Burpee is a CrossFit exercise, which involves performing several moves from different positions in one cycle. On average, you can have done a vast amount of work already in 10 minutes.
The benefits are obvious.:
Therefore, you lose weight much faster doing burpees with proper form because of performing usual exercises or starving yourself with exhausting diets. Due to burpees exercise you work out your whole body and spend a lot of energy.
How to do perfect burpees the right way
Burpee exercise is a great way to lose weight! Even when you perform just one exercise, the excess weight will disappear instantly.
Due to the intensity of classes, you greatly accelerate your metabolism. Performing burpee, you can have a toned and beautiful body and improve your health.
- Take a squat position and locate palms on the floor in front of you.
- Jump back legs and simultaneously keep the body in the same position as for push-ups.
- Make a spin from the floor.
- Without making any pause, return to the squat position.
- Jump up as high as possible, pull your hands up or clap your hands over your head.
Thanks to the burpee you burn calories immediately.
According to the scientist and coach Jeff Godin, one burpee consumes 1.43 kcal. If you make 7 or more burpees exercises per minute, you can already go for a two-dimensional calorie consumption per minute.
So, you should make the number of repetitions at least up to 10 per minute. If you perform burpee correctly, ten burpees are equated to 30 seconds of cycling.
Complex for a beginner:
Four approaches for 2 minutes (1-minute rest between approaches).
Complex for experienced people:
Six approaches for 3 minutes (1-minute rest between approaches).
Breathing while doing burpees
For many athletes, the main difficulty is breathing during burpee. After all, it is not a secret that at the beginning it is most difficult to do this exercise precisely because you lost your breath.
How to be in this situation? How to breathe with burpee to perform it most effectively for the body?
- Fell (resting on his hands) – inhale / exhale -> do push-up.
- Bring your legs to your hands -> inhale/exhale -> make a jump.
- Land, stand up -> inhale/exhale and so on.
- The cycle continues. So, one burpee – 3 phases of breathing.
How many times you need to do burpee depends on the task that you set for yourself?
If it is part of a complex, then one is enough. If you decide to devote training only to this exercise, then do more times. On average, for one approach for a beginner, it is nice to do 40-50 times. But for an already experienced athlete, it is desirable to do 90-100 times.
The average pace for a burpee to workout is at least seven times per minute.
Tips for a proper way to do burpees
As well as before any other workout, we recommend carefully to prevent possible injury. And in our case, you immediately involve several groups of muscles that need to be in tune.
Correct breathing. If you lose your right breath, you will not be able to continue the performance of burpee intensely.
To accelerate metabolism, we recommend exercising in the morning.
- Do not stop between separate movements. Procrastination and churning of breath lead to the fact that the next element is more difficult to do.
- In sports, it is essential to keep the rhythm. Do not strive to do as much as possible in a minute, so that on the second you have no strength left. Observe a normal pace.
- After a workout, it is best to stretch. So, the muscles do not hurt so much and recover more easily.
- Do you want the energy to appear again and again? Do you wish not to lose motivation and the desire to continue training? For the first time, just two minutes of burpee is enough. And if you feel the strength in yourself, continue. So fast, and so practical!
How many calories do burpees burn?
Many people are looking for the most effective ways to lose weight. And they are interested in the question of how many calories does burpee burn.
Let’s analyze what kind of calorie consumption during the occupation of burpee in comparison with other types of activities based on different weight categories.
| Exercises | 90 kg | 80 kg | 70 kg | 60 kg | 50 kg |
| Walking up to 4 km / h | 167 | 150 | 132 | 113 | 97 |
| Fast walking 6 km / h | 276 | 247 | 218 | 187 | 160 |
| Running 8 km / h | 595 | 535 | 479 | 422 | 362 |
| Jumping rope | 695 | 617 | 540 | 463 | 386 |
| Burpee (from 7 per minute) | 1201 | 1080 | 972 | 880 | 775 |
We took the calculation from the following calorie consumption per 1 burpee = 2.8 at a rate of 7 exercises per minute. So, if you follow this pace, then the average calorie burning rate during burpee will be 1200 kcal/hour (with a weight of 90kg).
