Why you should try burpees
Burpee helps you lose weight
Burpees burn a lot of calories, especially if you do the exercise intensely. If you do 20 burpees per minute, if you weigh 57 kg, you will burn The Benefits of Burpees and How to Do Them about 10 kcal, and if you weigh 83 kg, you will burn as much as 15 kcal.
Exercise strengthens muscles throughout the body
The work includes the muscles of the thighs and legs, chest, triceps and shoulders, and core muscles.
Pumps the heart and lungs
And it does it no worse than sprints. When used in a high-intensity interval training (HIIT) format, burpees are as effective Comparison of Responses to Two High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise Protocols for building overall endurance as sprinting on an exercise bike.
Burpee is a beautiful figure and a strong body!
Burpee (as a separate exercise) is a strength exercise for certain muscle groups of the body (usually biceps, thighs, calves, buttocks, triceps, pectoral muscles and shoulders are trained), which involves dynamic and static exercises.
Experts highlight the following beneficial effects of regular burpee training:
- rapid burning of subcutaneous fat;
- muscle pumping;
- gaining a slim figure;
- increasing the body's endurance;
- gaining psychological self-confidence.
Provided that burpee exercises are performed correctly and regularly, all these effects are guaranteed. The technique was invented by physiologist Royal H. Burpee in 1939.
It was based on only 4 movements (in modern Burpee there are now 6), combining them together into one exercise, naming it after itself. R. N. Burpee, in his dissertation, examined burpees as the best way to assess the physical fitness of military personnel.
During World War II, conscripts performed burpees as part of their training to be enlisted. Young soldiers were required to complete 12 burpee exercises in 20 seconds (8 sets was considered unsatisfactory). And by 1946, 41 approaches in a row were considered a good result, and anything less than 27 was considered bad.
Currently, research has found that people who performed 4 minutes of Cross Fit burpees per day for one month achieved greater results than people who ran on a treadmill for 30 minutes for the same time.
How to do burpees correctly
Despite the many variations of this exercise, there are general rules.
- Stand straight, place your feet shoulder-width apart.
- Bend over and place your palms on the floor.
- Jump into a prone position. Make sure your back is straight. To prevent arching in the lower back, tighten your abs and buttocks.
- Do a push-up until your chest and thighs touch the floor. Do not place your elbows to your sides; move your shoulders away from your body no more than 45 degrees.
- Push yourself back up while lying down. Make sure that the body rises in one straight line, without kinks or waves.
- Jump your feet toward your hands.
- Straighten up and jump up while clapping your hands above your head.
Even though burpees seem like a fairly simple exercise, beginners almost always do them with incorrect technique.
What are the advantages?
All physical activity can be divided into aerobic and anaerobic. Aerobic exercise includes slow running, swimming, dancing, sports games, etc. They help strengthen the cardiovascular system, develop endurance and burn fat. Anaerobic exercise is aimed at increasing strength and muscle mass. These include exercises using strength machines and heavy weights.
The uniqueness and benefit of the burpee exercise is that it has the effect of both aerobic and anaerobic exercise.
As an aerobic exercise, burpees:
- trains the heart and blood vessels;
- trains the respiratory system;
- increases endurance;
- activates metabolism and burns a large number of calories, thereby promoting rapid weight loss.
As an anaerobic exercise, burpees:
- develops muscle strength;
- strengthens core muscles;
- promotes the appearance of muscle relief.
Another advantage of burpee is that to practice it:
- no equipment required;
- requires a minimum of time;
- it can be performed in almost any environment (at home, in a hotel, outdoors, etc.).
What mistakes can be made when doing burpees?
Here are the most common types of incorrect execution that prevent you from getting the full benefit of the exercise and can cause injury.
Squatting
Many people in the first phase of the exercise do not bend forward to place their hands on the floor, but squat down, lifting their heels off the floor. After the push-up, they return to the same position and straighten out from it.
This exercise overloads the calf muscles and can result in pain in the legs, feet and knees.
If you do 10-15 burpees per workout, nothing bad will happen, but if you do much more, your calves will get clogged before you're truly tired.
To eliminate this, do not lift your heels off the floor and try to bend your legs less while bending.
The same applies to exiting the prone position - immediately place your feet on your entire foot and straighten up from this position.
Stand-up approach lying over one leg
Often, beginners go to point-blank range not by jumping, but by taking turns straightening their legs. Firstly, this prevents your muscles from receiving an explosive load, and secondly, it greatly reduces the speed of execution.
Jump upright with both feet, straightening your hips in one powerful movement.
Incomplete straightening at the top
Sometimes people don't straighten their body when jumping. Such a mistake may arise from fatigue and a desire to finish the approach as quickly as possible.
Yes, this way you can do burpees a little faster, but at the same time you will steal the load from the muscles and get used to the wrong technique. When participating in competitions, such burpees will not count towards you.
Therefore, always maintain full hip extension and a straight back during the overhead clap.
Relaxing on the floor
In the process of a full burpee, you touch the floor with your chest and hips, but this does not mean that you can relax and rest there.
Firstly, it reduces the effectiveness of the exercise, and secondly, it can be dangerous for your back. If you try to sharply straighten your spine while your core muscles are relaxed, the movement may result in a lower back injury.
