Can 1000 Jumping Jacks a Week Make You Lose a Pound?

Written by William McCoy

25 August, 2013

Fact Checked

Losing weight doesn't have to take place in a gym, nor with the help of the latest crash diet. An old-fashioned, sweaty workout can contribute to weight loss, and if you enjoy exercising without leaving home, up-tempo exercises such as jumping jacks are ideal. This simple workout can contribute to weight loss over time, but performing 1,000 jumping jacks per week is unlikely to help you lose a pound.

Losing a Pound

Losing a pound of fat in a week might not seem as though it's much of a success, especially if you hope to trim a significant amount of weight. Setting a modest, practical weight-loss goal, however, can allow you to find success week by week as you work toward your overall goal. MayoClinic.com recommends setting attainable goals when you try to lose weight and notes losing a pound per week is plausible. To lose a pound, you must burn 3,500 calories more than you consume over the course of the week.

Losing a pound of fat in a week might not seem as though it's much of a success, especially if you hope to trim a significant amount of weight.
Setting a modest, practical weight-loss goal, however, can allow you to find success week by week as you work toward your overall goal.

Jumping Jacks Workout

Can Doing Ballet Poses Help Lose Weight?

Learn More

Everyone performs jumping jacks at a different rate, but performing this calisthenic exercise at an up-tempo rate of one repetition per second is reasonable. At this vigorous pace, you'd perform 60 jumping jacks per minute and 300 jumping jacks in five minutes. HealthStatus notes a person who weighs 180 pounds and performs vigorous jumping jacks for five minutes will burn 54 calories. Using these calculators, this person would burn fewer than 200 calories while performing 1,000 jumping jacks. A 200-calorie workout is unlikely to help you lose a pound per week, given you'd need to average a calorie deficit of 500 calories per day over seven days.

Everyone performs jumping jacks at a different rate, but performing this calisthenic exercise at an up-tempo rate of one repetition per second is reasonable.
At this vigorous pace, you'd perform 60 jumping jacks per minute and 300 jumping jacks in five minutes.

Aerobic Workouts

Frequent aerobic exercise is an effective way to work toward your goal of losing a pound per week. While jumping jacks are aerobic in nature, their low calorie burn makes them a better complement to your workout routine. Aiming to get around 300 minutes of aerobic exercise each week puts you on the right track to losing weight; to increase your chance of success, incorporate jumping jacks into an aerobic routine that includes such activities as jogging and cycling.

Jumping Jacks Considerations

How Much Weight Is Lost Doing 20 Minutes on the Stair Stepper?

Learn More

If you're determined to use jumping jacks as your lone method of losing a pound per week, you'll have to perform this exercise extensively. Although your diet and daily activities also play a role in how quickly you'll lose weight, the fact remains that upon relying solely on jumping jacks, you must aim to perform them for about 300 minutes per week to give yourself a realistic chance of losing weight. If you have trouble including them in your daily routine, try performing them upon waking up, during spare time throughout the day and even while watching TV.