If you want to get back into shape, burn away those unsightly love handles, get a strong body from top to bottom, and be a healthy person in general, it’s time to start working out, and there is no better place to start than with the good old box jump. You may be wondering why box jumps are so great and why we would even be talking about them.
Well, the fact of the matter is that the benefits of box jumps are very diverse and can go a very long way in making you a fit and healthy person with a fantastic looking beach body. Box jumps aren’t just for people training for a specific sport though, because they hold the same benefits for everybody and anybody. Keep reading to find out what all of the wonderful benefits are that box jumping holds for you!
Benefit #1: Strengthen Your Legs
One of the biggest benefits that you can get from doing box jumps is that it helps to greatly increase the size and strength of your legs, because after all, box jumps primarily involve using your leg muscles to perform the exercise.
It takes a whole lot of strength to do box jumps, especially in your legs, and while you may not be able to jump all that high at first, you will slowly get better and better at it. When you jump up onto a box, especially when it is 20 inches or higher in height, you really need to engage every single muscle in both of your legs to get up there.
You engage your calves, your quads, hamstrings, glutes, and everything else. Over time you will definitely notice that your legs are getting much stronger. This type of exercise is one of the best possible things that you can do for the strength of your legs.
The results for your legs are great because everyone can benefit from toned leg muscles. Things like jumping, running, walking up stairs, and even just standing around for long periods of time are made much easier through the virtue of having stronger leg muscles.
Stronger, bigger, and more toned muscles are not only good because of the increased strength that you will gain, but it will also make you look really good in your swim suit too!
Benefit #2: A Stronger Core & More Powerful Arms
Your legs aren’t the only parts of your body that benefit from doing box jumps and this is because you don’t use only your legs when doing them. When you do a box jump you have to use your arms to make the most of it.
You have to swing your arms forward and upward in order to give you enough force to propel yourself up onto that box. This has the result of slowly training bigger and stronger arm muscles over a prolonged period of box jumping, not to mention that it helps train your wings too.
That still is not all, because box jumps also force you to engage your lower back and your core, at least if you do them properly. When you do a box jump you should be clenching your stomach muscles as you get ready to jump, and when you do jump you release your tightened abdominals in order to get that explosive strength to get you up onto the box.
This will of course result in stronger abdominal muscles and a more powerful core in general. As you can see, box jumps can make your whole body stronger from top to bottom. Having bigger and more toned arms and core will also make you look a lot better the next time you decide to go to the beach.
Benefit #3: Better Balance
Yet another huge benefit that you can get from doing box jumps is that they will over time train your balance. The main reason for this is because box jumps force you to land on a small surface with both of your feet at the same time.
If you don’t land with both of your feet at the same time, or if they aren’t in the same position, chances are that you won’t make a successful jump, and might just fall on your butt. This forces you to use every ounce of concentration that you have in order to not fall down, and over time this will get much easier, or in other words, your balance will get better with practice.
This has in large to do with the things in your muscles called proprioceptors, which are the nerves that account for positional changes. Every time you change position, move, or jump, your proprioceptors register it and will force your muscles and your body in general to shift itself accordingly in order to stay upright.
Your proprioceptors can be trained to work quicker and more efficiently just like anything else in your body. Therefore, the more box jumps you do, the more you train your proprioceptors, and the better they become at quickly accounting for positional shifts in order to keep you balanced and upright.
There is also the fact that your balance does also have to do with the strength of your legs. Since box jumps make your legs much stronger, they have the increased ability to keep you upright.
Strong legs make for a solid foundation, and that can help prevent slips, falls, and possible injuries too. Having great balance is very important for a number of different reasons and doing box jumps can definitely help you with that.
Benefit #4: Better Posture
The next benefit that you can get from doing box jumps has to do with something that we mentioned before, which is that box jumps create a stronger core, or in other words, stronger stomach and lower back muscles.
Having a stronger core is not only good for you because it lets you do sit ups with ease, plus it makes you look really good in the mirror, but also because a stronger core will go a long way in improving your posture.
Having good posture is a pretty important thing and it is not only because it provides you with a straight back instead of a hunch back. On a side note, having a hunched back makes you look less confident, as opposed to when you stand straight up.
Anyway, having a straight back in most circumstances is beneficial because it will reduce the chances of suffering from lower back injuries, plus it will reduce the occurrence of back pain due to incorrect posture.
Just think about how much your back starts to hurt when you sit at a computer all day with your back hunched over and your face in the screen. Posture is not only manners, it is also good back health.
Benefit #5: Increased Physical Performance
The next thing that doing box jumps can do for you is that they will go a long way in increasing your physical performance. As we have already mentioned, doing box jumps will go a long way in increasing your overall strength from the top to the bottom of your body, plus they also help to increase your balance.
Of course, being strong is beneficial for a wide variety of reasons, least of which is physical performance. Having a stronger body will benefit you when you are playing soccer because you can kick harder, in baseball because you can throw and hit the ball harder, and in contact sports because you have an increased ability to tackle others or resist tackles by others.
Plus, as we will talk about soon, doing box jumps, if you do them quickly or do them as a part of a circuit, will also help to increase your cardiovascular health, and thus increase your endurance at the same time too, with endurance being one of the most important deciding factors when it comes to your ability to perform any kind of physical exercise for more than 5 or 10 minutes.
