fitness
This is what happens when you do this kids exercise daily
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Most people still know the jumping jack from physical education. But even as adults, we should do jumping jacks more often, because they do a lot for our health.
When was the last time you did a jumping jack? For many people, the answer will probably be: sometime as a child. Maybe at school, maybe at play. It’s easy to underestimate how many benefits this childhood exercise can bring to our fitness routine—even as adults. Jumping jacks, or star jumps as they are also known, are an effective full-body exercise that challenges both our muscles and our endurance. This is what happens when we practice them regularly.
These things happen when you do jumping jacks every day
1. Good heart health
Jumping jacks train our endurance and can help to lower our blood pressure, among other things. They help us to improve our heart health and reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases, including heart attacks.
2. Strong legs + hips
Basically, jumping jacks activate your entire body. The exercise has the strongest effect on the thigh and buttock muscles and the hip flexors. The abdominal and shoulder muscles also have to work, although not as much as our legs and hips. Regular jumping jacks can help prevent back pain, for example, because tension and shortening of the hip muscles are just as often responsible for back problems as tense shoulders.
Jumping jacks are easy as pie, but very effective.
© lioputra / Adobe Stock
3. Improved bone density
Just like burpees or squat jumps, jumping jacks are so-called plyometric exercises. This means that the muscles are alternately stretched and contracted. Plyometric training has many benefits for the Health, among other things, exercises like jumping jacks can increase our bone density. This can protect against diseases such as osteoporosis.
4. Healthy weight
Sport in general and endurance sports and exercises in particular burn energy. If you practice jumping jacks for two minutes, you will already burn around 19 calories, in ten minutes around 94 calories. Regularly incorporating jumping jacks into your fitness routine can help you achieve and maintain a healthy weight.
5. Good coordination
In addition, jumping jacks require a high level of coordination. For the combination of different movements of the feet, legs and arms we need a good concentration. So we not only train our body, but also our brain.
Sources used: healthline.com, themanual.com, nike.com