Burpees

[1Admin]

Doing burpees- I've seen some done wherein the go to ground part is a pushup and some wherein just you squat, then hands on the ground and kick the legs back to a pushup like position then jump up again.

Is one better than the other? Would one be easier on a woman and child than the other?

This was probably the hardest exercise for my family as we started our workouts. I had 2 sets of 10 listed and I was the only one who could complete that.

TIA

[Longhunter]

I've always done burpees where you start in a standing position, jump and lift your arms over your head, come down into a squat position, then into the pushup position, do a pushup, bring your legs into your chest, then jump up and lift your arms over your head. That's 1 rep. A little hard to explain with typing but hopefully this helped. Maybe a search of the internet especially www.crossfit.com might help.

I love/hate doing burpees. They are a good workout, but they are no fun to do. As far as your question about what's better for a woman/child, I'm not really sure. Maybe just have them do a pushup then stand, then back down into a pushup, no jumping or squatting.

[Lowdown3]

What we are doing now is
Monday- 15 pushups, 30 situps, 10 air squats
Wed- Burpees 2 sets of 10, 30 crunches, 3-4 minutes of leg lifts a.k.a "six inches", holding that up then "walking" then "pedaling" all while keeping the legs off the ground.
Friday- 15 pushups, 2 sets of 10 burpees and 30 crunches.
Each is followed by a 1 mile run.

The boy and I do a little more of the same and some other stuff at a martial arts class 3x a week also.

The burpees have been the only thing that have slowed the wife and my son down, everything else has been fairly easy.

[Matt In Oklahoma]

When you find them easy use you Bug Out Bag, modify your pushups by going to you knees with your pack on to avoid injury. Place you bag on your chest for the crunches.

[Lowdown3]

Great idea! Thank you

[Lowdown3]

It just took a little time for the family to get used to these, but they are doing them really well now. Actually it's probably time to increase them to 30.....

[KirkMcquest]

Since the winter weather has me indoors most the time now, I have been doing a thing known as a 'jailhouse 10' every morning. It's basically burpees, with the full pushup added;

do 10...then walk across the room

do 9...then walk across the room

do 8....then walk across the room

etc, etc until you get down to 1.

The first time I did this I felt like I got punched in the lungs. After day 5 it starting to get easier so I might up the number to 12.

[Klayton]

after day 5? I hope you are not doing these everyday? Muscle recuperation needs 48 hrs for full recovery. Overload will easily set in if you don't, and you will actually start losing strength and muscle mass... :(

http://www.muscleandstrength.com/articles/overtraining101-what-you-need-to-know.html

[KirkMcquest]

Yes I'm aware of conventional beliefs about muscle recuperation time....however in my experience I have always had the best results ignoring those rules. IMO the body can easily adapt to a consistent regimen of daily stress....provided the stress is not enought to overload the muscle ( and a muscles ability to adapt to increasing daily loads does increase as well).

There is a fine line between building muscle and overload, I don't doubt that. However the daily jailhouse 10 seems easy enough to handle plus I do skip days when I am busy.

[Knobster]

One variation I do with burpees: the burpee pullup. At my office there is a fitness room that has a pullup bar mounted on the wall that can be adjusted to various heights. I mount the bar to its highest point (~2 feet above my reach) and start my workout. Squat to the floor, kick your legs out, do a pushup, tuck your legs back in, explosively jump to the pullup bar, perform a pullup. After ten of these you know you're doing something. I have a love/hate relationship with both burpess and pullups so why not spread the fun around?