Do you remember doing Jumping jacks in your childhood? It was fun during those times; wasn’t it really! But, did you know jumping jacks are not just about fun, they are a great cardio workout and they help you in releasing stress too. In today’s busy world we struggle to find out time for exercise or going to the gym, and in this we ignore our physical as well as mental health. However, if you were said that there is a life hack that everyone could make a part of their life, won’t it be really interesting to know?

Well! We are talking about the jumping jacks which can be a life hack which you can add to your routine and the best thing about it is, it is healthy but less time consuming. So, this is what we will be talking about in the following array of the article; “Jumping Jacks: How to do them and what are the health benefits?” Read on to discover about them.

Jumping Jacks: How To Do Them?

There are various forms of jumping jacks which can be done. Let’s talk about few of them here:

The Traditional Form Of Jumping Jacks:

Jumping could be really easy for most of us; however, jumping jacks surely require some hacks. They are not as easy as we used to jump over during our childhood. But let us explain the traditional form of jumping jacks in few steps.

Make sure you are standing absolutely straight. Ensure that your back, and your hands are straight, and hips over the heels and chin up. You need to relax your body and mind before you start jumping jacks so as to ease out the stress hormones.
Next step is to jump up by widening your hands all the way, making a note that the hands are above your shoulder width apart. You also need to know that while you are jumping, part both the legs sideways, widen them so that it helps in a smooth pumping up of your blood.
Now get back to the starting position.
Repeat the jump again and again till you sweat. Do it, at least 30 times. This will reduce your blood pressure and also release our body’s happy hormones.

Some Other Forms Of Doing Jumping Jacks:

Jumping jacks can also be done in various other forms. Few of them are listed below.

Alternate Jumping:

This kind of jumping jack also needs to start with the normal straight position, keeping both legs straight and absolutely closed together with your backs straight. Now, you need to move the left leg front and raise up the left hand, as if you are in a position of being ready to run. Alternately you need to change your hands and legs, as if you are running, however, ironically not moving forward. While doing the exercise stretch both your hands back and forth.

Front Clap And Upper Clap Jumping:

Front clap and upper clap jumping is another form of doing jumping jacks. For doing this, you need to stand straight with legs, and back straight and hands on your thighs. Now, by widening your legs apart, jump up and clap your hands above your head. Continue doing this around 25 times and then change the position of your hands for the front clap. Make sure you are stretching out your muscles while clapping, and it is also mandatory to inhale and exhale while doing the jumping jacks.

Some Tips To Know For Doing Jumping Jacks:

Though we talked about the ways to do jumping jacks; that is not enough. You need to know about some of the important tips for doing them. Below are some of them.
While doing jumping jacks, you need to inhale in the starting position and exhale when you are spreading your legs.

Also keep in mind to keep the tummy pulled back while you are inhaling and then release during the exhalation. This helps you in burning the tummy fats along with your muscles. Ensure that you tense the core muscles.

Remember to wear shoes while doing jumping jacks so as to avoid injuries; and make sure that you are wearing the most comfortable shoes.

What are the Health Benefits of Jumping Jacks?

Jumping jacks can make you healthier at body and mind. Let us take a look on some of the health benefits of jumping jacks.

They Help In Burning Calories And Help In Weight Loss:

One of the best health benefits of jumping jacks is they help in burning calories and in weight loss. When done correctly, jumping jacks could be one of the best exercises to burn calories. It actually burns around 100 calories in every 10 minutes. So, they could be beneficial in reducing some body weight when done for a longer period of time.

You must try and do about 100 jumping jacks and you will definitely going to sweat a lot because your body takes energy to do the jumping jacks and that would burn too much calories and help you lose weight.

One more weight loss benefit that jumping jacks offer you is that it helps in increasing your body’s metabolic rate. The more you exercise by doing, jumping jacks or some other exercise, the more your metabolism increases and the longer the metabolism stays that manner. This in turn helps you in your weight loss mission.

Jumping Jacks Tone Up Your Muscles:

Another health benefit of jumping jacks is that they tone your muscles up. The position of doing this exercise tones up your muscles and also makes you fit for the life. You are moving mostly all your body parts while doing jumping jacks. The toner and stronger your muscles get, the more fit you look.

