Burpees: World’s most challenging fitness routine now made simple for you

Last Updated December 20th, 2021

How to do perfect burpees?

If you are looking for a comprehensive yet sophisticated workout plan, then you should consider Burpees.  It is undoubtedly one of the best whole body workouts available.  Royal H. Burpee who was a physiologist formulated the Burpees in the 1930s.  In fact, he went ahead and got his doctorate with this fitness regimen.

This fitness regimen became so popular that it was used by the United States military to assess the suitability of the new recruits.  Mr. Burpee formulated this fitness regimen so that it is suitable for everyday people.  It was around 1939 that this fitness regimen was tested with the members of the YMCA.  Today, it is by far the most trusted whole body workout most suitable for the modern era.

The Burpees involves four-step exercise consisting of the first moving to squat position, then  plank position, getting back to the squat position, and finally jumping back to the normal stance.  This four-step exercise can be made into six step exercise by adding a push-up and a jump and making it much more challenging.

Burpees have evolved from being a fitness regimen to getting incorporated into fitness challenge games like Spartan Races.  This is true since it would eventually drain your energy and make you fatigued quite easily.

How are Burpees useful?

A complete body workout

It should be noted that the majority of the fitness regimens mainly concentrate on a particular muscle group whereas Burpees is s whole body fitness regimen.  This fitness regimen can even be modified to become even more challenging when required.  Just adding a push-up and a power jump can make this regimen much more challenging.  Incorporating this addition not only is helpful to work on the core, legs, and upper body muscles, but also can now work on the triceps as well.

Improves agility

As a matter of fact, Burpees is considered to be one of the most challenging fitness regimens known to mankind.  .  Yes, this fitness regimen makes you burn that extra fat quite fast.  If you are a beginner, completing a set of three might be challenging.  So what is the point in performing such a challenging fitness regimen?  It is the end result that actually matters.  If you persist on performing the exercise daily, over a period of time, your strength and endurance would be at such high levels that those three sets of Burpees would have become 30 sets in no time.  This is the type of impact it can cause on your body.

It is versatile

One of the most important aspects of Burpees is its versatility.  You do not require a training machine or even a trainer to perform the exercise.  You do not even need to go to the gym to perform this exercise.  You can all do it by yourself at the comfort of your home.  This means you no longer have any excuses to skip your fitness regimen.

Tones your muscles

Burpee’s fitness regimen helps in working on multiple muscle groups at the same point of time.  It works with the hand muscles, chest, hamstrings, butt muscles, as well as the core.  Working with so many muscle groups simultaneously at the same time means there is no over-dependence on a particular muscle group.  As Burpees become your daily routine, it would become highly impossible to stop it.

Build endurance

If you are looking for increasing the strength and endurance, no other fitness regimen does it better than the Burpees.  Since multiple muscle groups are worked upon at the same time, there is a substantial increase in the amount of oxygen consumption as well as the functioning of the cardiovascular system.  Over a period of time, the number of Burpees sets you will be doing would increase substantially again bringing up the oxygen consumption and increasing cardiovascular function.  This increase is directly related to an increase in endurance which increases over a period of time.

Lose that extra pounds

Burning more number of calories than what you are consuming on a daily basis is the only way you can achieve a weight loss.  This may seem to be highly impossible by just running on  the treadmill or going for a jog in the morning.  One of the important factors to burn fat is by increasing the heart rate during the exercise regimen.  Burpees seem to be the right fitness regimen which can increase your heart rate as well as increase the oxygen consumption.

Since numerous muscles groups are worked upon at the same time, the rate at which the body fat burns more rapidly as compared to a general exercise regimen.  This is not it, Burpees works even a step further by improving the metabolism which helps the body to burn fat even after completing the exercise regimen.

In fact, this process continues for the whole day.  The Burpees fitness regimen is formulated in such a manner that the core is strengthened which indirectly improves the nervous system.  An active nervous system keeps you alert and attentive at all times, which in turn can be experienced by the energy you would have even after working at your office for the whole day.

Increase muscle strength

Making your muscles stronger can be done easier with Burpees.  Unlike other workout regimen, Burpees work on the whole body.  In the case of a regular exercise regimen, you would need to work on a particular muscle group at a time, which is time-consuming as well as may even cause strain to that particular muscle group.  Since Burpees works with the whole body, your muscle becomes stronger and stronger as the day’s progress, which means you would be achieving higher muscle strength with every additional set of Burpees.

