Time-poor but keen to tone up? Well, join the club. While there’s no quick fix to getting fit and healthy, Trinny Woodall does have one hack: bunny hopping. ‘If you have time for nothing else in the morning, just try to make time for this,’ she says in a recent video. ‘It will change your day.’
Trinny’s strategy involves jumping up and down for 60 seconds, first thing in the morning. ‘Really make sure your shoulders are relaxed, your knees are relaxed – it’s not a heavy jump,’ she says. ‘When you stop, you just feel this amazing tingling in your body, and it really wakes you up.’
Jumping to wake yourself up
She’s not the only advocate. Kathryn Smith, a surgical athletic trainer, pioneered the ‘50 morning jumps’ challenge on TikTok. Doing 50 jumps the moment your feet touch the floor in the morning, she suggests, elevates your heart rate, boosts your blood circulation and, as your breathing becomes faster and deeper, delivers more oxygen to the brain and muscles, leaving you feeling more energised.
Jumping for your bones
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Orthopedic surgeon and author of Unbreakable: A Woman’s Guide To Ageing With Power Dr Vonda Wright also recommends ‘a simple, two-footed jump… land with your weight absorbed through your feet and up through your legs’. Why? ‘Your bones love impact,’ she says. When you land after a jump, ‘The impact will signal the osteoblasts in your bone, those bone-building cells, to make better bone.’ Adults, she says, need to jump 20 to 50 times daily to stimulate bone remodeling and help prevent osteopenia and osteoporosis.
Jumping in later life
‘Most adults avoid jumping as they age, thinking it’s risky or no longer safe. But the truth might surprise you,’ says Dr Wright. ‘Research suggests that jumping may actually help build bone density, even in postmenopausal women.’
A 2024 study suggested that bone mineral density can be improved with only three to five minutes of bone-stimulating jump exercises per day at any age. For women, however, the benefits might increase as we move into perimenopause and beyond, when our oestrogen levels drop and bones weaken.
How to start jumping
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If you haven’t jumped in years, start with heel drops (raising yourself up on to the balls of your feet, then dropping your heels down hard to the floor again). Then progress to low light jumps on the ground, before moving on to jumping up and down hard. Next, jump from the bottom stair of a staircase.
The catch? Weakened pelvic floors can be incompatible with jumping up and down. ‘Just make sure you go to the loo first,’ says Trinny. Wise advice.