Low-Impact Strength Training: Does Bouncing Count?
Yes, jumping counts, and so do four other things. Low impact means less force landing through your knees, hips and ankles. It doesn't mean less work for your muscles. Meta-analyses show jump-based training improves lower-body power and strength in adults, including people who aren't athletes. (Oxfeldt 2019; Sun 2025.)
The confusion is in the words. "Impact" is about landing force. "Load" is about what your muscles have to produce. You can drop the first without dropping the second, and that's the whole point of low-impact strength work.
Below: what low impact actually measures, five options compared on what the research found, and how to choose between them.
What "low impact" is measuring
Running sends a force of roughly two to three times your body weight through your knees, hips and ankles with every step. (Frontiers in Sports and Active Living; PMC11033368.) That is the number low-impact training is trying to reduce.
What it isn't trying to reduce is muscular effort. A hard set of squats is low impact and anything but easy. So "low impact" tells you about your joints and nothing at all about whether the session will build strength.
Which makes the useful question a longer one: is this low impact and does it load the muscle enough to change anything?
Five options, and what the research found
| Option | Impact on joints | Builds strength? | What the evidence says |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bodyweight work | Low | Yes | Resistance and multicomponent training improved strength and function in older adults with sarcopenia, where aerobic exercise alone did not (Wang 2022; Hao 2026) |
| Resistance bands | Low | Yes | Counts as resistance training, the category that carried the strength gains above |
| Water-based work | Lowest | Partly | A 2026 review of 15 trials in older adults found water aerobics improved cardio fitness by about 5 ml/kg/min, similar to land-based aerobic exercise (J Aging Phys Act 2026). Good for fitness, weaker on loading bone |
| Incline walking | Low | A little | Aerobic, weight-bearing, and gentle on the joints, but it is not a strength stimulus on its own |
| Rebounding | Low | Yes | Jump-based training improves lower-body power and strength in adults (Oxfeldt 2019; Sun 2025). Twelve weeks of mini-trampoline work improved balance, mobility and strength in older women (Posch 2019) |
Two honest notes on that table. The sarcopenia trials studied older adults who already had muscle loss, so the size of the effect doesn't transfer straight to a healthy thirty-year-old, though the direction does. And the water review was in older adults too, so its 5 ml/kg/min figure belongs to that group.
The one that surprises people
Rebounding gets read as cardio, so it gets left out of the strength conversation. The research doesn't support leaving it out.
Jumping is plyometric training, and plyometric training has a solid evidence base for building lower-body power and strength in adults, not only in athletes. (Oxfeldt 2019; Sun 2025.) The mat does the part you want it to: it absorbs the landing, so your legs produce force on the way up without paying full price on the way down. Rebounding is a genuine low-impact aerobic workout with a fraction of the joint load of running. (Cleveland Clinic.)
The catch is that it's lower-body work. It won't build your back or your pressing strength, and nothing in the research says it will.
If bone is the goal, read this bit
Low impact and bone loading pull in opposite directions, and it's worth being straight about that.
In postmenopausal women, exercise improved bone mineral density, with resistance-based and mixed-loading programmes doing best. (Trevino 2025.) Loading is the active ingredient, so the gentlest options on the list, water especially, are the weakest ones for bone.
If bone density is your reason for training, that's a conversation for your GP rather than a question to settle from a table on a website. We have written separately on what jumping does for bone density.
How to choose
Start from what your joints will tolerate, then pick the hardest thing inside that limit.
Sore knees, coming back from something. Water first, then incline walking. Both let you work without much landing force at all. Add bands once you can.
Joints are fine, you just hate running. Bodyweight work and rebounding. Both load the muscle properly and neither hammers your joints.
You want strength and cardio in the same hour. Rebounding, because the thing making you breathe hard is also the thing making your legs work.
You want upper body too. None of the five covers it. Add bands or weights for pressing and pulling, whatever else you pick.
Two or three sessions a week is the dose the mini-trampoline trials used, and it's the dose we'd start anyone on. There is more on that in how often you should bounce, and if you are weighing up the cardio side, the best low-impact cardio when running hurts your knees covers that ground.
FAQ
Does low impact mean it is easier? No. It means less force through your joints on landing. A set of squats is low impact and hard. They're separate things.
Can you build muscle with low-impact training? Yes, if the training loads the muscle. Resistance and multicomponent training improved strength and function in older adults with sarcopenia, where aerobic exercise alone did not. (Wang 2022; Hao 2026.)
Is rebounding strength training or cardio? Both, for the lower body. It's jump-based training, which improves lower-body power and strength in adults (Oxfeldt 2019; Sun 2025), and it raises your heart rate while it does it. It isn't upper-body work.
Is low-impact training good enough on its own? For most people, yes, as long as it's hard enough. Australia's movement guidelines ask for muscle-strengthening activity on at least two days a week and say nothing about impact.
I have a joint problem or a diagnosis. Where do I start? With your GP or physio, before the table above. If you have osteoporosis, a knee or hip replacement, or you're new to exercise, the right starting point depends on things a website can't see.
Ready to try the bouncing version? Sessions at Run The Wall in Brookvale are adults-only, groups of four, and coached on every jump. Book a session.
References
- Oxfeldt, M., et al. (2019). Effects of plyometric training on jumping, sprint performance, and lower body muscular strength in healthy adults. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports.
- Sun, J., et al. (2025). Plyometric training and lower-body strength and power in trained adults. Scientific Reports.
- Posch, M., et al. (2019). Effectiveness of a Mini-Trampoline Training Program on Balance and Functional Mobility, Gait Performance, Strength, Fear of Falling and Bone Mineral Density in Older Women with Osteopenia. Clinical Interventions in Aging, 14, 2281-2293.
- Wang, H., et al. (2022). Exercise interventions for sarcopenia. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(13), 8212.
- Hao, X., et al. (2026). Combined aerobic and resistance training in sarcopenia. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders.
- Journal of Aging and Physical Activity (2026). Water-based aerobic exercise and cardiorespiratory capacity in older adults: systematic review and meta-analysis of 15 trials.
- Trevino, M., et al. (2025). Exercise, HRT and bone mineral density in postmenopausal women. Cureus.
- Ground reaction forces as running speed increases. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living; and Rethinking running biomechanics (PMC11033368).
- Cleveland Clinic. Trampoline workout benefits.