A Highly Effective Full Body Exercise That Torches Calories
Build strength and get lean.
Happy Saturday to you!
This story is my second-highest-grossing story on Medium this week. Over 3,500 people have found it helpful, and I hope you do too.
FYI, I found it super hard to do burpees when I did them for the first time. But I eventually built the strength and stamina to do 150 of them in one go. How? Read to know more!
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Social media is a weird place, one that will make you believe fries are okay to emotionally eat and burpees are too hard and should be avoided. When I joined Crossfit, I disliked burpees as much… until I realised the impact they had on my stamina, fat loss, and muscle definition.
If you keep thinking running is hard, it will be hard. But if you build your stamina slowly and train your muscles and practice running a little every day, it will get easier.
The same goes for burpees. If you do this one exercise, you’re can use it everywhere no what your fitness goals are. How? Let me tell you.
Burpees
It's that one exercise that uses all your muscles. And it doesn’t just strengthen your muscles, but also makes your heart pump at a fast rate and is great for both strength and cardio.
Here’s how to do a burpee:
Stand with feet under your hips
Jump into a push-up (high plank) position
Touch your chest and thighs to the ground
Come back to a push-up position
Stand up and jump
Clap your hand upon the jump (note: burpees teach us to celebrate each rep as a victory!)
You can watch this video by Crossfit for a tutorial:
The burpee is all about lifting your own body weight and adding speed to it. It uses all your muscles to go down and come back up, and the speed makes your heart rate go up.
Here are the muscles used in burpees:
Quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves: when you go down and get back into a squat
Biceps, triceps, chest: when you get into a push-up, onto the floor, and get back into a push-up
Lower and upper back: because maintaining a perfect form is important through out
Core: because it’s engaged during the entire movement
Here are the benefits of doing burpees:
They burn a massive amount of calories (roughly 10 calories/ minute)
Studies show HIIT effectively burns fat, especially around your abdomen
They’re tough to do, and getting better with time feels great
They test your mental endurance because they’re hard to do
They offer benefits of a typical cardio activity that includes stronger heart and lungs, lower risk of heart disease and diabetes, improved blood flow, cholesterol levels, and brain function
They offer a full-body workout
Variations of burpees you can try
Another glorious thing about burpees is that they are adjustable depending on your stamina and endurance. You can make them harder or easier depending on your fitness level and preferences.
Use support
You can use a chair or the edge of any furniture to place your hands. So your movement looks like standing straight, placing your hand on the chair, jumping back, coming back to a squat (with your hands still on the chair), standing up and taking a jump.
This is great for beginners to develop some stamina. Here’s a video to help you.
Sprawls
Sprawls are everything mentioned in the OG Crossfit burpee minus touching the ground. So it's standing straight, push up position, and back up and jump.
Here’s a video to help you.
Half Burpees
These are again everything mentioned in the OG burpee minus standing straight and touching your body to the floor. So you start from a squat, go back to a push-up position, and jump back with your knees behind your arms.
Here’s a video to help you.
Burpees + tuck jump
This is the Crossfit burpee with a tuck jump. So when you come back, instead of taking a light jump with a clap, jump and bring your knees to your chest.
Here’s a video to help you.
Single-leg burpee
This is the Crossfit burpee but with a single leg during the movement. It’s difficult, but if you’re a pro, then go for it. This will also improve your balance and agility.
Here’s a video to help you.
Here’s how you can use burpees in your workout
The best thing about burpees is that they’re so convenient to do. Whether you work out at home or the gym, they require minimal space and no equipment.
They’re great for the days you do your strength training, circuit training, or just cardio. Let’s see how.
1. During the warm-up
It doesn’t matter which part of your body you’re training, because burpees can warm them all. I suggest that you do burpees after your basic stretches and mobility so your muscles can warm up before this movement.
Burpees also get your heart rate pumping in a short amount of time, which is why they’re suitable for warm-ups. Even if you can do 10–20 or do them as fast as possible for 60 seconds, you’ll be good to go.
2. When you want to add cardio to your strength training
You can easily program them into your strength training regimen. Say you’re doing chest and biceps, but want to boost your workout with some cardio. So after one set of each, you could do X amount of burpees. This will get you more tired and will be a perfect exhaustive element of your workout.
3. In your circuit/ HIIT workout
On your cardio or circuit training days, adding burpees will be a great exercise to train all your muscles while burning fat.
4. For the days you want to finish your workout ASAP
You can use AMRAP (as many reps as possible) or EMOM (every minute on the minute) programming to work out for a few minutes and also burn lots of calories.
For e.g.
AMRAP: Set a timer of 1-3 minutes and do as many burpees as you can without breaks.
EMOM: Decide the number of burpees you want to do each minute and rest the remaining minute once you’re done. So for e.g. in 10 minutes you can do 3 burpees each minute, and relax for that minute after you complete 3 burpees. Once the next minute starts, repeat.
I disliked burpees during the first few times because they were hard, so I used EMOM 10 minutes for 5 burpees every minute to build my strength and stamina towards them.
It gets easier with time, just like everything else, so climb up gradually.
Burpees are a great way to attain your fitness goals, flush your body with happy hormones, and attain good overall health. Go get them!
Super motivated to do more burpees!