If you haven’t already incorporated burpees into your non-running workouts, you’re missing out. This total-body exercise is a high-intensity move that gets your blood pumping and your muscles burning so adding them to your training routine can boost both your cardio capacity and strength.
That said, the burpee is a controversial exercise because unless you’re performing it with proper form, you won’t reap any of the exercise’s benefits—and worse, you might even be putting yourself at risk for injury.
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Plus, regular burpees can help reduce your waistline: A TS Fitness in New York City, and consulted the latest research to give you all the tools you need to confidently add burpees into your cross-training sessions.
How to Do a Burpee
When it comes to burpees, proper form is key. The burpee above is demonstrated by Meghan Hayden, a certified personal trainer at Tamir recommends doing 8 to 10 burpees after a, so you can learn the proper technique. If you’re just starting out, you can modify this move by removing the hop at the end.
The Burpee:
Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Hinge at the hips and bend knees to squat as deeply as you can and place your hands on the floor. Jump feet back to come into a high plank position (top of a push-up). With core engaged, bend elbows to lower chest to the floor, like a push-up. Press back up as you jump your feet back into a deep squat and jump (or stand) right back up, landing on the balls of your feet.
Expert tips:
Tamir recommends capping your burpees to a maximum of one minute at a time, or else your form can start to slip—however, most people will burn out after around 30 seconds, he says.
“Your ATP system—the energy system that kicks in when your sprint or jump—runs out quickly,” he says. “Burpees are an anaerobic exercise, but people treat it like an aerobic exercise.
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Doing burpees when you’re already tired—like in the middle or end of your workout—can also mess with your form. Bad form can mean a few things: One is unwanted compression and pressure on your shoulders. “A lot of people already have forward shoulders, so this could make that worse,” Tamir says. “You can create shoulder impingements or tear your labrum.”
Another issue is that a lot of people start to “worm” during the push-up phase of a burpee when they become tired or don’t have proper form because they don’t have control of their body weight, according to Tamir. This can hurt your lower back. Performix House in New York City.
Finally, if you land on your toes—rather than the balls of your feet—you’re putting a lot of pressure on your knees and not getting your glutes Health - Injuries.
How to Make a Burpee Easier
If you’re unable to do a burpee and want to work up to it, Tamir recommends doing the following moves first to gain the strength, mobility, and body control you need in order to perform the exercise:
- Health Benefits of Walking, According to Experts, negative push-ups and dumbbell thrusters.
- Work on your explosive jump power with plyometric drills.
- Walking Treadmill Workouts.
- Focus on the quality of your reps as opposed to the quantity of your reps.
What are the benefits of burpees?
landing on your toes total-body exercise that can be done anywhere—a bonus for us busy runners who often don’t have time to hit the gym. Burpees work your arms, chest, quads, glutes, hamstrings, and core. Plus, burpees are a plyometric, explosive movement, which translates well to powering up hills or sprinting to the finish of a race.
“A lot of people like [burpees] because they’re a challenge, and they feel accomplished when they do them,” Tamir says.
What’s more, burpees get your heart rate up, which increases blood flow to your muscles and back to your lungs, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Research backs up these benefits and more. A 2016 study Nutrition - Weight Loss PLOS One found that doing 30 minutes of HIIT exercise each week can improve your overall fitness and muscle function just as much as doing 150 minutes of steady, moderate-intensity exercise each week.
The Secret Solution to Knee Pain While Running 2019 meta-analysis Nutrition - Weight Loss Mayo Clinic Proceedings found that HIIT exercises like burpees are more effective at burning visceral fat—the type of fat that’s stored within your abdomen that surrounds a number of internal organs—than just rushing through the move just strength training. And a 2015 study published in Health & Injuries found that doing intense exercises like burpees can slash your risk of early death up to 13 percent.
How often should you do burpees?
CA Notice at Collection mobility warmup (think: lunges and glute bridges) leading into a HIIT workout. Depending on your fitness level, you can incorporate a set or two of burpees into your cross-training days, or as a postrun finisher.
What burpee variations can you do?
Once you’ve nailed burpees and are ready to kick your workouts up a notch, Tamir recommends trying out the following variations:
Forward-Jump Burpee
How to do it: Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Hinge at the hips and bend knees to squat as deeply as you can and place your hands on the floor. Jump feet back to come into a high plank position (top of a push-up). With core engaged, bend elbows to lower chest to the floor, like a push-up. Press back up as you jump your feet back into a deep squat and jump (or stand) right back up, landing on the balls of your feet. At the top, jump over a cone or barbell facing you, then repeat the move.
Lateral-Jump Burpee
How to do it: Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Hinge at the hips and bend knees to squat as deeply as you can and place your hands on the floor. Jump feet back to come into a high plank position (top of a push-up). With core engaged, bend elbows to lower chest to the floor, like a push-up. Press back up as you jump your feet back into a deep squat and jump (or stand) right back up, landing on the balls of your feet. At the top, turn sideways and jump laterally over a cone or barbell facing you, then repeat the move.
Single-Leg Burpee
Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Lift right foot off the ground. Hinge at the hips and bend left knee to squat as deeply as you can and place your hands on the floor. Jump feet back to come into a single-leg high plank position (top of a push-up). With core engaged, bend elbows to lower chest to the floor, like a push-up. Press back up as you jump left foot forward into a deep squat and jump (or stand) right back up, landing on the ball of your left foot. Repeat on right side.
Dumbbell Thruster into Push-Up
How to do it: Start holding a dumbbell in each hand. Lower dumbbells to the ground, squat back, and hop feet out into a high plank. Then, perform a push-up. Hop them back in, then as you stand, with arms straight, lift the dumbbells to eye level. Bring the dumbbells back down to the ground and repeat.
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Danielle Zickl is a freelance writer who has 10 years of experience covering fitness, health, and nutrition. She's a graduate of Ithaca College. You can find her work here on Women's Health, and in many other publications including PS, SELF, Well+Good, Runner’s World, Outside RUN, Peloton, Men’s Fitness, and more.