Therefore, do not relax your body at any point in the exercise: your buttocks and abs always remain tense.
History of Burpee
The exercise received its unusual name in honor of its creator, the American physiologist R. Burpee, who lived in New York in the 30s. Burpees were originally used as a test for the patient. After performing the exercise several times, the doctor read the person’s pulse and, based on his statistics, gave an assessment of the patient’s physical fitness.
Initially, burpee consisted of 4 stages:
- Squat.
- Then a sharp jump to the plank position.
- Jumping back to a squatting position.
- And getting up.
Over time, several additional push-ups, a jump while standing up, and raising your arms up were added to this complex.
How to do burpees for different purposes
The exercise can be performed in different ways: with or without push-ups, with squats or practically straight legs. This does not mean that one option is correct and the others are not. It all depends on what goal you are pursuing.
To place more stress on the muscles of the arms and shoulders
Do burpees with push-ups until your chest touches the floor. The number and speed of movements will decrease, but you will get more stress on the muscles.
Alternatively, at the bottom of the exercise, lift your palms off the floor and only then perform a strict push-up, returning to the prone position. This way you will definitely work in the full range and pay enough attention to the shoulder girdle.
To take the strain off your back
Go into a squat until your thighs are parallel to the floor and from there take a lying position. Make sure your back remains straight.
The same is true when coming out of a prone position - first jump into a squat, and then straighten up. Don't lift your heels off the floor: do a full-foot squat.
If you don't have enough stretch to lower yourself into this squat, you can start by using an arm rest. This way you won't have to reach to the floor and bend your back.
When lowering to and rising from the floor, avoid bending the lumbar spine. To do this, tense your abs and buttocks.
To do as many timed burpees as possible.
This can be useful if you are participating in some kind of speed challenge, CrossFit competition, or functional all-around competition.
To prevent your arms from becoming overextended after the first dozen reps, do not push up, but fall to the floor. When you lower slowly, you waste muscle power in the eccentric phase. When you fall, gravity works for you.
The hands only lightly hold the body, preventing a strong impact of the chest on the floor.
As soon as the chest touches the floor, it immediately rises. You straighten your arms, straightening your back. At the same time, she does not relax in any way - all the muscles are tense, the torso is rigid.
From a low position with your back arched and chest lifted, in one powerful movement, bend at the pelvis and place your feet on the floor next to your hands.
Try placing your legs wider - this reduces the range of body extension, which means you spend less strength.
After straightening, do not jump high - it is enough to lift your feet off the floor for the repetition to count. So don't waste your time.
Features of the exercise
So, you already know the burpee exercise, what it is and what sequence it involves. Now let's look at some of the nuances in his technique. So, push-ups in this case are quite conditional. It is extremely rarely performed in the classic version. More often, the athlete simply lowers himself lower, lying with his whole body on the floor surface, sometimes inertia helps. This is achieved by lifting the legs off the floor as the lower phase of the push-up approaches and creating a kind of wave. This can be justified, especially in the case of the female gender, because it is more difficult for women to perform full push-ups.
Instead of a squat, you often just bend over with your hands on the floor. Similar actions, but in reverse order, are performed when lifting. As a result of this, the explosive movement of throwing out the legs is partially lost, and the jump is not done from a deep squat.
The technique is very important . You need to jump as high as possible, although it is difficult. This way, the effectiveness of burpees (you already know how useful this exercise is) will be maximum.
To develop proper burpee technique, first try not to rush too much and do the exercise consciously and thoughtfully. Over time, you will make the right movements automatically. It is important to remember that an intense pace is an important guarantee of the effectiveness of the exercise, so you should not feel sorry for yourself either. But watch your health. If it gets worse, give yourself a rest. They will help you learn more about burpees, what kind of exercise it is, videos about it and the technique of doing it, presented on the Internet.
How to Add Burpees to Your Workout
This is a truly universal exercise. You can use burpees like this:
- As a warm-up, 10-15 burpees after dynamic stretching will warm up the body well and prepare it for the load.
- As part of a bodyweight strength training session. This option is suitable for beginners. Start with three to five sets of 10 to 15 burpees and gradually increase the number or difficulty of the exercise.
- As part of an intensive interval complex. Burpees are simply created for HIIT, they go well with gymnastics, and with work on cardio equipment, and with a barbell. Look for CrossFit burpee routines and have fun.
- As the only physical activity of the day. Since burpees improve both muscle strength and endurance, they are perfect for those who don’t exercise at all. Start with 30 reps and add five more every day until you reach 100.
Do burpees every day, alternate between different variations, complement with other movements and arrange competitions for speed or number of times with friends or yourself.
Benefits and contraindications for doing burpees
Pros of exercise
- When performing burpees, all major muscle groups work, both external and internal, performing the function of a corset for the spine;
- Exercise forms a beautiful body shape and tones the muscles;
- Strengthens the spine, prevents curvature of posture and back pain;
- Strengthens the heart muscle and improves respiratory function;
- Improves the overall endurance of the body;
- Helps burn subcutaneous fat;
- Improves coordination;
- Reduces training time by training all muscles at once.
Contraindications for use:
- Heart disease, high blood pressure;
- Spinal injuries, hernia, displacement, protrusion;
- Inflammation of the joints, injuries of the knee joints.
