BURPEE BASICS: All You Need To Know To Master This Move
If you want to shift your fitness fast, burpees will make it happen. With this one simple yet challenging move you can send your heart rate through the roof, build cardio endurance and torch fat.
Burpees are fast-paced, dynamic and never boring. You don’t need any equipment and you can do them any time, anywhere (if you're brave enough!). String together burpees in rapid succession and you’ll put your fitness, agility, coordination and strength to the test.
The muscles you work
Burpees are the ultimate full body exercise! You work your triceps, chest, glutes, quads, hamstrings, calves and all the muscles of your core with each rep.
How to set up the perfect burpee
- Place your feet slightly wider than your hips
- Position your feet with toe angled 5-20 degrees outward
- Lift your chest
- Ensure your weight is distributed through the heels and balls of your feet
- Brace your core muscles.
The movement
- Squat down and keep your chest elevated
- Place your hands on the floor
- Brace your core and jump your feet back to a plank
- Jump your feet back in wide
- Jump tall and land with bent knees
- Repeat
Tailor the move to suit your ability
An alternative to doing the burpee is to try a few by just walking your legs back instead of jumping into plank. You can also take out the jump at the end.
To advance this move try and shoot your feet out even faster into the plank. However, it’s important that you have your technique right before you add speed.
Other ways to up the ante include adding a push-up during the plank phase of the movement, doing one-armed burpees (make sure you alternate arms), adding a tuck jump at the end of each burpee, or jumping laterally over a bench in between burpees.
Fun fact: The burpee is named after American physiologist Royal H. Burpee who created it in 1940 as part of his Ph.D. thesis as a quick and simple way to assess fitness.
Make sure you …
- Don’t skip the squat movement. It’s important that you really focus on the squat component, as squatting reduces the stress on the lower back as you transition to the floor.
- Jump safely. It’s important that you bend your legs a lot as you land, as this will help absorb the load and protect your knees.
- Brace your core hard as you jump back into the plank – bracing your abdominals will help look after your lower back.
Burpees are a regular feature in lots of our classes so why not give them a go? Metafit, Body Attack, SWEAT, Boxercise HIIT, Circuits, Body Conditioning and more! Check out our GSCfitness timetable.
*This piece originally appeared on lesmills.com.*
