Burpee Jacks: How To Do, Benefits,…

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You don’t necessarily need to limit yourself to a few exercises to get in shape. Find out how to do burpee jacks and the results they offer.

There are different ways to do burpee jacks. This article considers the main version to be a burpee where you do a jumping jack instead of a jump squat at the end.

This modification makes this burpee and jumping jack variation a cardiovascular exercise that is somewhat challenging for your chest, tricep, and front deltoid muscles too.

Additionally, you still work your core but also your glutes, inner thighs, outer thighs, quadriceps, hamstrings, calves, lower back, and hip flexors.

Besides that, burpee jacks also offer some of the same warmup potential and coordination and balance training as jumping jacks.

In simpler words, burpee jacks can offer cardiovascular, muscle endurance, and warmup benefits. At the same time, it is worth noting that there are more effective movements for these goals too.

How to do a burpee jack

Take the following steps to do a burpee jack:

  1. Stand up straight with your feet close to each other.
  2. Lower your hips and place your hands on the ground. Keep your arms slightly less than stretched.
  3. Jump back with your feet so that you get in a position where you are in a straight line from your heels to the top of your head. Additionally, keep your shoulders above your wrists.
  4. Lower your body by folding your arms. Keep your upper arms at 45-degree angles or less to your sides.
  5. Push your body back into the position of step 3.
  6. Jump forward with your feet so that you are back in the position of step 2.
  7. Raise your body explosively by stretching your legs.
  8. Move your legs outward and your arms sideways and upward.
  9. Land with your feet wider than shoulder-width apart and your arms pointing up.
  10. Jump in the air and move your feet inward and your arms down to get back into starting position.
How to do a burpee jack

Burpee jacks are basically a combination of how you do burpees and a jumping jack at the end of the exercise sequence instead of jumping straight up.

The main things to keep in mind during burpee jacks are not lowering your hips more than a straight line during the plank jumps and the angle of your upper arms during the pushup.

If burpee jacks are currently too hard for you, you likely want to start with pushup progressions.

On the flip side, burpee jacks can also become too easy. To resolve this, you can wear a weighted vest while doing the exercise.

How many burpees you should do depends on your training goals and current strength level. For something like improving cardiovascular health, the guidelines are not strict at all.

Burpee jacks muscles worked

Some of the main muscles you work with burpee jacks are your chest, triceps, shoulders, and core.

Additionally, your inner thighs, outer thighs, quadriceps, glutes, hamstrings, hip flexors, calves, glutes, and lower back will have to work to a certain extent.

Of all the muscles above, your chest, triceps, and shoulders will likely have the hardest time.

Compared to regular jumping jacks, burpee jacks focus more on a variety of other muscles. In return, you spend less time engaging the typical jumping jack muscles like inner thighs and outer thighs.

Something important to note is that you have to challenge your muscles enough for your training goals.

There will be a good amount of people who can grow their chest, tricep, and shoulder muscles with burpee jacks.

On the flip side, you should likely not expect more than endurance improvements in the other muscles mentioned.

It is also worth mentioning that many resistance training exercises will be more effective than burpee jacks for working your muscles.

Burpee jacks benefits

There are likely more effective alternatives for your fitness goals too. However, doing burpee jacks can still have a positive impact on your life.

Some of the benefits of burpee jacks include:

  1. Could help you lose weight: Burpee jacks will burn more calories than typical daily activities. Additionally, they could potentially build some muscle. These things tend to be helpful for losing weight (but are not always enough).
  2. Better muscle endurance: Even if they are not challenging enough to build muscle, burpee jacks will likely improve muscle endurance.
  3. Balance and coordination: Burpee jacks require a good amount of balance and coordination. Challenging yourself in these areas can potentially lead to improvements in these areas.
  4. No equipment or location required: Burpee jacks do not require any specific location or equipment. This makes them budget-friendly to do and convenient to fit into your routine.
  5. Adds variety: Some people need variety in their workouts to keep things interesting enough. An unusual exercise like burpee jacks can help with this.

Burpee jacks are not necessarily the number one exercise for all these benefits.

However, they should make it clear adding an exercise like this to your routine can be valuable.

Burpee jack alternatives

Burpee jacks do offer some of the benefits above but other alternatives could help with these too. Some of the exercises below could even be more helpful for your training goals.

Here are a few burpee jack alternatives:

  • Pushups
  • Squats
  • Bench presses
  • Side shuffles
  • Other jumping jack variations
  • Weighted leg adductions or abductions
  • Double crunches
  • Mountain climbers
  • Running

Since there are so many aspects of burpee jacks, your choice of alternatives will depend a lot on why you are considering this exercise.

Are burpee jacks a good exercise?

Burpee jacks can help you improve your cardiovascular health, muscle endurance, and coordination. You could also use this exercise as a full-body warmup.

Some people could even build a small amount of muscle in their chest, tricep, and front deltoids with this exercise.

At the same time, it is worth mentioning there are more effective burpee jacks alternatives for improving cardiovascular health, muscle endurance, and muscle mass.

On the flip side, personal preference matters too. If you like doing burpee jacks or just the fact that you are switching up your workouts, you could still consider doing this exercise.

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FAQ

What is a burpee jack?

A burpee jack is basically a burpee but instead of doing a jump squat at the end, you do a jumping jack.

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Author:

Matt Claes founded Weight Loss Made Practical to help people get in shape and stay there after losing 37 pounds and learning the best of the best about weight loss, health, and longevity for over 4 years. Over these years he has become an expert in nutrition, exercise, and other physical health aspects.