves, quadriceps, glutes, and hamstrings.

Due to the effort they have to exert compared to their strengths, you will likely see the most muscle endurance improvements in your deltoids, inner thigh muscles, outer thigh muscles, and calves.

This effect of doing 100 jumping jacks a day can be helpful in daily activities like walking around, climbing stairs, and carrying things.

Helps prepare your body for other workouts

Another reason you could consider starting with something light like 100 jumping jacks a day is to prepare your body for other workouts.

If you are more of an exercise beginner who has not worked out in a while, certain body parts like your muscles, joints, and tendons may be on the weaker side.

Going from zero exercise straight to intense HIIT workouts or really heavy weights 7 days a week could currently be too challenging for your body.

A relatively short workout like 100 jumping jacks a day could be a good start to get your body stronger. Over time, you can then increase the intensity and duration of your workouts.

Additionally, you can use a routine like this as a full-body warm-up before other workouts.

100 jumping jacks a day could improve your coordination

Jumping jacks are not the most complicated exercise out there but they do benefit from timing your arm movements with your leg movements in the right way.

If you are not used to exercising and start doing 100 jumping jacks a day, you will likely notice that your movements are not the most elegant.

However, as you do this routine for 7 days, 30 days, or longer, you will likely see improvements in your timing and feel more control over your movements.

This is because arm and leg coordination are fitness skills that can be improved by doing movements like jumping jacks.

These things will not only be helpful during your workouts.

Even in daily activities like walking around, climbing stairs, and reaching for things, better leg and arm coordination can help you avoid misstepping and bumping against things.

Is 100 jumping jacks good enough for a day?

100 jumping jacks a day could be enough to lose weight depending on your other lifestyle habits. Additionally, an exercise routine like this could be good enough to see small improvements in the areas mentioned above.

At the same time, you need to know that many weekly exercise guidelines for optimal health recommend a lot more moving.

As an example, the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion recommends the following exercise guidelines to adults (4):

• Moving more and sitting less throughout the day
• At least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity a week. Preferably spread throughout the week.
• You can gain additional health benefits by engaging in physical activity beyond the equivalent of 300 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity a week.
• Muscle-strengthening activities of moderate or greater intensity that involve all major muscle groups on 2 or more days a week.

This should make it clear that the extra 2.5 minutes a day you spend doing 100 jumping jacks will generally not be good enough for optimal health.

As your body gets stronger you can consider doing more jumping jacks, implementing exercise alternatives, lifting weights, etc.

Related posts:

• 400 Jumping Jacks A Day: What Can You Expect?

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