Moving more throughout the day can offer valuable benefits. Find out what things can happen if you implement 200 jumping jacks a day.
The result of jumping jacks that is easiest to put into specific numbers is how much extra energy (calories) you use.
A rough estimation is that the average person burns around 39-68 calories when doing 200 jumping jacks. Doing this every day for an extended period of time can add up nicely.
Besides that, doing 200 jumping jacks a day can potentially also improve things like your cardiovascular health, muscle endurance, mood, coordination, etc.
One important thing you do want to keep in mind is that this amount of jumping jacks only takes about 5 minutes to complete.
This is typically better than nothing but there are also exercise routines with more potential for health benefits.
Benefits of 200 jumping jacks a day
Doing 200 jumping jacks a day is not the craziest workout in the world but getting your heart rate up for a few minutes can still offer valuable benefits.
Doing 200 jumping jacks a day burns a few extra calories
A popular goal when implementing more jumping jacks is burning more calories and hopefully in turn, losing weight. Moving more intensely than usual makes it so your body requires more energy (measured in calories).
There are ways to estimate how many calories jumping jacks burn per minute.
With these and that the average person does around 40 repetitions per minute, you can estimate that people with different body weights burn more or less the following amounts of calories with 200 jumping jacks:
- 125 pounds (56 kg) body weight: 39 calories
- 155 pounds (70 kg) body weight: 49 calories
- 185 pounds (83 kg) body weight: 58 calories
- 215 pounds (97 kg) body weight: 68 calories
For 5 minutes of exercise, these are nice amounts. They can really add up if you do 200 jumping jacks every day for 30 days or longer.
Something important to keep in mind is that whether or not consistently doing 200 jumping jacks will help weight loss also depends on lifestyle habits like the things you eat.
You can do a lot of exercise and still gain weight if your habits in other areas of your health are suboptimal.
Your cardiovascular health could improve
You do engage a few muscles to some extent. However, jumping jacks are still mainly an exercise that engages your cardiovascular system which includes your heart, lungs, and blood vessels.
This cardiovascular system extracts oxygen from the air and moves the oxygen, nutrients, and waste products to the right areas in your body.
When you move more intensely by doing something like jumping jacks you engage your cardiovascular system to a larger extent.
If you do this enough (but not too much) you can strengthen the system. This is generally good since it tends to reduce the risk of related conditions (1, 2, 3).
5 minutes is not the longest workout but depending on your current fitness level even doing 200 jumping jacks a day at high intensity could offer improvements in this area. At least initially.
You could get better muscle endurance
Even though jumping jacks are mainly a cardiovascular exercise, they could help you improve muscle endurance in a few areas.
Some of the muscles you use during this exercise include the deltoids (shoulder), latissimus dorsi (middle/upper back), inner thigh muscles, outer thigh muscles, calves, quadriceps, glutes, hamstrings, and core muscles.
After doing a lot of repetitions you could feel that the weaker muscles like your deltoids, inner thigh muscles, outer thigh muscles, and calves may be tired.
Better muscle endurance in this area could make daily activities like carrying things and walking the stairs feel easier and more convenient.
Your mood could improve
With all of the more physical positive effects of jumping jacks, it can be easy to forget that the health of your body also benefits mental health.
First of all, having a healthier body will help you avoid conditions that can decrease your mood.
Besides that, doing workouts like 200 jumping jacks a day will also promote the release of endorphins, so-called “feel-good hormones” (4, 5, 6).
Lastly, doing something that is good for your health will likely also give you a proud feeling.
Is 200 jumping jacks a day good enough?
By now it should be clear that doing 200 jumping jacks can offer a few valuable benefits. Additionally, even fewer repetitions or 0 could be good enough to lose weight if you take care of other lifestyle habits.
At the same time, you want to keep in mind that 5 minutes of exercise a day is not the most impressive either. Even if you do it at a fast speed.
To put this into perspective, it can be helpful to take a look at a few exercise guidelines for general health. The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion recommends the following amounts to adults (7):
- 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.
In simpler words, doing 200 jumping jacks a day is not enough to hit these cardiovascular exercise guidelines for adults.
So whether you want to implement a routine like this or something more intense depends on details like your fitness level, how much time you have, your fitness goals, etc.
