DEATH BY BURPEES CROSSFIT WOD

Ah, every CrossFitters two favorite words together in one sentence.

Death and burpees.

Really, the two words go together like peanut butter and jam, ham and cheese, or Kardashians and professional athletes.

Honestly, who doesn’t think of death when doing a whole bunch of burpees.

While the two words may be one of the most iconic duos in the CrossFit world, what exactly is the Death by Burpees WOD when it comes to CrossFit?

Let’s dive into it.

What Is Death By Burpees?

Death by Burpees is, unsurprisingly, death by burpees.

It’s a burpee.

Then a couple more burpees.

Then, there’s a trio of burpees, like if the Three Musketeers transformed into reps of a bodyweight exercise.

Then, just like the Three Musketeers, a fourth member of the team shows up. Let’s call this burpee d’Artagnan.

See if you can guess what number of burpees comes after four.

Death by Burpees is a never-ending growth of burpees, only stopping when you give up, die, or - most likely of all - collapse to the CrossFit gym floor, unable to move any longer.

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How Do I Do Death By Burpees?

Death by Burpees is an EMOM - which stands for every minute on the minute - WOD.

This means you do the required number of reps for a given exercise at the start of each minute.

This goes on as long as the CrossFitter can go, and gets increasingly difficult over time.

In the Death by Burpees WOD, the given exercise is the burpee. Every minute on the minute, you increase the number of burpees by one.

On the first minute, you do 1 burpee. On the second minute, 2 burpees.

This continues upwards until you either tap out or can no longer physically do the required number of burpees in the minute before starting the next minute.

Yeah.

It’s more fun than it sounds, we promise!

(Sorry, that’s not exactly true, Burpees made us say it!)

Why Do I Do Death By Burpees?

There’s a long answer and a short answer to that question.

The short answer is that you are a CrossFitter, and this type of shiz is what CrossFitters do.

The long answer is that there is a large number of physical and mental health benefits associated with high-intensity, physically demanding workouts like Death by Burpees.

These benefits include, but are not limited to...

1. Working On Pacing

You have this problem. We have this problem. Just about every CrossFitter in the world has this problem.

We naturally want to push ourselves to get a better score than the WOD before, and what better way to do that than to rush out of the gates and into our exercises?

Going quickly at the start of a WOD means the WOD will end sooner, right? It’s just science.

The problem is that when we start too quickly and aggressively, we run through our reserves of energy at an incredibly quick pace.

While we might get the first part of the WOD finished quicker, the rest of the WOD is going to feel like a long and hard journey, and every rep is going to become a chore.

Pacing is key in most WODs, but Death by Burpees stands out from the pack.

In the first minute you only need to do one burpee, and it's very easy to feel like you need to push yourself to finish that as quickly as possible.

The same thing goes for the second minute, where the WOD feels like a walk in the park, so you try to do every rep at a breakneck pace.

However, this is setting yourself up for failure, as you get further into the WOD, you need all of the energy possible.

If you wasted that energy in the easy sets at the start, you will soon find yourself without any in the double-digit sets.

A consistent pace is key to getting the most out of yourself.

2. Building Mental Strength

Dropping to the ground to do your 50th burpee in 10 minutes, it would be a lot easier to stay on the ground than to push yourself back up and into the next rep.

Easier, but not better for you.

Mental strength plays a huge part in all aspects of our life, and the ability to push yourself through the bad to get to the good is often what separates the successful from the average.

In the Death by Burpees WOD, it is completely up to you how long you go for.

You could give up at 5 minutes or push yourself to 15 minutes based solely on how willing you are to make yourself uncomfortable.

That’s why it is a great way to build mental strength.

3. Increasing Cardiovascular Endurance

Anyone who has done a set of burpees knows that it spikes your heart rate.

They start off easy enough and before you know it you are drenched in sweat and your lungs are working like twin bellows in a blacksmith’s forge.

Burpees do wonders for the cardiovascular system.

Due to their high workload and quick, full-body movements, they work your cardiovascular system in a similar way to sprinting or high-intensity biking.

You build endurance for short distances, and the muscles to match.

The Movements Involved in Death By Burpees

Just to give you a bit more of an in-depth feel for the Death by Burpees WOD, let’s quickly go through a brief overview of the movement of the dreaded burpee.

Burpees

The burpee works the legs, arms, chest, shoulder, and core. Really, it even does a bit for your back.

It works every major muscle group in the body, without even needing a single weight.

But to hit all of these muscles, you need to make sure that you are doing the movement properly.

Improper form can lead to injury, or even worse, a lack of gains.

When it was first created, the burpee was often called a four-count burpee, due to the 4 points to look for in burpee form.

This type of burpee still holds up today. To keep it simple, here is how you would go through a four-count burpee:

4-Count Burpees

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. From this standing position, drop into a squat and place both hands on the ground.
With your hands on the floor and roughly shoulder-width apart, extend both feet backward and assume the plank position in a swift movement.
Quickly bring your feet back into a squat position and then stand up, powering through your legs.
Jump in the air with hands above the head and repeat.

Although the four-count burpee is still perfectly valid, most CrossFitters today use the six-count burpee, which adds a pushup at the bottom and makes the entire motion a bit more difficult.

6-Count Burpees

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. From this standing position, drop into a squat and place both hands on the ground.
With your hands on the floor and roughly shoulder-width apart, extend both feet backward and assume the plank position in a swift movement.
Move down into the bottom of the pushup.
Push back up into plank position.
Quickly bring your feet back into a squat position and then stand up, powering through your legs.
Jump in the air with hands above the head and repeat.

Although you are probably more accustomed to the six-count burpee, with either of these methods you are getting a full-body exercise that you can do anywhere and anytime.

What To Aim For

Death by Burpees is a secret killer. While it may not seem like much at first, those numbers quickly add up into the hundreds in a short amount of time.

Since scoring is done by how many reps you do in your last completed minute, aim for 12-15 rounds.

If you are newer to CrossFit, maybe bring that down to 8-10 rounds. Even professional CrossFitters struggle with going into the high teens and low twenties.

If you do 12 rounds, that is a total of 78 burpees in 12 minutes, with most of those burpees coming at the back end, when your heart rate is already high and your legs already shaky.

As with anything in CrossFit, do not compare your score to others. As long as you are pushing yourself and improving individually, you are doing amazing!

Wrapping Up Death By Burpees

Look, nobody loves doing a seemingly infinite number of burpees.

The only people who list burpees as their favorite exercise wear No Bulls and also just so happen to be a little bit on the 'weird' side of things.

(cough.... hand raised... cough)

But we're CrossFitters, and doing stuff that doesn't feel the best in the moment is just what we do.

So go out there and kick Death by Burpees’ butt!

You Kill The WOD, We'll Recover The Bod!

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Disclaimer:
All hemp-derived products
contain 0.0% THC