One aerobic exercise you need to keep in your arsenal is the burpee. It’s an essential full-body exercise that’s perfect for adding a cheeky spike to your workout. The burpee has many variations but its basic movement is executed in four steps: stand, squat, hands are on the ground, move into a plank position, while kicking feet back and extending arms, then squat. The movements of the standard burpee seem simple but they do demand physicality. And if you’re determined enough, performing burpees will do wonders to your body and entire wellbeing.
We often use elements and sometimes the full burpee as mobility and warm-up exercise. Slowing the speed down and focusing on quality movement.
Let’s check out a few of the benefits you’d get from including burpees in your fitness routine:
Complete workout
Your muscles get a complete workout.
The burpee works for most major muscle groups, and that makes it a real full-body exercise. With burpees, nearly all your muscles get a workout all at the same time. This greatly helps in keeping you in great shape without worrying about what equipment you have available.
Form and function get equal attention
All those muscles that get a workout while performing a burpee are used in a functional manner. You do not just develop great-looking muscle tones, you gain equal doses of strength and mobility as well. These improvements you’ll gradually notice as you go on with your daily life.
Economical and practical
With burpees, there’s no pressure of going to the gym all the time. And that’s what makes burpees economical and practical. With burpees, you don’t need kits, or a big space, not even equipment to perform a complete workout. All you need is perhaps a floor mat and the discipline to go through a burpee regime that suits you best. And as long as you will the mind and body to go through the most gruelling of burpee routines, the fitness returns are simply priceless.
Flexibility and variety
Of course, nobody wants to do the same exercise over and over again. And this is what makes the burpee an even better aerobic exercise: the burpee comes in many extensive variations. Not only that, you can easily combine the burpee with other exercises for a more diverse way of giving your body a complete workout. You can give your brain a workout as well by coming up with different combinations and making up your own burpee variations as well.
Focus
With flexibility and variety comes a great opportunity to focus on developing particular aspects of your body and fitness. For instance, you can focus on your lower or the upper body simply by incorporating exercises into burpees or by tweaking them a bit. And it helps to have a goal to focus on, be it speed, strength, mobility or even agility. You can check out the more than a dozen burpee variations to help you figure out how to develop a focus area.
Improved physical skill
Looking at the more than a dozen of burpee variants, you’d realise the kind of effort demanded of finishing a number of these routines. And all these require various levels of skill. So as you move from the standard burpee to the more complex variants like the jump-over burpee or the Parkour burpee, you’ll be developing key requisite physical skills as well.
Can you imagine your physical skill levels if you mastered any of these complex variants? On the other hand, you can focus on which skill set to develop with well-curated burpee routines.
Balance
One of the most integral and necessary parts of any workout is balance training. With burpees, you can get the benefit of attaining and improving one’s balance. Even in the execution of the standard burpee demands balance, and doing this on a regular basis ensures that you keep your balance and improve it further. With burpees, the body learns to use your body parts especially the muscles in a symmetrical way, from squat to plank and back to an upright position. So if you’re looking for a great balance training, then burpees are for you.
Improved coordination
Just as important as developing balance is having good coordination. Executing the standard burpee or its more complex variations demand a certain level of coordination among your body parts. Imagine if your body lacks coordination — performing burpees would be a great challenge. But that’s what burpees are here for: they help you slowly improve on your coordination, along with your balance. And you can’t have one without the other.
Good cardio
Whether it’s running, biking or even climbing stairs, some activities that look simple can actually get tiring. It’s the same with burpees. And depending on the frequency, extent and variation, burpees can get really demanding physically. The good news is you end up with a good cardio workout. Want your heart to pump blood faster and burn more calories? Then go for speed and catch your breath. Surely, you’ll be sweating buckets and be rewarded with a fantastic exercise that does wonders to your health, especially in improving your heart and lung capacity.
Better metabolism
When it comes to burpees, less is more. That means you get to burn more fat with less equipment and in less time than conventional exercise routines. Yes, that’s 50 percent more fat. As a result, your metabolism improves significantly, helping you burn more calories the entire day even when you’re not working out.
Weight loss
With better metabolism comes to weight loss. And burpees do it naturally. Trimming all that fat might demand some work, but the benefits will be apparent if you put your heart into it. Do this daily and the results will be striking and immediate. The burpee, after all, is the ultimate fat burning exercise.
A happier you
With better cardio, good metabolism, weight loss, more strength and bulk, and improved physical looks and skills, undergoing a burpee regime adds plenty of good to your wellbeing, not to mention the release of those hormones called endorphins that create a positive vibe. That means doing burpees make for a happier you. And for all your efforts, what reward could be better than having a happy, healthy life?