Test 100 Burpee
With this exercise, you can quickly check your physical fitness by passing the so-called 100 burpy tests. The essence of the test is to reduce to the implementation of 100 full-fledged classic burpy for the minimum time.
It may seem simple, but after the first 35, you will understand that even to finish this test is not an easy task. If you have done it in less than 15 minutes, you are in good shape.
Why are burpees good for you?
Burpee exercise effectively strengthens all muscle groups and burns fat. In these kinds of training, you use your weight as a burden.
You can perform burpee anywhere, even in the smallest apartment or in a hotel room on a business trip. Exercises do not require much time and money. But as a result, you will have an amazing sports figure.
Muscles worked by burpees
There is one of the most common questions about the burpee? What muscles work? The answer is simple: almost everything! Burpee is an exercise involving the whole body.
Burpee involves main muscle groups: pectoral, spinal, buttocks. Also, it involves torso muscles; shoulder; arm muscles that are most intensely affected.
You load almost all parts of the body directly and simultaneously.
That is why burpee is so tricky, but at the same time, very useful! Taking into account the muscle groups that you involve, burpee exercises are no less valuable for women than for men. They help to strengthen the most “problematic” parts of the body – thighs (buttocks), chest, and arms.
A bit of history
The burpee exercise was invented in 1939 by the physiologist Royal Burpey.
He wanted to check the level of physical fitness of ordinary people. Initially, there were only four exercises (squatting, moving to the bar, pulling up legs and lifting). But after a few years, World War II began, and American sergeants conducted a physical training test for recruits, adding push-ups and jumps to clapping to the standard complex.
So, there were six movements. And there are these forms that we know the classic Burpy exercise. According to regulations, it was required to do 41 times per minute to recognize excellent shape. And less than 27 was considered a terrible indicator.
Lose weight doing burpees with proper form
Scientists conducted a study of how many calories the burpee exercise burns. And they found that it is much more effective than others:
- It burns almost two times more calories than with jumping rope or strong running.
- You burn four times more calories than walking fast.
Many fitness trainers recommend exactly burpee for weight loss. In just 10 minutes of training, you burn about 100 calories.
Burpee workout plan
To see progress and not overload the body, create your training program. How much to do, everyone decides on his own, depending on their capabilities. Try to make one approach, and estimate how much you can do in a minute.
- For beginners, four approaches of 2 minutes, between sets rest for 60 seconds. If you perform with the push-up so far that everything is difficult, you can do a burpee without it. Just make the bar. When you pump up your hands and press, everything starts to turn out.
- From the second week, you can do six series with the same mode of rest, or make four series. But for 3 minutes do exercises without stopping. It depends on your endurance.
- By the end of the month, you will most likely be able to perform six sets of 3 minutes without much stress. Next, reduce the rest time between sets.
- If you are in the gym, or you can use your equipment, you can complicate the workout. And do a burpee with tightening or weights on the body. Prepare your free space so that there are no sharp corners and foreign objects nearby. And then warm up your muscles well, for which even the most straightforward charge will be enough. Now we perform the classic burpee, as people do it in CrossFit:
- Stand up straight and take a breath.
- Sit down, firmly pressing the foot to the floor. And put palms on the floor. Exhale.
- While inhaling, kick your feet back to stand in a bar.
- Press out, exhaling. Keep your back straight, bend down to the floor with your whole body, not just your chest or hips. Technique for girls does not always include push-ups, you should add them only if you want to pump up your arms and shoulders. But still, you can skip this step.
- On the inhale, jump up and down with your hands to return to the squat.
- Exhale, jump in height, slamming your hands above your head.
Experienced athletes recommend just such a breathing mode. Watching for proper breathing is essential because strained muscles will need oxygen and blood flow. Do not hold your breath and do not stray.
Try to do burpee several times without effort, slowly, to remember when to inhale and exhale.
