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HOW TO DO A BURPEE PROPERLY
Alright, this is going to be the shortest blog post of all time.
Are you ready? Here is how you do a burpee properly:
- Fall to the floor.
- Pray.
- Reconsider your life choices.
- Begrudgingly get up and repeat as many times as required by the wod.
Ok, so maybe there is a bit more to it than that. For all of the flak the infamous burpee gets, it is a remarkable exercise.
In terms of bodyweight exercises, it is one of the most ideal you can perform, and also one of the hardest.
So why are burpees so good? You basically flop yourself to the floor, stumble your way back into a standing position, then give the world’s smallest jump.
What is so great about that? How do many consider it on the same level or higher than chin-ups and pushups?
Let’s take a look.
What Is A Burpee?
You look over at the WOD board. Nice, the workout doesn’t look too bad. Some cleans, some deadlifts, and… what are squat thrusts? You’ve never heard of those before.
You go through your warm-up and the coach tells everyone to bring it in. Most of the other participants are confused as well. Your coach explains that a squat thrust is where you just into a pushup position, do a pushup, hop back up, then jump in the air with your hands over your head.
“Now, correct me if I’m wrong,” you chime in, “But that sounds a suspicious amount like a burpee, which is not my favorite exercise in the world. Can you show us an example rep just to set my mind at ease?”
So your coach shows you. The reason that a squat thrust sounds like a burpee is because it IS a burpee. Uh-oh, this workout suddenly looks a bit more difficult.
The exercise commonly known as a burpee goes by many different names. Squat thrust and military burpee, to name a few.
It was named “burpee” by Royal Burpee, a physiologist from New York who invented the exercise in 1939.
Due to the effectiveness of the exercise, it took only 1 year for it to be incorporated into the fitness tests of the US military.
The exercise works every major body part, working the legs, arms, shoulders, chest, and core.
Due to you only requiring a body to do a burpee, it is incredibly mobile, low-cost exercise that is still at the forefront of military training today.
The 3 Burpee Benefits
The benefits of burpees are nearly endless, but can be lumped together into 3 broader categories:
Building Strength
Throughout the movement of a burpee, you push your own weight multiple times and in multiple ways.
You jump down into a pushup position, use your chest and arms to move your body in a pushup, then use your legs to jump back into a standing position.
Repeat that for a lot of reps and you can see how it is such an effective muscle builder. Bodyweight exercises are great for building strong, lean muscles.
On top of that, as the movement is quite physically demanding it improves your muscles’ endurance for heavier lifts.
Improving Cardiovascular System
Throughout the movement of a burpee, you push your own weight multiple times and in multiple ways.
You jump down into a pushup position, use your chest and arms to move your body in a pushup, then use your legs to jump back into a standing position.
Repeat that for a lot of reps and you can see how it is such an effective muscle builder. Bodyweight exercises are great for building strong, lean muscles.
On top of that, as the movement is quite physically demanding it improves your muscles’ endurance for heavier lifts.
Burning Fat
High-intensity exercises like the burpee – which combine a cardiovascular component and a strength component – are a great way to burn fat.
As the body realizes it needs a high amount of energy over a short period of time to feed all of the muscles being worked, it converts to burning more fats to get that energy.
This results in you burning all the fats that you would in a slow cardiovascular exercise or traditional weight-training exercise, but in half of the time!
Of course, these are only the three major benefits of burpees, not a complete database of every benefit a burpee will give you.
They also increase lactic acid tolerance, build mental strength, and give you a feeling of confidence and accomplishment while lying on the floor after your set.
How Do You Do A Burpee?
As we said before, the burpee works the legs, arms, chest, shoulder, and core. Really, it even does a bit for your back.
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 used, 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:
- 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.
Here is how to do a six-count CrossFit burpee:
- 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.
Bored With Burpees – Variations
After you’ve done your first hundred or thousand or million burpees, you’re going to start getting annoyed with them.
They’re hard, and well you love the hard work, you get bogged down in the repetition of doing the exact same movement over and over and over.
Since it was invented in 1939, the burpee has taken on forms beyond the four-count and six-count variations.
People have taken the basic movement and molded it into different exercises that work different parts of the body more and cut through the boredom of always doing the same exercise.
One particularly sinister version is the “Murpee”.
Invented by Mark Sisson, it involves slowly going through every portion of the burpee, focusing on building strength and balance and lowering the cardiovascular component of the exercise.
Here are 6 more variations on the classic movement:
- Half Burpee
- Start in a squat position with a wide base. Turn your toes slightly outwards.
