Jump squats will mostly be good for improving muscle power and mass but they also help you burn more calories. Find out how many.
The average person can expect to burn around 33 to 56+ calories per 100 bodyweight jump squats.
How many calories you burn in the predictions and in reality will depend on a few factors.
For example, if you use a body weight of 125 pounds (56 kg) in the calculation formula, you get the prediction that you will burn about 33 calories per 100 bodyweight jump squats.
On the other hand, someone with a body weight of 215 pounds (97 kg) will burn more something around 56 calories per 100 jump squats.
They do give you somewhat of a better idea about what you can expect but even when taking your body weight into account, the estimations are very rough and don’t use other important details.
Something else to note is that a good amount of the calories you burn by doing jump squats happens after the workout in the form of afterburn and extra muscle mass. Especially if you do jump squats with weights.
This article will also go over how to get more results from jump squats and whether it is a good choice for your weight loss workouts.
Estimations calories burned with jump squats
A categorization from the Centers For Disease Control And Prevention puts vigorous effort calisthenics like jump squats in the category of exercises that burn more than 7 calories per minute (1).
Luckily, there are also ways to make more precise and helpful predictions about how many calories an activity burns for different body weights and time periods.
More specifically, there are MET values that are measurements/estimations about the intensity of certain activities. 1 MET is about how intense just sitting down is.
The other MET values convey how much more intense an activity is than just sitting still.
These numbers can be used in the following formula: METs x 3.5 x (your body weight in kilograms) / 200 = calories burned per minute
For now, there is no specific MET value for jump squats that is derived from oxygen consumption studies. That being said, the MET value for vigorous-intensity calisthenics should come at least somewhat close (2).
In the first table below, you can find how many calories certain amounts of jump squats burn. This will likely be the most convenient way to estimate your energy consumption.
Below that, you can find a table with different amounts of calories burned per certain time frames of doing jump squats.
Something important to note is that these numbers will obviously be rough estimations. The MET formula above does not take many important details into account.
Knowing that 100 grams of boiled potatoes contain about 87 calories can help you understand what these numbers represent (3).
How many calories do 100 jump squats burn?
With plyometric exercises like jump squats where you really focus on getting good repetition, the easiest way to estimate how many calories you burn is by looking at the number of repetitions you do.
The table below assumes you will do about 24 repetitions per minute. With this, you can figure out how many jump squats you should do to burn certain calorie counts.
For example, a 155-pound (70 kg) person burns around 41 calories with 100 jump squats.
| # Jump Squats Weight Person | 1 Jump Squat | 10 Jump Squats | 25 Jump Squats | 50 Jump Squats | 100 Jump Squats |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 125 Pounds (56 kg) | 0 calories* | 3 calories | 8 calories | 16 calories | 33 calories |
| 155 Pounds (70 kg) | 0 calories* | 4 calories | 10 calories | 20 calories | 41 calories |
| 185 Pounds (83 kg) | 0 calories* | 5 calories | 12 calories | 24 calories | 49 calories |
| 215 Pounds (97 kg) | 1 calorie | 6 calories | 14 calories | 28 calories | 56 calories |
*These are rounded numbers but they make a good point
Calories burned with jump squats per time frames
A somewhat less convenient way you can still use to burn a certain number of calories by doing jump squats is by keeping an eye on the number of minutes you do them.
Of course, your actual speed and how high you push yourself will matter and influence the amounts.
| Time Weight Person | 1 Minute | 5 Minutes | 15 Minutes | 30 Minutes | 60 Minutes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 125 Pounds (56 kg) | 8 calories | 39 calories | 118 calories | 236 calories | 473 calories |
| 155 Pounds (70 kg) | 10 calories | 49 calories | 146 calories | 293 calories | 586 calories |
| 185 Pounds (83 kg) | 12 calories | 58 calories | 175 calories | 350 calories | 699 calories |
| 215 Pounds (97 kg) | 14 calories | 68 calories | 203 calories | 406 calories | 813 calories |
Longer-term calorie burning effects from jump squats
Something important to keep in mind is that the estimations above are for during the workout. Jump squats can also influence how many calories you burn in longer time frames.
First of all, how much you weigh influences how much energy your body uses throughout the day.
One of the positive effects of jump squats is that they can help you build a nice amount of muscle mass. This extra healthy weight will help you burn more calories with everything you do.
Next, doing exercises at high intensities can also cause something called “afterburn”. This comes down to burning more calories for a certain amount of time after you stop working out.
These effects are hard to put into exact amounts but they definitely help in the bigger picture. Jump squats will be better for burning calories than the numbers above imply at first.
How to get more results from jump squats
The formula and tables above may give a different impression but how many calories you burn with jump squats is not something static. There are ways to get more results.
As long as you don’t overtrain, doing more jump squats will generally help you burn more calories.
That being said, most people struggle with fitting enough exercise into their busy routines. This means methods to increase the number of calories burned per minute will be more popular.
The first method is doing the right amounts of jump squats to build muscle. A good amount of the calorie-burning potential from this exercise comes from the leg muscle growth you can achieve.
Similar but not the same is that you can consider doing weighted jump squats instead of the body weight version. By having to move more weight, your body has to use up more energy.
Additionally, the muscles worked in jump squats are relatively strong so adding weights can benefit muscle growth (as long as you don’t injure yourself).
Lastly, you can do other resistance training exercises to build extra muscle mass in other areas. This will help you burn more calories throughout the day. Including in your jump squat sessions.
Are jump squats good for weight loss?
Jump squats burn a nice number of calories per minute but it is hard to do them for long periods of time. Because they can help you build muscle mass, jump squats can be good for weight loss in the long term.
However, you will likely still need to change your habits in other lifestyle areas and/or implement other workouts to see very significant results.
That being said, it can be interesting to see just how much jump squats can benefit weight loss. One pound of body fat is about 3500 calories (one kg +-8000 calories).
In practice, your results will depend a lot on what you eat and other things you do. Even so, let’s say you have a routine where you stay at the same weight, start implementing jump squats, and keep everything else the same.
10 sessions of 15 minutes of jump squats can help a 155-pound (70 kg) person burn an extra 1460 calories which is about 0.42 pounds of body fat. 30 sessions 4380 calories (= +- 1.25 pounds of body fat) and so on…
Are jump squats good for burning calories?
If you consider the extra muscle mass and afterburn, jump squats can help you burn a nice amount of calories.
At the same time, you want to keep in mind that there are jump squat alternatives and other exercises that could help you build more muscle mass or burn more calories in shorter amounts of time.
If the other benefits of jump squats like improving vertical height align with your training goals, you can consider this exercise anyway.
Even when you do this, it can be helpful to implement resistance training exercises for other muscles too. The extra muscle will help you burn more calories throughout the day including your jump squat repetitions.
Lastly, keep in mind that other lifestyle habits like nutrition are important when trying to lose weight no matter what workouts you do. It is possible to undo a week of workouts with one day of suboptimal eating.
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