Heart Health Benefits Of Jumping Jacks:

Heart health benefits of jumping jacks must not be neglected. Being a cardio workout, jumping jacks make use of oxygen so as to meet the energy demands, and this in turn stimulates the heart muscles. Ultimately the pumping of your heart muscles gives you a chance to reduce the risk of heart blockage or heart strokes.

They Are An Excellent Cardiovascular Exercise:

As we talked above, jumping jacks are an excellent cardiovascular exercise. Doing regular jumping jacks can be great for the heart and lungs and improve your cardiovascular health. They train your heart and your lungs to become stronger every time you perform them. Training your heart to become stronger helps in reducing the blood pressure, lowers the resting heart rate, and this in turn increase the heart health.

A healthy heart reduces the chances of developing arterial or heart disease, helps in controlling cholesterol levels, and also diabetes. You are less likely to suffer from heart attack or heart stroke with a healthy heart.

It’s not just for the heart, jumping jacks also helps improving the function of your lungs. Jumping jacks, slowly train the lungs for being able enough to absorb more of oxygen, process more of it, and also to send the processed oxygen to the muscles and also rest of your body. You need to note that the more efficient your lungs are, the more your body’s muscles will be able to work for a long period of time, because they get oxygen that they require from the well functioning healthy lungs.

You Build Strong Muscles Through Jumping Jacks:

Jumping jacks can also build strong muscles. It builds bigger and leaner muscles when you do lots of jumping jacks. While doing jumping jacks, we swing our arms from a hanging position to above the head and this trains the muscles in our arms to get stronger slowly.

Moreover, jumping jacks involves jumping that makes your leg muscles stronger. Jumping jacks benefit your glutes, quads, hamstrings, calves, and all other leg muscles.

Having stronger legs you can stand for a long time, run faster, and jump higher too. More developed leg muscles also help you in improving your balance. One more benefit of having stronger leg and stronger arms is that it helps in improving your physical performance and also make you look and feel better.

They Help In Building Bones:

There is another health benefit of jumping jacks. They help you in building stronger bones. By doing regular jumping jacks you can actually train your bones to get stronger and bigger in the way you do it for your muscles.

Each time you land on both of your feet, gravity and your body weight pulls them towards the ground and puts a great amount of stress on the bones, which translates in to an increase amount of weight being kept on your bones.

This type of exercise causes your osteoblasts, or the cells found in your bones which produce bone matter, to lay more matter. ⁽²⁾ This in turn makes your bones stronger, denser, thicker and bigger too. So, the end result is that doing jumping jacks can make your bones more resilient towards anything that you throw at them.

We must mention that building stronger and healthier bones is especially important as you get older. It can stave off various conditions like the degenerative bone diseases.

Jumping Jacks Helps In Increasing Coordination:

One more health benefit of doing regular jumping jacks is that they help you increase your coordination over time. ⁽³⁾ This happens because jumping jacks requires a decent amount of coordination so as to do them in a right way and while doing them steadily for some days. By having to constantly coordinate a jumping motion by raising and lowering your hands, you are training your coordination to get better day by day.

They Help You Release Stress:

One of the most important health benefits of jumping jacks is that they help in releasing stress. They are wonderful aerobic exercises that release the endorphins or the happy hormones and reduce stress and mental pain. So, if you feel you are quite stressed out due to your busy schedule then jumping jacks are the ones which you need to try out.

Jumping Jacks Make You Happier:

Who does not love to be happy? In fact we all do! So, how do you feel when we say that Jumping jacks can help you in making you a happier and a less stressed and less anxious person? Doing this exercise, our brain starts releasing lots of specific neurochemicals, known as Serotonin, endocannabinoids, and dopamine, all of which have got effect on elevating your mood, and providing you a better sense of relaxation, thus making you feel less pained and more elated. Doing jumping jacks can help you in reducing stress and anxiety and make you happier.

Conclusion:

If you haven’t really started doing jumping jacks then this is the right time you need to start doing. They are not just great exercise with so many health benefits but also they are quite simple and inexpensive to do. You can do jumping jacks anywhere and anytime to experience a stronger, healthier as well as a healthier you!

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Also Read:

What are the Benefits of Doing Jumping Jacks?

Jumping Jacks: How To Do Them And What Are The Health Benefits?