Home burpee workout plan
But seriously, let’s look at how a burpee training program for weight loss and endurance development at home can look like. It is suitable for both women and men. After having a warm-up, try doing four burpees per minute for 10 minutes.
Do not go beyond this intensity zone without proper preparation.
Burpee for slimming and development of endurance for trained people
If you regularly perform endurance exercises try performing the Tabata using burpee. Tabata is the same interval training performed at a pace – 20 seconds of work with maximum intensity / 10 seconds of rest.
So, do eight rounds in a row for 30 seconds. It will take you 4 min. After having a rest for 4 minutes, you can repeat it 1-2 times.
You do not need to go to a gym or have expensive equipment or a lot of free time. All that you need is your desire to be fit.
- Ladder descending. The first set should consist of, for example, ten repetitions. And each subsequent set should decrease by one repeat. Have a rest between them. But it should not be more than a minute.
- 100 burpees. It is necessary to perform “burpee” 100 times as fast as possible. Competition enthusiasts can check the time and daily try to beat their record or the achievement of an opponent.
- Marathon. It is a more simplified version. You need to perform as many repetitions as possible in two minutes.
- Ladder with sprints. You need to perform it in the same way as the ladder in descending order. But instead of a minute rest, you should run a 100-meter stretch or just run for one minute on the spot.
Burpee routine for girls
The burpee technique for girls and woman is similar to the method for beginners. Because it excludes some complex movements. So, it can be a classic burpee or more complicated but with less weight.
Also, make sure that you do the individual elements right. Speed up the pace and the number of repetitions.
- Stand – stand up straight, place your legs slightly apart. Straighten your back, relax your shoulders and tighten your belly.
- Deep squat. If you succeed, keep your legs in contact with the floor. Also, do not tear off your heels. Then, go into a deep squat. If you can’t keep your feet on the floor, keep them apart to reduce the difficulty. In a deep squat, place your hands on the floor under your shoulders. Besides, always look in front of you.
- Support – both legs at the same time bend back. Note that at the moment
If you think that you are not ready for push-ups, do not do them. In the beginning, it is enough to imitate. It is important not to bend your back, shoulder blades, try to pull back. Keep your elbows slightly apart. Also, your head is a direct extension of the body.
From the push-ups, jump over to the sitting, still, observing the straight position of the back. Then straighten and rise. Also, you can jump to make the lesson dynamic, or stand up.
- Perform 10 repetitions stop for 1 minute. The next approach is in 9 repetitions, again 1 minute of rest. And so on.
- Do 100 repetitions. The time is unlimited, but you need to do burpees in a row. Therefore, you cannot take a break for a shower.
- Set the timer for two minutes and, during this time, do a burpee with no pause.
- To the first point add a run on the spot, instead of a 1-minute rest.
- Also, you can perform the burpee exercise using the great Tabata system. Do the exercise for 20 seconds as fast as you can. Then have a rest for 10 seconds. And again have 20 seconds of fast execution. So, the total workout should take at least 4 minutes. For every 20 seconds, you should have time to do 8-10 times. And only then we can expect the effect very soon.
- Burpee is also deservedly an integral part of the CrossFit. And the central principle of it is the variation of functional movements performed with high intensity. The CrossFit program takes 20 minutes and includes running, rowing on simulators, jumping, rope climbing, exercises with dumbbells and barbells, and much more.
The number of training days is unlimited, but not less than three times a week.
If you do training, taking into account all the recommendations and forgetting about self-pity, then after the first week you can get the first result. In just one month of training, burpee will help to get rid of 5-8 kg of excess weight.
The result will significantly increase if you set some restrictions in your diet. So, you should not consume alcohol, wheat flour products, sweets.
- Beginner. Perform the maximum number of burpee in two minutes. Make three such approaches with a break of two minutes between them. Control the progress by an increase in reps in the method for a given time.
- Average – suitable for athletes in other sports and people who have ceased to feel progress using the “newcomer.” Perform burpees for two minutes with a rest of one and a half minutes between approaches.
