Jumping Jacks Calories Burned Calculator
Depending on your weight and exercise intensity, you’ll burn about 10.7 calories for each minute you do jumping jacks, which equates to 642 calories per hour.
Doing the math, if you do 25 jumping jacks in one minute, 1 jumping jack equals about 0.43 calories and doing 100 jumping jacks will allow you to burn about 43 calories.
Calories Burned with Home Exercises (Weight: 175lbs)
| MET | 15 mins. | 30 mins. | 45 mins. | 60 mins. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abs Exercises | 7 | 146 | 292 | 438 | 583 |
| Burpees | 8 | 167 | 333 | 500 | 667 |
| Jumping Rope | 8.8 | 183 | 367 | 550 | 733 |
| Squats | 5.5 | 115 | 229 | 344 | 458 |
| Jumping Jacks | 7.7 | 160 | 321 | 481 | 642 |
| Sit-Ups | 8 | 167 | 333 | 500 | 667 |
| Lunges | 4 | 83 | 167 | 250 | 333 |
| Kettlebells | 8 | 167 | 333 | 500 | 667 |
| Push-Ups | 3.8 | 79 | 158 | 238 | 317 |
| Rowing | 4.8 | 100 | 200 | 300 | 400 |
| Bridges | 3 | 63 | 125 | 188 | 250 |
How to Do Jumping Jacks
The best part about jumping jacks is that they are very easy to do and they don’t require any additional equipment. However, adding equipment and doing jumping jack variations can provide additional muscle-building benefits.
- Start by standing up with your legs together, with a slight bend in your knees, and hands resting on your thighs.
- Keep your knees bent and open your arms and legs out to the sides. Then your arms will come above the head and your legs expand wider than the shoulders at the same time.
- Close your arms and legs back to your sides and return to the start.
- You can do as many repetitions as you want, but we suggest doing at least 25 jumping jacks each set to get the most benefits.
Jumping Jacks Tips
Doing jumping jacks for long periods of time or as part of your regular workout routine can be taxing on your bones and joints. That’s why we recommend doing jumping jacks on a softer surface such as a workout mat to avoid unnecessary stress on your body.
You may also be surprised to find out that jumping jacks are a compound exercise, meaning they work many different muscle groups. When you keep your core engaged doing jumping jacks, it fires up your back and abdominals and helps to build muscle in those areas.
Some additional benefits from performing sit-ups include:
- Better balance and stability
- Increased flexibility
- Athletic performance
- Improved posture
Benefits of Jumping Jacks
Doing jumping jacks may sound like a breeze, but you need to do them correctly in order to get the full benefits that this exercise provides. Be sure to take time to practice with the correct form before you start incorporating jumping jacks into your regular workout routine.
1. Burning calories
The best benefit of doing jumping jacks is the ability to burn a lot of calories. As we will get into later, jumping jacks require a significant amount of energy to perform and have a very high MET value.
By burning calories and adding in regular strength training, you’ll burn enough calories to lose body fat as long as you remain in a caloric deficit during the day.
2. Great cardio
Jumping jacks are one of the best cardio exercises you can do to improve your heart health since you’re keeping your heart rate up while doing the exercise.
Doing regular cardio is known to improve your health markers like blood pressure and body fat percentage [1], and also improves your overall stamina and endurance.
3. Building muscle
You may think that jumping jacks won’t build a lot of muscle since you don’t need any additional equipment to do the exercise. However, this exercise can be great if you’re looking to put on size and strength without putting as much pressure on your bones and joints.
Since jumping jacks work all the major muscle groups in your legs, you can expect to put on muscle in these areas if you regularly do jumping jacks as part of your workout routine.
By building strength in your legs with jumping jacks, the strength will translate to other exercises and allow you to lift more weight and hit PRs.
How the Calculator Works
Our jumping jacks calculator uses MET values and gives you an approximate number of calories you can expect to burn while doing this activity and other similar exercises. The higher the MET value, the more calories you will burn since you have to expend more energy.
What Are MET Values?
Now that you know how the calculator works, you need to understand exactly what a MET value is and how it works.
MET stands for metabolic equivalent of task, and the values allow us to give you an estimated expenditure of energy for many different activities, like jumping jacks.
A MET value is a ratio between the working metabolic rate and the resting metabolic rate [2], which is the amount of energy that is used in comparison to the duration of time spent doing the activity.
One way to think of MET values is that a MET value of 1 is the equivalent of the amount of energy you expend while at rest, and a MET value of 7 means you are expending 7 times as much energy compared to being at rest.
