Having recently completed Fitness Magazine’s 30-day Burpee Challenge, I am feeling an especially strong love/hate sensation toward burpees.
This was a 30-day challenge. The first week was 10 burpees per day, with each day offering a different burpee variation. The second week was 20 per day. Third week, 30. Fourth week, 40 per day. And the last two days, moving into that fifth week, was 50 burpees per day for a total of 800 burpees in a month.
I learned to do burpees when I was 11, way before they were cool, thanks to Dad’s commitment to fitness, which he was determined to impart upon me (and did). Since then, I’ve done them on and off. Mostly off. They’re brutal.
As I mentioned the challenge started with 10 kick-out burpees (one of the seven variations used in the burpee challenge), and afterward I wondered how I’d manage 50. But, just like with marathon training or anything else, you’ve got to trust the process.
That’s the cool thing about challenges like this: you do it without thinking too much, it puts you in a habit, you see progress, and afterward it’s almost harder to let it go than it is to keep it going.
I was in shape when I started the challenge, but not in burpee shape. Now I’m in burpee shape, and I don’t want it to stop. The most awkward variation, the one-legged burpees, now flow much more smoothly. I feel stronger. I can do more burpees in a row before I start thinking a 20-mile run would have been a better idea. Like it or not (and I don’t–not really) I’m making burpees a part of my regular workout schedule. Just not every day.
Right after I finished the challenge, I came across this burpee review by Stuart Heritage and I laughed out loud. It’s funny and accurate. This line pretty much sums it up:
“A burpee is free. The only price is the one you pay psychologically.”