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The Official Compendium of Burpees
Please enjoy this re-post from last year!
BY TRACY
Results from our very scientific and non-biased poll confirm that Burpees are the least favorite activity among boot campers.
The Burpee is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “a physical exercise consisting of a squat thrust made from and ending in a standing position”. According to the highly-regarded and reputable Wikipedia, the Burpee originated “in the 1930s for American psychologist Royal H. Burpee, who developed the Burpee test. Consisting of a series of the exercises performed in rapid succession, the test was meant to measure agility and coordination. It is not clear whether the exercise itself was invented by Burpee, or if his test merely popularized it.”
I have compiled an official list of various Burpee forms:
- The Pain-Free Burpee – if the “burper” (athlete performing the burpee) develops knee or back related pain while performing the burpee, the burper can do the same number of frog jumps and push-ups.
- The Facilitated Burpee – the burper does not perform a push-up at the bottom of the burpee.
- Double Burpee – Instead of the burper doing one pushup, they do two in a row to cancel the drive from landing after the jump. This also makes the next jump harder.
- The Sully Burpee (aka the one-armed Burpee) – the burper performs the entire exercise using only one arm.
- The Mary Ellen and Daniel “Circus” Burpee – during the act of the kicking his/her feet back, prior to the push-up, the burper kicks their feet up as high as possible (one at a time). This is a very fluid motion and should only be performed by talented and experienced burpers.
Do you have any new Burpees ideas? Get your Burpee form added to the official list by clicking the “Comments” link above this post!
REFERENCE: Wikipedia.org
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Love it! The blog post that is, not the exercise. You’d think after a year I’d have better form and be able to do a really good burpee. Not so much!
What about the Speedie Burpee? You are already in the down position of your pushup before your feet kickout and you kick up before you’ve really pushed back up
And the slacker burpee (which we’ve all done at least once) where you kick your feet out, lay down on the ground and then cobra your way up into your push-up?
Cassie and I saw the other bootcamp doing these as we made our run back yesterday. Amazingly the instructor was commenting on their great form. Glad I go to BTB where they make us do it right!
Looking forward to tomorrow everyone
Kat, do you want to revise anything?
Kat may win Andrew’s challenge for first blog post removed.
I hope you all enjoyed sleeping in. I know I did, but I can’t wait to see everyone’s smiling faces tomorrow bright and early.
I’d like to see a burpee that includes some sort of drinking game. Maybe then they would be tolerable (at best).
D’oh! It took me like 5 times to figure it out Leigh. Those BTB instructors couldn’t get my form right but I’m sure you BC4C instructors will
I think burpees get a bad rap … gimme burpees any day over Mary Catherines!!
I’ve gotta see one of these Circus burpees in action — hard to visualize.
BCngU2mrw
I like mountain climber burpees. Instead of a push-up at the bottom, do 10 mountain climbers. Actually, I’ve never tried that, but it sounds like fun.
Or maybe a push-up to plank at the bottom.
Traveling burpees are fun. This guy, Charlie, did a burpee mile for his birthday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvCLxD3BI98
Don’t ever challenge Andrew in a traveling burpee race. He can broad jump something like 12 feet.
I feel a burpee workout coming on! We can show off all of our new burpee forms!
OMG Charlie is a machine! Funny how his burpees seemed to consist of only two steps: Up and Down. Mine seem to take about 5 steps total. Or maybe even 6.
He makes it look so easy.
Haaaaaaaaaa! I like to think that I sneak under the radar with my RIDICULOUSLY AWKWARD burpee form, but apparently I don’t. I try and try and try to get it right, but I’ve always got a leg kicking up and out on the way down and a knee folding in on the way back up.
Oh M.E. your burpees don’t get past these eyes. I think they are actually quite beautiful. What I don’t understand is how you can possibly do them without injuring yourself.
I will need to introuduce our campers to a rare variety, common to the Western United States Coast, called a “Sideways Burpee”
Also, lets not forget inverted Burpees!