Benefit #6: Cardio Benefits – Health & Endurance
Doing box jumps can actually be pretty good for your cardiovascular health, and for your heart and lungs in general. This may not be true if you take your sweet time doing them, but if you do box jumps in rapid succession, they will definitely get your lungs heaving and your heart pumping at an increased rate.
Both your heart and your lungs can be trained to be stronger and more efficient, which of course takes place through various forms of cardiovascular exercises, and in this case that comes as the box jump.
With box jumps, you can train your heart to be more efficient at pumping blood around your body, especially to your muscles, and your muscles need blood and oxygen to continuing functioning properly. Therefore a stronger cardiovascular system will lead to increased physical performance, among other things.
A stronger heart also means that you will lower your blood pressure, have a lower resting heart rate, a reduction in bad cholesterol, a reduction in heart and arterial disease, and a reduction in the chances of suffering from a stroke or heart attack.
There is also the fact that having stronger lungs is good for you because when you train them through cardiovascular exercise, they increase their ability to absorb oxygen and process it.
Therefore box jumps can help your lungs send more oxygen to your muscles, thus also increasing physical performance, not to mention that you won’t get winded as quickly, something that also helps improve your physical performance.
Overall, box jumps make for some pretty decent cardiovascular exercise, something which in the long run will increase your endurance and ability to work out or perform physical activities for prolonged periods of time, not to mention that having stronger muscles also increases your endurance.
Benefit #7: Burning Calories & Fat
Yet another big benefit that you can reap from doing box jumps on a regular basis is that they will help you burn a serious number of calories, thus contributing to a healthy weight level. We aren’t saying that you should do box jumps for a whole hour, but just to be technical about it, a whole hour of box jumps can help you burn up to 1000 calories, which is just about half of your daily required caloric intake.
Of course, your body uses calories, which it then turns into energy for you to use for your day, but if you haven’t eaten a big breakfast and don’t have too many calories floating around, your body will turn to your fat reserves in order to get the energy it needs to do the box jumps, as well as to get you through your day.
In the long run, this will have the result of helping you shed those unsightly pounds, plus to keep them off too. Doing exercises like box jumps will also help to increase your metabolic rate, therefore increasing the number of calories that you burn on a daily basis, thus also contributing to your overall weight loss goals.
Box jumps will go so far as to increase your EPOC, which is your exercise post oxygen consumption. In other words, box jumps will actually rev up your metabolism and keep it that way for the rest of your day, thus furthering your weight loss endeavors and putting you well on track to a slim and healthy looking body.
Benefit #8: They Are Good Motivation & Competition
Another positive aspect of doing box jumps is that they are very motivational in nature. For many people perhaps the hardest part about any exercise routine is finding the motivation to actually get started, not to mention to keep going after a few minutes. It’s one of the main reasons as to why people don’t work out because they just aren’t motivated.
Well, box jumps are a great solution to this motivation conundrum, because they push you to achieve more and more every single time you jump. It feels great to jump a certain height, and it feels even better when you can jump an inch higher than last time. With box jumps it is really easy to set a goal in terms of jump height, something which definitely helps you stay motivated and on track to success.
Even better in terms of motivation is that box jumping can be a competitive thing that you do with other people. Put boxes or any other sturdy piece of equipment side by side with someone else and see who can jump higher, plus you can do this over time to see who progresses faster. Competition is motivation and box jumps make for some good competition no doubt.
Benefit #9: Increase Your Confidence & Self-Esteem
The next thing that is really beneficial about box jumping is that it helps to increase your self-confidence and the way that you perceive yourself. Simply put, it just feels great to know how high you can jump, not to mention knowing that you are improving every time that you do some more training.
There is also the fact that they make you much stronger, they help you lose weight, and they make you physically fit. Therefore you can feel confident in your body and it always feels good to have a muscular and pot belly free figure staring back at you in the mirror, plus you know that you have great physical capabilities and endurance too. It feels great to look good and it feels even better when you know that you are a stamina filled powerhouse.
Benefit #10: They’re Cheap & Can Be Equipment Free
Paying a ton of money to get back into shape is never fun and it certainly is not ideal. Gym memberships can cost in excess of 100 dollars per month, plus standard exercise equipment such as a stationary bike, a set of weights, or even a home gym will also put you back quite considerably.
Well, box jumping is a prime solution to this problem because you need barely any equipment, if any at all, to get started. Sure, there are special pieces of box jump equipment that you can get which are specific to the exercise, but even that is not completely necessary.
You can always choose to do box jumps on a ledge, on stairs, or if you are really looking to test yourself, you can even do them on a sturdy table too. If you want to save money and space, box jumps are definitely a great way to go.
Conclusion
As you can see, the benefits of box jumps are very vast in their nature and they can serve to make you a happier person, a person that has a good weight level, a person with strong muscles, they increase your balance, your heart health, and your physical performance too. There are so many different things that box jumps will do for you, plus they are inexpensive and can be done virtually anywhere too.
If you haven’t already tried doing a few challenging box jumps, you might just want to get started today. Any comments or questions about box jumps are much appreciated!