Most common activities have MET values assigned to them, and you can check out all the other calculators we have on our website. You’ll be surprised to find that activities like painting, hunting, and mowing the lawn have MET values assigned to them!
Formula
The formula that our jumping jacks calculator uses to determine the number of calories burned per minute is (bodyweight in Kg x MET x 3.5) ÷ 200.
Examples
A person weighing 175 pounds will burn approximately 642 calories per hour from doing jumping jacks at a normal pace. This activity has a MET of 7.7, which means that it burns over 7 times as many calories compared to being at rest.
This is what the formula for calculating the calories burned while doing jumping jacks will look like for a 175-pound individual at a MET value of 7.7.
- Calories burned (per minute) = (body weight in kg x MET x 5) ÷ 200
- Calories burned (per minute) = ( 79.4 x 7 x 3.5 ) ÷ 200
- Calories burned (per minute) = 7 calories x 60
- Calories burned (per hour) = 642 calories per hour
Calories Burned in Jumping Jack
This chart is based on average number of jumping jacks per minute (about 50 jumping jacks per minute).
| Weight | Jumping Jacks | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| – | 10 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 50 | 100 | 200 | 300 |
| 130 lbs | 2 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 17 | 33 | 50 |
| 140 lbs | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 18 | 36 | 53 |
| 150 lbs | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 19 | 38 | 57 |
| 160 lbs | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 20 | 40 | 61 |
| 170 lbs | 2 | 4 | 6 | 9 | 11 | 22 | 43 | 66 |
| 180 lbs | 2 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 23 | 46 | 69 |
| 190 lbs | 2 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 12 | 24 | 48 | 72 |
| 200 lbs | 3 | 5 | 8 | 10 | 13 | 25 | 51 | 76 |
| 210 lbs | 3 | 5 | 8 | 11 | 13 | 27 | 53 | 80 |
| 220 lbs | 3 | 6 | 8 | 11 | 14 | 28 | 56 | 84 |
Jumping Jack Variations
While doing the basic jumping jack provides you with many of the benefits that we’ve listed, there are several variations that you should try if you want to target other muscle groups in addition to your lower body.
Press jack
If you’re looking to work your shoulders more while doing jumping jacks, the press jack is a great variation that you should try. This jumping jack variation uses added resistance like a medicine ball to make it more challenging.
To perform the press jack, hold a weight or ball in both hands at chest height and stand tall with your feet together. Then jump your feet out to the side, about shoulder-width apart or wider as you press the ball or weight overhead. Then press your arms straight up toward the ceiling and jump your feet back together and bring the weight/ball back down to your chest.
The press jack is a simple variation that can help to put on size on your upper body, which the regular jumping jack doesn’t allow you to do as effectively.
Crossover jacks
The crossover jack is a great way to test your coordination if you are looking for something a little more challenging rather than your standard jumping jack, and doing this jumping jack variation can be helpful to do as a warmup to get your body in motion before doing other exercises.
- To do a crossover jack, stand straight with your feet shoulder-width apart and your arms up and extended to the sides.
- Jump up and cross your left leg in front of the right, and your left arm on top of the right.
- Jump again and return to the starting position.
- Repeat, and reverse the position of your arms and legs.
More Calorie Calculators
Try out our other calorie-based calculators below.
- Calories Burned Pilates
- Calories Burned Yoga
- Calories Burned Walking
- Calories Burned Running
- Calories Burned Hiking
- Calories Burned Elliptical
- Calories Burned Weightlifting
- Calories Burned Jump rope
- Calories Burned Playing Badminton
- Calories Burned Backpacking
- Calories Burned Chopping Wood
- Calories Burned From Archery
- Calorie Deficit Calculator
The Bottom Line
No matter what type of jumping jack variation you choose to do, you’ll get all the benefits we’ve discussed and even more if you decide to add additional resistance to the exercise.
Jumping jacks can also be a great way to burn some extra calories or even to use to warm up for your big lifts like squats and bench press.
Use our jumping jacks calculator to get an idea of how many calories you can expect to burn and check out all the other calculators that we have to offer at Fitness Volt!
References:
- Igarashi Y, Nogami Y. Running to Lower Resting Blood Pressure: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Sports Med. 2020 Mar;50(3):531-541. doi: 10.1007/s40279-019-01209-3. PMID: 31677122.
- Jetté, M., Sidney, K., & Blümchen, G. (1990). Metabolic equivalents (METS) in exercise testing, exercise prescription, and evaluation of functional capacity. Clinical cardiology, 13(8), 555–565. https://doi.org/10.1002/clc.4960130809
