FITBODY Exercise Library · Legs
Pogo Hops
Small, quick hops that train your ankles and Achilles tendons to absorb and produce force. They are a primer for impact work, and they build the landing quality that heavier bone-loading exercise depends on.
What Are Pogo Hops?
Pogo hops are small, repeated hops performed almost entirely at the ankle. You leave the floor by an inch or two, land through the balls of your feet, and push straight back off with barely any pause. The knees stay soft but close to straight, and the hips and trunk stay quiet. The name comes from what it looks like, which is a person bouncing on a pogo stick.
Done correctly they raise your heart rate, but that is the least interesting thing about them. What they train is ankle stiffness, meaning how well your foot and Achilles tendon store and return energy rather than letting it collapse. That quality supports running, jumping, and getting out of the bottom of a heavy squat. They also give you a brief impact stimulus that ordinary walking does not, which is where the bone conversation starts.
How to Do Pogo Hops
If your calves are screaming the day after your first session, you did too many. Start at 20 contacts, not 50, and add about 10 a week. Achilles tissue adapts more slowly than muscle does, and the women who get hurt with hopping are almost always the ones who tried the whole protocol on day one!
Pogo Hops and Bone Density
Every landing sends a brief mechanical load through the skeleton, and bone tissue responds to load by adapting. That is the mechanism, and it is real. What matters is being precise about what the research tested.
In a 6 month trial at Loughborough University, 42 healthy postmenopausal women aged 55 to 70 hopped on one randomly assigned leg while their other leg served as their own control. Femoral neck bone density rose by about 0.8 percent in the hopping leg and fell by about 0.6 percent in the leg that did not hop. The difference between the two legs is the finding. Against bone that would otherwise have been quietly declining, that is a change of direction worth having.
Two details change how you should use this. The protocol built to 50 hops a day, every day, across 6 months, and the hops were multidirectional rather than straight up and down. A short set of pogo hops at the start of a workout is not that dose, and it would be dishonest of me to tell you otherwise. What pogo hops give you is the ankle stiffness and the controlled landing that a real impact protocol requires, which is why I use them as a primer and not as the bone program itself.
The stronger evidence for bone in this age group comes from loading, not hopping alone. The LIFTMOR trial put 101 postmenopausal women with low bone mass through 8 months of supervised barbell training at 80 to 85 percent of their one rep maximum and improved bone density at the lumbar spine and femoral neck. Heavy compound lifting such as the barbell back squat is the anchor. Impact work sits alongside it as a supporting stimulus, applied gradually, which is how I build it into a body recomposition plan.
One caution worth stating plainly. Seven of the 42 women in the hopping trial dropped out or were lost to follow up, some because of knee soreness or Achilles pain, and that trial recruited healthy women only. If you have a diagnosis of osteoporosis rather than osteopenia, a previous spinal fracture, a hip or knee replacement, or a history of Achilles trouble, clear impact work with your doctor before you start hopping.
What Muscles Do Pogo Hops Work?
Pogo hops are driven by the calf complex working through the Achilles tendon. The gastrocnemius and soleus produce the push, the Achilles stores and returns energy on each contact, and the small muscles of the foot and the tibialis muscles at the front of the shin hold the ankle steady so that energy does not leak sideways.
See the full muscle breakdown
- Gastrocnemius: The larger, visible calf muscle that crosses both the knee and the ankle. It does most of the work when the knees stay close to straight, which is exactly the position pogo hops hold you in.
- Soleus: Sits underneath the gastrocnemius and crosses the ankle only. It contributes more as the contacts get quicker and shallower.
- Achilles tendon: Not a muscle, but the reason this exercise works. It behaves like a spring, storing energy on landing and returning it on push off. Training that spring is the point.
- Tibialis anterior and posterior: Run along the front and inside of the shin and control how far the ankle rolls in or out on each contact.
- Intrinsic foot muscles: The small muscles inside the foot that hold the arch and keep the foot from flattening under repeated load.
- Quadriceps: Work lightly to keep the knee from buckling. If your quads are burning, you are bending your knees too much and turning this into a squat jump.
- Abdominals: Hold your ribs over your hips so the bounce stays in your ankles instead of traveling up through your spine.
Sets and Reps
Pogo hops are counted in ground contacts rather than reps. Start lower than feels necessary and let the tendon catch up.
| Goal | Sets | Contacts |
|---|---|---|
| Warm-up primer | 1 to 2 | 15 to 20 |
| Building ankle stiffness | 3 | 20 to 30 |
| Progressing toward impact work | 2 to 3 | 25 |
Rest 45 to 60 seconds between sets. Place pogo hops near the front of a session, after your general warm-up and before your heavy lifting, never at the end when your legs are tired and your landings get sloppy. Progress by adding roughly 10 contacts a week or by moving to a harder variation, applying the same progressive overload thinking you would use with a barbell. If your calves or Achilles are sore for more than 2 days, hold at your current volume instead of adding.
Variations and Modifications
Ankle Bounces
The regression. Stay on the floor and simply press up and down through the balls of your feet without leaving the ground. This teaches the rhythm and loads the calves with almost no impact, which makes it the right starting point if you are new to hopping or coming back from an ankle or foot injury.
Multidirectional Hops
Hop forward and back, then side to side, then in a small square. This is the version used in the research on bone density in postmenopausal women, and it loads the hip from more than one angle. Add it only once your straight up and down hops are quiet and controlled.