- Advanced – for people who want to challenge themselves. You need to perform six sets of three minutes with a minute rest between sets. We do not recommend this type of training for people with cardiovascular diseases or having joint problems.
- On average, the effect is noticeable after a month, if you train in the morning every day. And here are the results you can achieve by giving this kind of charging only 10-15 minutes a day.
- Acceleration of metabolism. Make 8-10 burpees, and the effect will be the same as if you ran half a minute sprint.
- Strength and endurance. At first, it will be difficult to do even 4-5 repetitions. But after 30 days you will probably be able to do 7-10 easily. You will become more resilient, and your muscles will strengthen.
- Effective weight loss. The combination of strength and cardio is the best way to burn fat.
- Strong hands. Daily shoulders and biceps will get their load. As practice shows, in a month you will notice the outlines of the muscles under the skin.
- Tight buttocks. Jumps, tension in the bar, lifts, squats – your buttocks will work almost always. And you will get a beautiful rounded shape.
- Tightened legs. The muscles are drawn very quickly. And the thighs correctly perceive the load. And being the most massive muscle of the body, they also consume maximum energy.
- Slim stomach. Try to keep the press tight during all movements, and especially – during push-ups and the bar. The waist will be smaller, and the stomach – more elastic, the muscles will tighten. Benefit for the heart and blood vessels. After 1-2 repetitions, the heart beats like mad, driving blood through the vessels.
- Straight back and a flat spine. Work all the muscles from the shoulders to the buttocks.
- Dexterity and coordination develop. During fast repetitions, you need to keep a balance all the time. Also, you train the vestibular apparatus, you learn to control every movement.
- Involves all muscle groups, improves overall physical fitness, replaces several other exercises in its effects.
- Tightens the outlines of the body, tones oblique and transverse muscles on the abdomen.
- The main advantages of the burpee is the possibility of training at home. So, it takes only a little free space and a few minutes. It is suitable for those who want to play sports, but need to increase physical fitness, as well as for people who are overweight.
- The number of endorphins increases. Burpee strengthens the overall well-being of the body and makes you feel better during the day. The amount of endorphins released after such intensive exercises lasts a long time.
- You can use burpee in training Tabata. It is consistent with the goal of reducing the percentage of fat tissue in the body.
- However, you can feel the benefits of performing burpee only in the absence of contraindications.
- Among the cons of the burpee exercise, you can note the high-intensity load on the knees and ankles. People with injuries of these areas or with excessive excess weight cannot perform all these jumps, as you can hurt yourself. For healthy people, such exercise is entirely safe.
- Burpee exerts the most robust load on the joints, which not every person can bear. The knee joints are the hardest. If you have problems with your knees, performing burpee will aggravate them. Sometimes people are unaware of the poor condition of their joints until they start doing a burpee.
- For beginners, it is usually challenging to master the correct technique of performing a burpee. But incorrect technique leads to injuries. Most often, when performing a burpee, people encounter injuries to their hands — wrists and elbows.
- You cannot do a burpee with problems in the work of the cardiovascular system, and even with suspected problems. Therefore, including burpy in training, you need to be sure that the heart and blood vessels can withstand such a high load.
- For the burpee exercise to be useful, you must do an exercise in the absence of contraindications and the correct technique. Under these conditions, the benefits of the exercise will be higher than the possible harm.
Records & experiments
At the moment there are two world records for a burpee.
- 1. 11 of them belong to the Englishman Li Ryan – on January 10, 2015, in Dubai, he set the world record 10,100 times in 24 hours. But in these burpees, there was no leap and clap overhead.
- 2. The 22nd record belongs to Russian Igor Kim. He made 4555 burpees on April 24, 2016, in Moscow in the classical form: with a jump and with a clap over his head.
Experiment 1
Scientists from the Canadian University of Queens (Queens University) conducted a test experiment in which 22 girls of student age participated. The girls performed four workouts a week for four weeks.
- Group A ran on a treadmill for 30 minutes at 85% of the maximum heart rate.
