Revised Burpees for Haters: Two Strategies to Ease Your Struggle with High-Intensity Exercises
Burpees, a versatile bodyweight exercise, are a staple in many fitness routines due to their ability to challenge the entire body and improve overall strength, mobility, and fitness. Here's a guide to performing burpees correctly and safely, with tips from fitness expert Gustavo Vaz Tostes.
Proper Burpee Form
To perform burpees effectively, focus on a controlled, full-body approach that emphasizes correct form, joint alignment, and mobility. Key steps include:
- Stand with feet shoulder-width apart.
- Squat down, placing hands on the floor shoulder-width apart, keeping chest up and core engaged.
- Kick or step feet back into a plank position, forming a straight line from head to heels without sagging or hiking hips.
- Perform a push-up for upper body engagement (optional or modified on knees).
- Jump or step feet forward beside your hands, returning to squat.
- Explode upward into a jump or stand tall with a controlled breath.
Manageability and Safety
For beginners or those with knee issues, consider using step-back versions instead of jumping, focusing on slow, deliberate movements, and engaging your core throughout. Avoid rushing, which increases injury risk and reduces exercise efficiency.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Avoid letting hips sag or pike during the plank position, collapsing knees inward during squat or landing, leaning too far forward, rounding the back, or losing core tension. Rushing reps and neglecting mobility and control phases are other common mistakes to avoid.
Progressive Challenges
Building strength and endurance with burpees benefits from progressive challenges, such as gradually increasing reps, speed, or adding push-ups, while always prioritizing proper movement patterns.
"Death-by-Burpees" Workout
Vaz Tostes suggests the "death-by-burpees" workout as a challenging finisher or standalone exercise, but it should only be performed after a thorough warm-up and sparingly, at most once per week. In this workout, the number of burpees increases every 30 seconds.
Vaz Tostes advises starting slow and trying to keep the heart rate as low as possible for as long as possible until a faster pace is needed to finish within the 30-second window. Hinging from the hips instead of squatting during burpees is also recommended.
Widening the feet apart throughout the burpee movement makes the exercise quicker, more efficient, and less taxing on the legs. Keeping the feet too close together forces the legs to work harder and puts the practitioner in a weak position.
In summary, performing burpees properly means balancing strength with mobility-focused technique, controlling each phase from squat to plank to jump, and choosing appropriate modifications to avoid injury and improve overall fitness progressively.
- To ensure a safe and effective burpee workout, focus on a controlled, full-body approach that emphasizes correct form, joint alignment, and mobility. This approach includes performing burpees with a proper stance, a controlled plank position, and efficient jump or step movements, according to fitness expert Gustavo Vaz Tostes.
- Incorporating science-based health-and-wellness practices can help optimize your burpee workouts. Vaz Tostes recommends the "death-by-burpees" workout as a challenging finisher or standalone exercise, but it should only be done after a thorough warm-up and sparingly, at most once per week.
- Fitness-and-exercise enthusiasts looking to enhance their workouts can progressively challenge themselves with burpees by gradually increasing reps, speed, or adding push-ups, while always prioritizing proper movement patterns for increased strength, mobility, and fitness.