Single Leg Pogo Hops
The same movement on one leg at a time. This roughly doubles the load through each ankle and exposes any side to side difference in stiffness or balance. Cut your contact count in half when you first move to one leg.
Split Stance Pogo Hops
One foot slightly ahead of the other, bouncing in place. A useful middle step between two legs and one leg, and it more closely resembles the ankle demand of running.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Jumping too high. An inch or two is the whole range. Once you go higher you have to bend your knees to land, the absorption moves from the ankle up into the knee, and you stop training the quality you came for.
- Landing through your heels. A heavy heel strike sends the force straight up the leg instead of into the spring you are trying to build. Contact through the balls of your feet and let the heels touch down lightly after.
- Loud, thudding contacts. Noise is feedback. If you can hear yourself from across the room, the landing is collapsing rather than rebounding. Slow down, shorten the hop, and rebuild the rhythm.
- Adding volume too fast. Tendon adapts more slowly than muscle. Jumping from 20 contacts to 50 in a week is the most common way women end up with sore Achilles tendons and abandon the exercise.
- Doing them at the end of a workout. Fatigued legs land badly. Impact work belongs early in a session when you can still control every contact.
Pogo Hops FAQs
Are pogo hops safe for women over 40?
For most healthy women over 40, yes, provided the volume is built up gradually. The main risk is not the movement itself but the rate of progression, because the Achilles tendon and the small muscles of the foot adapt more slowly than the calf muscles do. Starting at around 20 ground contacts and adding roughly 10 a week gives the tendon time to keep pace. Women with a previous spinal fracture, a hip or knee replacement, a diagnosis of osteoporosis, or a history of Achilles or plantar fascia trouble should clear impact work with a doctor or physical therapist first.
Do pogo hops build bone density?
Impact exercise can influence bone density, but the honest answer is more limited than most articles suggest. A 6 month trial in 42 healthy postmenopausal women found femoral neck bone density rose by about 0.8 percent in the hopping leg and fell by about 0.6 percent in the untrained leg, which is a meaningful change of direction rather than a large gain. That protocol required 50 multidirectional hops every day for 6 months, which is far more than a set of pogo hops in a warm-up. Treat pogo hops as the entry point that builds your landing quality, and treat heavy resistance training as the primary bone stimulus.
How many pogo hops should I do?
Begin with 1 to 2 sets of 15 to 20 ground contacts and stop the set as soon as the hops get flat or loud. Once that feels easy for a couple of weeks, work up to 3 sets of 20 to 30 contacts, adding around 10 contacts a week. Quality is the limit rather than the number, so a clean set of 15 is worth more than a sloppy set of 40. If your calves or Achilles are still sore 2 days later, hold at your current volume instead of adding more.
What muscles do pogo hops work?
Pogo hops are driven mainly by the calf complex, meaning the gastrocnemius and the soleus, working through the Achilles tendon. The tibialis muscles at the front and inside of the shin stabilize the ankle on each contact, and the small intrinsic muscles of the foot hold the arch under repeated load. The quads work lightly to keep the knee from buckling and the abdominals hold your torso still so the bounce stays at the ankle. If your quads are burning during a set, you are bending your knees too much and have turned the movement into a small squat jump.
Should I do pogo hops before or after lifting?
Before, after a general warm-up and before your working sets. Impact work depends on controlled landings, and controlled landings depend on fresh legs, so hopping at the end of a session when you are tired is where sloppy contacts and sore tendons come from. A short set also primes the nervous system for the heavier work that follows, which is part of why I place them where I do. Two exceptions apply: skip them entirely on a day when your calves are already sore, and skip them before a session where the calves are the main target.
Can I do pogo hops if I have osteoporosis?
Not without medical clearance first. The research on hopping and bone density was conducted in healthy postmenopausal women, and women with diagnosed osteoporosis were not the population studied. Impact loading carries a different risk profile once bone mass is already low, particularly in the presence of a previous vertebral fracture. Speak with your doctor or a physical therapist who works with bone health, and in the meantime focus on progressive resistance training, which has stronger evidence in this group and can be scaled safely from a very light starting point.
References
- Hartley, Chris, et al. “High-Impact Exercise Increased Femoral Neck Bone Density With No Adverse Effects on Imaging Markers of Knee Osteoarthritis in Postmenopausal Women.” Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, vol. 35, no. 1, 2020, pp. 53 to 63, doi.org/10.1002/jbmr.3867. Forty-two healthy postmenopausal women hopped on one randomly assigned leg for 6 months, building to 50 multidirectional hops daily, and femoral neck bone density rose in the hopping leg while falling in the untrained leg, with no adverse effect on knee imaging markers. Seven participants dropped out or were lost to follow up, some because of knee or Achilles discomfort, and the trial recruited healthy women rather than women with diagnosed osteoporosis.
- Watson, Steven L., et al. “High-Intensity Resistance and Impact Training Improves Bone Mineral Density and Physical Function in Postmenopausal Women With Osteopenia and Osteoporosis: The LIFTMOR Randomized Controlled Trial.” Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, vol. 33, no. 2, 2018, pp. 211 to 220, doi.org/10.1002/jbmr.3284. Eight months of twice-weekly heavy barbell training combined with impact loading improved lumbar spine and femoral neck bone mineral density in 101 postmenopausal women with low bone mass. Training was fully supervised in small groups, which is not the same as training alone at home.
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