- Group B completed eight rounds of burpee for 20 seconds with a 10-second break between the rounds – only 4 minutes (Tabata)
As a result, both groups improved their level of aerobic physical training equally – by 7-8%. So, for 4 minutes, the burpee worked the same way as 30 minutes of cardio.
But only the girls who were doing a burpee, increased their level of muscular endurance in such exercises as pushing, lifting the legs, lifting the body and lying down.
Therefore, Canadian scientists have concluded that the only 4-minute exercise with the burpee exercise gives at least the same result as long, slow and boring cardio.
Another experiment
But there is another study. It compared the burpee with high-intensity interval cardio on a stationary exercise bike.
11 people participated in the experiment (8 men and three women), who performed two types of training sessions:
- Thirty seconds of intensive work on an exercise bike (twisting of pedals with maximum effort).
- Thirty seconds of a burpee.
- After 4-minute rest, repeat the circle three times.
The results again showed equal effectiveness. So, the burpee worked the same way as the traditional “sprints” on the bicycle.
Therefore, you can achieve excellent results in burning fats and improve your physical form without any equipment. You need to perform within a few minutes only one single exercise, which requires only the floor.
Burpee replacement
If you hate burpee, you might like his alternative – squatting with a jerk. It is an exercise similar to burpee, but without pushing up and jumping at the end. Since it simplifies the task a little, you can move faster and increase your pulse. As a bonus to the whole exercise, you tighten the press correctly.
- How to do squats with a push:
- Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart.
- Sit down with hands on the floor.
- While straining the press, jump back to the bar position.
- Keep your arms straight and jump back to the bar position.
- Climb and return to starting position
Different kinds of burpees
If you have already mastered the classic burpee technique, you should try some more complicated method. Performing them, you can get even more efficiency in a short time.
Classic burpee
Classic burpee is one of that you are obliged to know how to perform. It is the first version of the exercise that you need to master. To perform it, become straight with feet shoulder-width apart. Then, being that position, squat and put hands on the floor.
After that, in a jump, move legs back and become in the bar. Later, do a push-up and then doing a backward jump move your legs towards the arms. But do not forget to keep your body straight. And you should complete the jump with a clap overhead.
The climber technique of burpee
Such a method is almost the same as the classic one. But there is one significant addition here. When you have done the bar, one leg in the jump approaches the chest. Then swap the legs in the jump. And only after that you need to get back in the bar and do push-ups.
Burpee with jumping on a height
Use a chair or a bench as a height. Also, you should place the bench against the wall for stability. Besides, you need to put the bench approximately one step away from you. So, when you jump from the squat position, do it onto the bench. And the higher is height, the harder to jump and the better result you get.
Burpee push ups
Performing the exercise, place the hands not on the floor, but the bench. Do the push-ups with emphasis on the legs and the bench. And you complete the exercises jumping on a height.
Burpee hand shifting
To adopt the position of the bar, does not jump with the feet back. Instead of that do several steps with the hands forward. After pushing the arm backward, approach the legs to return to the squat.
Burpee with dumbbells
To perform this technique, you only need to add to the classic version a standing dumbbell bench press. Also, always keep the dumbbells in the hands. And after final jumping, rise hands with the dumbbells upwards. After that, return to the starting position.
Burpee with plyometrics
In this version, you need to replace push-up with a plyometric element. Then in the position of the bar, you need to tighten the muscles of the core and make a high jump.
Different types of burpees
- Place your feet shoulder-width apart.
- Squat and place your palms on the floor in front of the feet.
- Jump in such a way that your palms remain in the same place, and your legs are behind. You should be in the push-up position.
- Perform one push-up.
- Return legs to the chest.
- Return to the starting position by jumping up when standing up.
2. Easy
You must perform such type of burpee the same way. But there is no push-up.
3. Simplified
Performing this type eliminates push-up and final jump up.
Choose the type of exercise based on your fitness program. It is better to start with a lighter option. So, after a workout, you do not have to suffer for several days with muscle pain. Do burpee as much as you can. Gradually add the number of repetitions. You will be pleasantly surprised at how quickly you can increase the number of times.