Regular, Sideways, Traveling, Inverted…I feel a new workout coming on…
PS> my Burpees are awesome!
Just say no to burpees.
P.S. — Got a pretty severe case of park rash going on from yesterday’s workout…seriously the most intense round of it yet.
I used baby wipes, showered immediately, and applied cortisone cream…all to no avail. Stopped by the pharmacy and I now have a routine of benadryl, rubbing alcohol, and calamine lotion. Anyone have any other suggestions…perhaps something I’m not thinking of?
Nicole: The only other thing that I’ve heard that helps is Cetaphil lotion.
However, it seems that the only thing that really works is time.
Since I am one of the lucky few that has not ever gotten the rash (KNOCK ON WOOD!), I’d don’t have much sage advice for getting rid of it.
My recommendation would be to NOT GET IT. For real. And I don’t mean that you shouldn’t come to boot camp! Try bringing a towel to boot camp and put it down on the grass before you get on the ground.
It works!
Sounds like you picked up the “other” park rash Nicole.
A beach towel it is…it’ll be like bringing a little piece of the beach with me to boot camp each day!
I feel like a little kid with chicken pox all over again…I keep reapplying all my cocktail of ointments.
Leigh…the doctor cured up “that” rash months ago…
ORRRR .…. you could join me on the pavement!! Yet, another benefit … you’re dry AND you don’t get park rash!! Yay!
I like sleeping burpees. Jump, Go TO push-up. Lay down. Sleep for a while. Get up. Repeat.
Stripper Burpees are also fun. Just add a stripper (sorry, Lauren, Dive-bomber) push-up at the bottom.
Sorry for the late post, but just wanted to say — I still hate burpees!
Nicole — I’ve got something other than park rash too. I think it’s chigger bites from our time in the grass. They are killing me. WebMD said to use triple antibiotic cream with pain relief. I’m trying that now.….
Ha! It’s fun to read those old posts.
Surprisingly I’m pretty sure my Burpee form hasn’t improved much in a year, although I think I do the first four pretty well now. Then my form goes to H**l.
Mondays are tough — bittersweet to say the least — and I know I’m going to start feeling those fire hydrants and backwards hill runs in a couple hours!
Shout out to Yomi for completing 5 rounds; you’re a machine my t-shirt twin! Thanks Brandon and Mary for helping us start off the week with a Bang.
Bittersweet is right. I was seriously slow today, and when I realized that Kara and Dr. T had lapped me, it didn’t really motivate me to speed up at all. The only motivation I had was when I thought J Lo was driving by us, then I started running faster. Then I realized that it might not have been her. Bittersweet.
And, just for the record, it has been over a year since I wrote this blog post and the Daniel and Mary Ellen Circus Burpee is still in full force. It is really a beautiful thing to watch, I highly recommend it.
DVR Burpees. Film 15 seconds of Burpees and then watch while hitting the 15 second back button.
Susan: I got bit twice this morning on my wrist. They are close enough to look like a vampire bite.
SWEEEET. That was one impressive group .. especially for a Monday! And all that action in the park .. felt like 3 pm on a Sat.
Thanks Mary and Brandon. Brandon .. thanks for keeping up with and shouting out the exercises for the different rounds. That was particularly helpful. I predict by 4 pm I won’t be able to walk down the stairs. BTW .. who was that trying to TRIP me on the uphill? Mark and Andy??? Tracy … it’s time for those Marine men and women to come back to the park! Manana …
So Dr T WAS on fire .. Yomi was a blur! For him, there is no correlation between his arrival time at boot camp and his performance for that
day
What did Yomi promise everyone for saying he was doing great today?
Yeahhhhh, burpee form is definitely one of those “do as I say, not as I do” exercises. I generally try not to be a circus freak, but sometimes I just can’t help it. Oh well.
Good job today, beeseeforseers. Ready for another round tomorrow. Ding!
M.E.