5 Benefits Of The Frog Jump Exercise And How To Perform It

There is an endless number of exercises that you can include in your training program. So many, in fact, that it can become overwhelming and difficult to filter out the very best ones.

I have struggled for hours in the past trying to decide on which exercises should be included in my routine. That was until I came up with this simple criteria: Choose exercises that provide the widest array of benefits

The most effective exercises are the ones that cover a number of bases. The ones that give you the most “bang for your buck”.

The frog jump exercise definitely fits into this category of great exercises. If you are looking for an exercise that you can use to power up your thighs, tone your glutes and burn fat then the frog jump exercise has to be considered.

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1. Total Lower Body Strengthening

The frog jump belongs to a unique category of exercises that work your entire lower body. It is what is known as a compound movement; a movement that requires motion at more than one joint and involves multiple muscle groups.

The frog jump exercise involves flexion and extension of your ankle joint, which means your calves are heavily involved. As well as your ankles, flexion and extension of your knees make the frog jump an excellent choice for strengthening your quadriceps and hamstrings.

Finally, the movement at your hips brings your powerful glute muscles into play.

There really aren’t too many exercises that can boast the use of so many big and powerful muscles all at the same time.

2. Improves Athletic Performance

Following on from the last point, the frog jump exercise demands all of your lower body muscles to work together to produce power. Most team sports and athletic endeavours demand the exact same thing of your lower body. Building stronger, more powerful legs, hips and glutes will transfer over to your sport or event.

Take sprinting, for example, the fastest runners will be extremely effective at flexing their hips before extending them quickly and explosively. As I spoke about earlier, the frog jump exercise works this hip flexion and extension movement perfectly.

Outside of just strengthening the muscles that help you become a better athlete, frog jumps also train you to be more powerful. Frog jumps are a plyometric exercise. Plyometrics are used by all of the best strength and conditioning coaches to train their athletes to produce maximum amounts of power.

Every athlete wants to become stronger and more powerful, it will only serve to boost your performance levels.

3. Builds Your Cardio Fitness

As you now know, the frog jump is a compound exercise that requires you to produce a lot of power for each rep. These factors make it superb for increasing your heart and breathing rate. Any time you perform an exercise that has the ability to train multiple different physical attributes, your cardiovascular system has to work much harder than it would during an exercise of less demand like a bicep curl.

Stringing together multiple reps of frog jumps will really get your heart rate soaring and lungs burning.

For a challenging and effective cardio workout, the frog jump exercise can be done for high repetitions or on a timer.

Here is an example of a super simple frog jump only cardio workout that is guaranteed to get your heart pumping:

• Set a timer and complete as many frog jumps as you can in 30 seconds
• Rest for 15 seconds
• Frog jump for 30 seconds
• Repeat for 5 or more rounds

Frog jumps are also a perfect addition to circuit workout routines.

4. No Equipment Is Needed

You won’t always be able to make it to the gym. You may even hate the thought of going to a gym full-stop, I understand it isn’t to everybody’s liking

However, you know you still need to get your exercise in but it becomes much more difficult without a bunch of equipment and machines around you. There aren’t too many other body weight exercises that present as much of a challenge to your body as the frog jump.

You can get a great lower body strength, power and cardio workout pretty much anywhere with frog jumps. U don’t even need a huge amount of space. You can complete one jump and turn around before doing another instead of stringing them all together.

Include some push-ups and pull-ups, if you have a bar, alongside the frog jump and you have a full body workout with just those three exercises.

5. Excellent Calorie Burner

This final benefit is a bit of a round-up of all of the previous benefits.

As a result of the frog jump exercise being a compound movement, plyometric exercise, complete lower body strengthener and cardiovascular builder, the calorie burn from it will be much higher than most other body weight exercises.

With such big, powerful muscles working so hard and your cardio system being challenged, your body is forced to use a lot of energy to perform each rep of the frog jump. Increased energy demands means more calories burned.

How To Perform The Rrog Jump Exercise

Since you have just learned how great the frog jump exercise is, you had better learn how to do it properly so you can include it in your workouts right away.

Step-by-step frog jump exercise guide:

• Begin in a squat position, your feet should be around shoulder-width apart
• Descend into a deep squat position by bending your knees and breaking slightly at your hips. Be sure to keep your chest up.

• Once you reach the bottom of your squat, propel yourself forward as far as possible. Swing your arms above your head to help with your jump
• Land softly with bent knees to absorb the impact and return back into your squatted start position

• Repeat by launching yourself straight into your next jump if you have space to do so. If not, simply stand up and turn around before repeating the process.

Be sure to wear suitable footwear for any exercise that involves jumping. Your shoes need to support your ankles and provide sufficient cushioning to absorb the impact

Conclusion

You should now be fully aware of how awesome the frog jump exercise can be and why I wholeheartedly recommend that you try to include it in your current routine. It is a very flexible exercise with a wide array of benefits so it can be used to suit almost any training goal.

I think it is important to know exactly why you are performing an exercise, as well as how to perform it properly. I hope this list has given you enough information on the frog jump exercise for you to make a well-informed decision about giving it a try for yourself. 

uI have certainly seen the benefits of making it a part of my program. Let me know what you think of the frog jump in the comments below, I would love to hear how you have used it as part of your own training.