High impact cardio is any aerobic exercise where both feet leave the ground at the same time during the movement. Running, jumping rope, and plyometric drills all qualify because each stride or jump creates a landing force that travels through your joints and bones. That impact is what separates these exercises from low impact options like swimming or cycling, where at least one foot stays grounded or your body weight is supported.
The “impact” isn’t just a label. When you run, your body absorbs roughly 2 to 3 times your body weight with every footstrike. Walking, by comparison, generates only about 1 to 1.5 times your body weight. That extra force is what makes high impact cardio uniquely effective for certain health goals, and also what makes it worth approaching thoughtfully.
Common High Impact Exercises
The category is broader than most people expect. Running is the most obvious example, but high impact cardio also includes jumping rope, CrossFit-style workouts, calisthenics with jumping movements (like burpees or jumping jacks), racquet sports such as tennis, hiking on uneven terrain, and certain styles of dance. Ballet, for instance, is generally high impact because of the repeated jumps and hard landings involved.
What ties all of these together is the airborne phase. If there’s a moment where your full body weight comes down on your feet and legs after being unsupported, the exercise is high impact. A brisk walk on flat ground is not. A trail run with elevation changes is. The distinction matters because the landing forces drive both the benefits and the risks.
Why It Burns More Calories in Less Time
High impact cardio demands more energy per minute than moderate, steady-state exercise. A systematic review in the Journal of Clinical Medicine found that high intensity interval protocols were 39% more time-efficient than moderate continuous cardio for achieving the same energy deficit. In practical terms, participants needed about 22 minutes of high intensity work to match what took 36 minutes at a moderate pace. Part of this comes from the exercise itself being harder, and part comes from the afterburn effect: your body continues consuming extra oxygen (and burning calories) after the workout ends.
High intensity exercise also increases cardiac output and peak oxygen uptake, which is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during exertion. A higher peak oxygen uptake means better cardiovascular fitness overall, translating to easier performance in everything from climbing stairs to playing with your kids.
The Bone-Building Effect
This is where high impact cardio offers something low impact exercise simply cannot replicate. Your bones respond to mechanical stress by getting stronger. When you land from a jump or strike the ground during a run, the force travels through your skeleton and triggers a chain of cellular reactions. Bone cells called osteocytes sense the load and signal the body to add mass and reinforce the bone’s internal architecture.
This process follows a principle called the Mechanostat theory: bones only remodel and strengthen when they experience loads above what they encounter during normal daily activities. Walking around your house won’t do it. Swimming won’t do it. You need forces that exceed your everyday baseline, and high impact landings deliver exactly that. The repeated loading thickens both the dense outer layer and the spongy interior of bone, improving structural strength in areas most vulnerable to fractures, particularly the lumbar spine and the femur near the hip.
This is especially relevant for postmenopausal women and older adults, who lose bone density over time. Research consistently shows that jumping exercises, running, and weight-bearing aerobic activities at high intensities help maintain or improve bone density in these populations.
How Hard It Hits Your Joints
The same forces that build bone also stress cartilage, tendons, and ligaments. Running generates peak vertical forces of 2 to 2.9 times body weight depending on speed, and that load concentrates at the ankles, knees, and hips. For someone weighing 170 pounds, that means up to nearly 500 pounds of force with each footstrike at faster paces.
Rearfoot strikers (people who land heel-first) experience a distinct impact spike at touchdown that forefoot strikers generally avoid. This doesn’t necessarily mean heel striking causes injuries, but it does change how force distributes through the lower leg. If you’re new to running or returning after time off, the pattern of your footstrike and the surface you train on both influence how your joints handle the load.
People with existing joint problems, recent injuries, or significant excess weight often do better starting with low impact options and gradually introducing high impact work as their tissues adapt. Anyone recovering from a heart attack or experiencing chest pain or shortness of breath during activity should get clearance before starting any vigorous program.
How Often to Train
General guidelines call for 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic activity per week, which works out to about 30 minutes on five days. But if you’re doing high intensity work, you can get equivalent cardiovascular benefits in less time: roughly 20 minutes, three days a week. The key tradeoff is that higher impact demands more recovery.
Mixing high impact days with low impact or rest days gives your connective tissue time to repair and adapt. Bones strengthen during recovery, not during the exercise itself. Stacking hard running days back to back without adequate rest is how stress fractures develop, especially in newer runners who ramp up mileage too quickly. Two to three high impact sessions per week, with strength training on separate days, is a sustainable starting framework for most people.
Footwear Makes a Real Difference
Because running transmits roughly three times your body weight through your feet, shoes designed for high impact activities have meaningfully thicker soles than walking shoes. That extra cushioning acts as a shock absorber, reducing the peak force that reaches your ankles and knees. Walking shoes, by contrast, prioritize an angled heel to manage the lower forces of a heel-to-toe gait.
If you’re doing high impact cardio in worn-out shoes or shoes designed for a different activity, you’re removing a layer of protection your joints rely on. Replace running shoes every 300 to 500 miles, and choose footwear matched to your specific activity. Court shoes for tennis, running shoes for running, and cross-trainers for mixed workouts all distribute force differently based on the movement patterns involved.
Who Benefits Most
High impact cardio is ideal if you want to improve cardiovascular fitness efficiently, build or maintain bone density, or train for a sport that involves running and jumping. It’s one of the few exercise categories that simultaneously strengthens your heart, lungs, muscles, and skeleton. For younger and middle-aged adults with healthy joints, it’s one of the most time-effective ways to stay fit.
For people concerned about osteoporosis, the bone-building stimulus is reason enough to include some form of high impact work, even if it’s just 10 minutes of jumping exercises a few times a week. The forces don’t need to come from long runs. Short bouts of jumping, skipping, or stair bounding can deliver meaningful skeletal loading without the joint wear of prolonged distance running.