If you do em right, burpees are one of the most effective total body exercise you can do. Not only do you challenge your endurance and strength, but also your balance. There are hundreds of varieties of how to change them up, but today I want to tell you about my 5 favorite versions of the killer.
1. The traditional Burpee
So, heres a step by step instruction on the classic burpee.
You gonna start by standing with your feet hip width apart.
Next, squat down and place your hands of the both sides of your feet.
Jump your feet back, so that you end up in the plank position. Its important to keep you body in one straight line, don’t drop your hips or press your butt up. Tense your abs and hamstrings.
Now bring your chest down to the ground and do a push up. Remember not to press your elbows out to the side, but keep them close to your body. This way you make sure to hit your triceps a lot harder when pressing up.Now, jump your feet forward again and from there jump up as high as you can, landing soft on your feet and in the standing position again.
2. The Jump Squat Burpee
This one will kill your legs. Start in the squat position. From there, complete one push up and jump your feet forward again, so that you end up with both hands besides your feet. Now, instead of jumping up and ending up in the standing position, you gonna jump up and without resting your legs go straight into the squat position again, from where you will start all over again. That way you never release the tension on you butt and thighs. If thats too easy, you can still put a resistance band around your knees (which will make sure you do the squat with proper form) and keep it under tension the whole time. That way, you will hit those abductors of the thighs and butt muscles even more.
3. Superwoman Burpee
This one is great for balance and training your abs. Start with a regular burpee motion until you’re in the plank position. Here, do one push up, come up into the plank position, then stretch out one arm and the opposite leg until there both parallel to the ground. Hold it for 2-3 seconds without shaking. Do another push up followed by the same motion but with the opposite arm and leg. From the plank position then, complete the burpee like you would a traditional one.
This exercise challenges your core and upper body/ arm muscles a lot. Also, you gonna do two push ups in one rep, so you will tire your arms out completely if you do it right.
4. High Knee Burpee
Yessss, this one I’d say is one of my favorites!! The burpee itself is already a pretty cardio loaded exercise. But if you throw in some high knees additionally, you gonna be huffing and puffing after only few reps. So, it’s pretty simple. You gonna do 10 high knees ( basically running on the spot but bring your knees up as high as you can, hip height or higher if possible), followed by one burpee and jump up. That’s it. Sound easy, right? Let’s first try it out and then we can discuss again haha 😉 But if you though feel like your up for a bit more of a challenge, you can always add ankle weights, as I like to do most of the time.
5. One legged Burpee
Last but not least, the butt killer. You will basically do a traditional the only exception being: you will perform the whole thing standing on only one leg – the whole time. When you jump your feet back into the plank position remember to always keep the leg which is hovering above the ground perpendicular to the ground. This will challenge you gluten a lot. When you jump up on one leg as hard as you can, you will then feel the same burning sensation in the gluten of your standing leg.
Have fun enjoying the brutality (I already did a 600 burpee workout which took me 2 hours to compete haha) and let me know if you have any suggestions for more varieties!