- From the squat position, assume a pushup position. Lower your body to the ground at the bottom of a pushup.
- Push upwards from the bottom and move the legs back to the starting position.
- Box Jump Burpee
- Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart in front of a low box. Arms at your sides.
- Go into the pushup position.
- Pushup back into a squat.
- Do a 2-foot jump onto the low box and land in a squat position. Stand up at the top of the box.
- Step off the box and get back in a pushup position.
- Dumbbell Burpee
- Start in standing position with feet shoulder-width apart. Hold a light dumbbell in each hand.
- Bend down at waist until dumbbells are on the ground.
- Punch feet out behind you in a quick motion while in a pushup position and holding dumbbells.
- Perform a pushup, move feet under your body and jump up. Push dumbbells above you.
- Return to starting position.
- Burpee Pullups
- Stand with feet shoulder-width apart under a pullup bar.
- Go down into a pushup position.
- Perform a pushup and quickly pull feet back under you. Jump back up into a squat.
- Jump and grab bar, using your momentum to perform a pullup. Land and get back in starting position.
- Inverted Burpee
- Stand with feet shoulder-width apart. Squat down and lower body towards the floor.
- Roll onto your back. Pull your knees towards you and roll forward. Come back to your feet.
- Stand up and jump as high as possible.
- Broad Jump Burpee
- Start with feet shoulder-width apart. Squat down and push feet out behind into a pushup position.
- Perform pushup.
- Pull feet back in and go into a squat position.
- Jump forward as much as possible. Throw your hands forward to increase your jump.
How Many Burpees Is Too Many Burpees?
This is both a simple answer and a complicated answer: Listen to your body and use common sense.
If you are just starting to be physically active, 100 burpees is probably not a good idea.
Let’s say you do 10 and you are dead tired after and so sore you can barely move the next day – but still feeling motivated – then that is probably a good number to start at.
If you are a high-level athlete who has been performing CrossFit or other physically taxing sports multiple times a week for years, then you may want to start adding multiple sets of 20 burpees into your workout.
They’re a great way to push your body and increase your cardiovascular limit.
Everyone is different. So take into account your personal fitness level and go from there.
Safety Tips
Burpees are only a good exercise if you’re doing them properly and not constantly getting injured. Keep these tips in mind for next time you perform the exercise:
Pace Yourself
Remember. Slow and steady wins the race. In this case, ‘slow’ doesn’t exactly mean slow, but rather a steady and consistent movement throughout the set.
Don’t burn through the first 5 and then painfully do the next 15 over a 4-minute period.
Try not to rest between your repetitions.
Feet Before Hands
This is for the people who have done some burpees before. While dropping into the pushup position, you can speed up the burpee by simultaneously pushing your feet out while your hands hit the floor.
If you are new to the exercise, make sure your hands are firmly on the floor before pushing your feet out into a pushup position.
Breathe
Make sure you breathe throughout the set. It may seem like it allows you to go faster, but this is actually counterproductive for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, you need air too, you know, survive for more than a minute. This is essential for burpees, CrossFit, and generally the life of everything on Earth. So breathe during your exercises.
Secondly, breathing is essential for keeping up our pacing. When we stop taking in fresh oxygen, our muscles fill with lactic acid and grow sluggish.
You heard it here first: breathing is important for humans.
Focus on Each Movement
A burpee is multiple movements. Each movement needs your full attention. Injuries occur when we are not engaged with the activity at hand.
No matter how many times you’ve done a burpee, if you find yourself thinking about other things or only caring about how many reps you’ve done and not the form with which you are doing them, you are at a higher risk of injury.
Think about the proper form while you go through the movement. Be focused and attentive to how your body moves.
Wrapping Up How To Do A Burpee Properly
Burpees are a great exercise to add to your repertoire. Love them or hate them, they promote both muscle growth and cardiovascular health.
So learn how to do them, practice until you have the form down in your sleep, and maximize the movement to grow as a CrossFitter.
Don’t just lie on the floor and pray.
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The statements made regarding these products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The efficacy of these products has not been confirmed by FDA-approved research. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. All information presented here is not meant as a substitute for or alternative to information from health care practitioners. Please consult your health care professional about potential interactions or other possible complications before using any product. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act require this notice.
WOD RECOVERY © 2020 | 428 Gaslamp, Inc.
Disclaimer: All hemp-derived products contain 0.0% THC
The statements made regarding these products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The efficacy of these products has not been confirmed by FDA-approved research. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. All information presented here is not meant as a substitute for or alternative to information from health care practitioners. Please consult your health care professional about potential interactions or other possible complications before using any product. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act require this notice.