Jump Squats

What you'll gain

• Builds explosive lower-body power for sport and athletic performance.

• Drives heart rate up fast for conditioning and fat loss.

• Improves landing mechanics and joint resilience under impact.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. 1

   Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and your arms relaxed at your sides.

2. 2

   Drop quickly into a quarter to half squat by bending your knees and pushing your hips back.

3. 3

   Swing your arms back as you lower to load momentum for the jump.

4. 4

   Explode upward by extending the hips, knees, and ankles all at once, throwing your arms up overhead.

5. 5

   Land softly with bent knees and immediately absorb back into the squat position to cushion the impact.

6. 6

   Reset for half a second at the bottom and launch into the next rep with the same explosive intent.

Common Mistakes

• Landing with locked-out, straight legs, which slams force through the knees and ankles.

• Squatting too deep before the jump, which kills the spring and slows down the movement.

• Letting the knees cave inward on landing, which strains the knees and shifts work off the glutes.

• Slumping the chest forward at the bottom, which makes the launch weak and stresses the lower back.

About This Exercise

The jump squat is the most common lower-body plyometric in any program. You drop into a quick squat, then explode upward into a vertical jump, and absorb the landing back into the squat position. The point isn't depth — it's speed and force production. The glutes and quads do the work, while the calves and core support the launch and landing. For app and course content, this clip lives in HIIT circuits, conditioning blocks, athletic prep tracks, and metabolic warmups. It's a low-equipment, high-impact way to add power training to any bodyweight program. Drop it in your conditioning library and pair with squats and lunges to build out a full bodyweight leg-training set. A useful piece for sport-prep apps and home-fitness platforms alike.

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