Different burpees
Suppose you had done a few simple burpees and you want something else, something more interesting. No problem. Here are some options for burpee There are several ways to diversify and enhance burpee exercise
- You replace standard push-up by a push-up wave. When doing push-ups, lower the upper part of the body first. And later lower the buttocks. The first buttocks come out of the push-ups. And then only the breast rises. Such push-ups are much more difficult. Therefore, they are more effective.
- You can alternate burpee with running on the spot. Choose the interval. For example, 2 minutes of running. Then do 20 repetitions of a burpee.
- You can make your training to be complicated if you press your legs to your chest during the final jump.
- Burpee with dumbbells. Hold a pair of dumbbells in the hands. All movements must be absolutely the same. But locate the hands with dumbbells along the body.
- Burpee in a vest. If you suddenly have a special heavier vest, then this is an excellent item for the burpee. The technique is in the same way, but the load level is entirely different.
- Burpee with Medball. Take the medball of the appropriate weight in your hands while performing the jump up. Straighten your arms with Medball over your head in this part of the exercise. After the jump at the top point, do not lower your hands. But you should do one pull up by a standard extension.
Execute an exercise as quickly as possible. But the maximum level of training complexity is recommended only for professionals.
1. Burpees with stretchers
Pull-ups on the horizontal bar are one of those exercises most athletes hate. Do you love to CrossFit and hate pull-ups? Make a combination of burpee tightening. After it, you will immediately fall in love with each exercise individually.
Performance technique:
First, make a standard burpee. But instead of a boring standard jump with a clap over your head, jump on the horizontal bar and pull up once.
2. Burpees with touching a crossbar
People invented such type of burpee not to let athlete cheat while doing an exercise. So, instead of a clap, you need to touch the crossbar with your fingers. And if you are not so tall, then you have to work hard.
3. Burpee and a rowing machine
The performance of such exercises is pure. Perform the standard burpee next to the rowing machine. And instead of bothering everyone with the clap over your head, merely jump over simulator. Repeat the same thing on the other side of the concept.
And you cannot avoid something in doing such type of exercises. When you do classic technique and make a jump, you tear off your legs to a maximum of two millimeters. So, you do not suffer. But performing this technique, you must jump pretty high. So, it means you will work more efficiently and harder. Good luck!
4. Burpee through the rod
There are a lot of profits in this technique. For example, you can combine burpees with trasters or other weight-lifting exercises. But the most important thing is that you have the opportunity to terrify the public by rolling the heavy barbell on the floor.
5. Burpees with pistols
Many people are kidding about this technique: “Iron way to kill legs!”
- Perform a standard burpee, including one-leg jump.
- After that, stay on one leg and squat down, keep the other leg flattened. It is a favorite pistol.
- Do the same with the other leg.
- Next, follow the technique of classic burpee, and so on.
7. Burpee through box
Perform burpee: jump on the box and get off it from the other side in any way convenient for you. It will be counted as one repetition. Also, it is not necessary to fully straightened on the box. So, it will not be so hard for you.
8. Burpees with additional pleasures
To prepare for the performance, take two dumbbells of lightweight.
- Place the dumbbells on the floor parallel to the body in such a way that it is convenient to support them during pushups.
- Stand on your haunches, take the dumbbells in your hands and, with a sharp rebound of your legs, take a push up stand.
- Then perform push-ups, while relying on dumbbells. And in the same jump return to the starting position.
- Also, straighten while doing the deadlift with dumbbells.
- Return the dumbbells to the floor, take the starting position. After that, make the specified number of repetitions.
So, as you see, burpee in CrossFit is not only an ideal way to lose weight. Also, it is a lot of fun.
Burpee variations with weights
To enhance the training of individual muscle groups, athletes use additional equipment. There is a weighted vest, dumbbells, weights, medball, weights on the arms and legs.
Fighters of mixed martial arts use “burpee” in the training process, including them in the “shadow battle” to simulate protection from going to the legs. Also “burpee” is an excellent alternative to running, they save time.
