Jumping jacks do not only look like an intense exercise. They can also offer you a few interesting results as long as you do enough of them.
The results of jumping jacks that are easiest to put into numbers are the amounts of calories burned.
A 155-pound (70 kg) person will burn around 73 calories with 500 jumping jacks. You will need to do this for about 48 days to see a pound (0.45kg) of fat loss.
That being said, this exercise also offers other helpful benefits which include potentially improving your muscle endurance, bone density, cardiovascular system, mood, and cognitive performance.
Exactly how many jumping jacks you need for these other results is hard to put into specific numbers.
That being said, you can experience some of these positive effects like mood improvements as soon as your first few repetitions. Other effects like bone density take longer to happen.
Can help you burn more calories
As briefly mentioned, jumping jacks can help you burn more calories since they involve moving your body more intensely than usual.
Burning more calories is such a popular goal because excess body fat is harmful to your health.
In combination with good lifestyle habits in other areas, the calorie-burning effects from jumping jacks can help you see (belly) fat loss results.
It is also possible to give more specific estimations about what you can expect from a workout with jumping jacks.
A 155-pound (70 kg) will burn around 110 calories when doing jumping jacks at a vigorous pace of 50 repetitions per minute.
With these numbers, you can also calculate interesting estimations like that this same person will burn around 147 calories with 1000 jumping jacks.
Similarly, this allows you to put a number on how many jumping jacks you need to do to hit your weight loss goals.
You do want to remember to make changes in other lifestyle areas like nutrition too. Doing a lot of jumping jacks will not lead to weight loss if these other habits are suboptimal.
Your muscle endurance could improve
The first thing to note about this next result is that jumping jacks will be cardio for most people. That means you should not really expect much, if any, muscle growth or strength increases from this movement.
At the same time, working muscles all over your body can still offer benefits. More precisely, jumping jacks can help improve muscle endurance, slow down muscle degradation, and make your muscles healthier.
You can expect these effects in your deltoids (shoulder muscles), latissimus dorsi (middle/upper back muscle), outer thigh muscles, inner thigh muscles, calves, abs, obliques, lower back muscles, and to some extent quadriceps, glutes, and hamstrings.
To take a popular specific example, jumping jacks do not give you bigger abs. However, you can expect muscle endurance improvements in this area a few weeks after doing jumping jacks more often.
If you really want to grow and strengthen all the muscles mentioned, you want to implement resistance training exercises like pull-ups, lunges, and crunches.
You may bump into fewer things
A more unexpected result of jumping jacks is that they could help you avoid bumping into things, misstepping, and miss-grabbing.
Balance and coordination are skills that can be trained. Jumping jacks are not the most challenging exercise in this area but they could be enough to see some improvements in arm and leg coordination.
Bumping into things sounds and can be relatively innocent but better leg coordination can help you avoid taking missteps in more serious locations like the top of a staircase.
Your bones could become stronger
Not everyone is aware of it but your bones work similarly to other body parts in the way that putting them under safe amounts of extra pressure can lead to stronger bones (1, 2, 3).
Stronger bones can help you avoid fractures and not just tomorrow or this week. Even if you are currently a young and healthy individual, strengthening your bones now can offer positive effects for years to come.
The more pressure you can safely put on your bones, the more results you can expect. That means lifting heavy weights will generally strengthen your bones more than jumping jacks.
However, in turn, activities like jumping jacks and running tend to be better for this goal than something like swimming.
You may not get out of breath as easily
Part of being a cardiovascular exercise is that jumping jacks will work your cardiovascular system harder than usual.
This system includes body parts like your lungs, heart, and blood vessels which are responsible for extracting oxygen from the air and moving oxygen, nutrients, and waste products around your body.
During intenser movements like jumping jacks, these things will have to happen at higher rates. In turn, you get the increased cardiovascular engagement.
This is a good thing in safe amounts because challenges can strengthen this cardiovascular system. Stronger cardiovascular systems tend to have a lower risk of related conditions (4, 5, 6).
Another benefit of doing cardiovascular exercises like jumping jacks more often is that you will likely get out of breath less easily. This can make daily activities like climbing the stairs more pleasant.
You may think more quickly
Exercise like jumping jacks can also benefit cognitive performance in different ways.
First of all, exercise can reduce your risk of conditions like Alzheimer’s disease (7).
More generally, jumping jacks can also improve your brain plasticity (8, 9, 10). This seems to help with seeing connections between things faster, learning faster, and remembering things better.
With these things in mind, it is easy to see how adding workouts with something like 100 or more jumping jacks can offer positive results in areas like your job performance, academic performance, and much more.
Your mood may become better
The state and actions of your body actually influence your mood and thoughts in a variety of ways.
First of all, doing jumping jacks can help you reduce your risk of conditions that make you feel worse.
On the flip side, there are faster and more direct results for your mood too.
Exercise promotes the release of substances called endorphins which are so-called “feel-good hormones” because they have the potential to improve your mood (11, 12, 13).
Additionally, you will likely feel proud and satisfied about doing something challenging that is good for you.
These last two effects can take place as soon as after your first few jumping jacks.
