What you'll gain

Raises heart rate using nothing but bodyweight and a small footprint.
Works legs, hips, trunk and shoulders in one simple repeating pattern.
Scales down to a low-impact stepping version for any fitness level.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1
Stand tall with your legs straight and your arms at your sides.
2
Bend your knees slightly and load the feet ready to jump.
3
Jump your feet out past hip width as your arms sweep overhead.
4
Land softly through the whole foot with the knees slightly bent.
5
Jump the feet back together and bring your arms down to your sides.
6
Keep the rhythm continuous for the prescribed time or repetitions.

Common Mistakes

Landing with straight, locked knees, which sends impact into the joints.
Cutting the arm sweep short, which drops the shoulder work and the heart rate.
Performing them on concrete, which raises injury risk on repeated landings.
Piling on volume with no strength base, which the joints will register first.

About This Exercise

The jumping jack is the simplest whole-body cardio movement there is: jump the feet wider than hip width while the arms sweep overhead, then jump back to the start. The load falls on the glutes, quadriceps and hip flexors, with the abdominal and shoulder muscles working to open and close the arms, and the calves absorbing each landing. It is classified as jump training, so the same landing rules that govern plyometrics apply: soft contacts, a base level of conditioning first, and avoid hard surfaces such as concrete. For a catalog this clip earns its place in almost every warm-up and bodyweight circuit shipped in an app. Use it in no-equipment programs, warm-up sequences, timed circuits, and kids or beginner content where the pattern must be instantly recognizable.

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