Does not consume space

You would not need any additional equipment to perform the Burpees or big working space.  Your very own living room is more than sufficient to perform the Burpees efficiently.  This may not be true with other fitness regimens since you would need to have a training machine or other physical equipment like weights to work on your muscle groups.

Easily coupled with another fitness regimen

Burpees are so efficiently designed that it can be incorporated with any other fitness regimens.  It seems to be fit in any of the HIIT fitness regimens such as Tabata.  It is ideal to add it as a circuit training which is useful to warm up before beginning an exercise regimen.  If you are training for swimming, cycling, or running, Burpees can always be that additional workout regimen that can get easily incorporated.

How do you perform Burpees?

Performing Burpees may seem quite easy but actually is quite challenging when done on a continuous basis.  People tend to take up challenges such as 100 Burpees so as to achieve a particular goal.  You need to follow these instructions to complete one set of Burpees.

  • Begin the exercise by standing straight on a flat surface.
  • The next step would be to bring your body to a squat position and keeping both hands on the floor.
  • Follow this with a plank position where you would need to push both your legs at one go.
  • Now, reverse your action to coming back to the squat position, which should be done in single fast movement.
  • Next would be going back to the standing position and jump as you go up to complete one set.

Now, you need to continue with the same routine a couple of times so that you get accustomed to it.  If you are a beginner, you can start off with 2-3 times initially and then gradually increase the number of sets.  Make sure to take a short break of 15 seconds if you are feeling exhausted and continue immediately after the break to keep up the momentum.  Getting to 100 Burpees would not be difficult if practiced religiously every day.

Routine

Beginner, advanced, and expert routines can be followed for achieving the desired fitness goals.

Beginner

As a beginner do not try to push hard initially.  You need to get accustomed to the routine to master the art.  Try to perform the routine slowly such as performing three sets at a single time and then going for a 30 seconds break.  You can increase this to five sets at a single time followed by 30 seconds of rest and move up gradually. 

Advanced

Once you are accustomed to the fitness regimen, you can add challenges to the present workout regimen by incorporating small changes such as adding a push-up or going for a wide jump.  Some of the examples are discussed below.

Burpee with an additional push-ups – To perform this routine, you can perform 5 to 6 sets of Burpees followed by 45 seconds of rest.  Here, one push-up will be added when the body is in a plank position.

Burpee with two additional push-ups – Follow the same routine as discussed in the above section.  The only change here is that you will be doing two push-ups when the body is in a plank position.

Burpee with push-ups and knee tuck – Once again you will follow the same procedure of doing a Burpee with one push-up.  The additional maneuver would be to do a knee tuck jump at the final part instead of a simple jump.  This would make your core much stronger. 

Expert

The expert level consists of four groups of four different exercise routines.  Here, you will be performing these four exercises for one followed by a break of 10 seconds.  The four exercise routine would include:

  • Mountain Climbers – Placing the body in a plank position, move one of the leg front to back and then back to front. Follow the same for the other leg.
  • Jumping Jacks – This is quite a simple exercise which we have done when we were young. Stand on a flat surface with feet apart at a comfortable distance.  Now, jump with wide feet and lifting your hands above the head as you jump, all in a single motion.
  • Burpees – Stand straight on a flat surface. The next step would be to bring your body to a squat position and keeping both hands on the floor.  Follow this with a plank position where you would need to push both your legs at one go.  Now, come back to the squat position, which should be done in a single fast movement.  Finally, go back to the standing position and jump as you go up.
  • Squats – Stand on a flat surface with your feet wide apart. Next, dive your hips back and bend your knees to come to a sitting position.  Balance yourself by keeping both hands in front at shoulder height.  Finally, return back to the original position.

Do I need to follow any precautions?

If you are a beginner, you need a professional trainer who could train you so that you do not make any mistakes when performing the workouts.  Secondly, since Burpees involves working with the whole body, you need to be careful if you are suffering from a back problem or have a problem with vertigo.  Apart from these precautions, Burpees are completely safe to perform at any time and anywhere.

TL;DR?

 

 

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