Jumping Jack
A jumping jack, also known as a star jump and called a side-straddle hop in the US military, is a physical jumping exercise performed by jumping to a position with the legs spread wide. The hands go overhead, sometimes in a clap, and then return to a position with the feet together and the arms at the sides.
The jumping jack exercise's origin is said to date back to 1885 as a method of hazing underclassmen at West Point Military Academy by John J. "Black Jack" Pershing, who is said to have developed it. "[Pershing] would line up a group of plebes, order them to count off to identify odds and evens, and when he pulled on an imaginary string, all the odds threw their arms stiffly out at right angles to their bodies; then Jack pulled the string in the opposite direction, and the odds dropped their arms and evens jumped their legs out to make a V. Back and forth went the string, arms flapped, legs splayed, while upperclassmen howled at the marionettes in action." The exercise is sometimes erroneously thought to be named after the general, but the name actually comes from the jumping jack children's toy, which makes similar arm swing and leg splay motions when the strings are tugged.
Although he did not invent the exercise, the late fitness expert Jack LaLanne was credited for popularizing it in the United States. LaLanne used the jumping exercise during routines he promoted in decades of television fitness programming.
Mercury
- 2021-03-05T00:00:00.000000Z
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