The Burpee & Other Extreme Exercises

Burpees are the exercise folks hate if they’re putting themselves through a fitness boot camp after a bout of inactivity, or love if they’ve somehow broken through to a higher level of fitness. The burpee is a squat, followed by a kickback into the plank position with a return to standing. Advanced burpees add a pushup and a jump squat. You may be thinking “yikes” to yourself, but extreme exercises such as the burpee can remake your body into something tough and ready for any test.

  1. What’s Extreme

    • If you’ve ever tried a burpee, especially if you’re out of shape, you’re intimately familiar with the profound challenge they provide to your hips, knees, back, entire core, shoulder, arms -- and mightily laboring cardiovascular system. While a United Kingdom man holds the official record for 1,840 burpees in one hour, you may barely be able to do five or even one or two when you get started. Even folks trying out for special forces positions may only work out with two sets of 25 burpees. Elite forces wannabes trying the 40 burpees that are part of the U.S. Marine Corps physical test report sick-to-their-stomach comrades throwing up their breakfast. That’s hard core.

    Trying Out the Burpee

    • If you’re new to burpees, try to see how many you can complete with good form in 30 seconds. You can work up perhaps to Fitness Blender’s 100-burpee challenge. You burn eight to 14 calories a minute in an estimated 11 minutes of 10 different kinds of burpees, including burpees with wide feet and burpees with a split stance. If regular burpees don’t make you sufficiently dizzy, you can also add claps during your pushup or a pullup on an overhead bar.

    No Equipment Needed

    • If you can’t face another burpee but want a similar challenge that requires no equipment, you can try pistols or handstand pushups. The pistol entails squatting on one leg, the other leg held out straight in front of you, parallel to the floor. Add a kettlebell for brownie points. Handstand pushups are just what they sound like: a handstand that involves asking your laboring biceps and triceps to lower you to the floor. And then raise you back to a full handstand. It’s not for everyone, especially if you’re heavier in the middle than the upper body.

    The Burpee’s Evil Cousins

    • If you still want more, you can try extreme exercises that entail equipment -- sometimes just modest items such as free weights and jump ropes. For double-unders, jump rope so the rope passes under your feet twice for each jump -- the lung burn should remind you of the burpee. You can perform thrusters with an unweighted or weighted barbell -- you’ll be going from a squat to a clean to a press in one go. And for improving brute strength, try the farmer’s walk -- load up with at least 100 pounds of dumbbells or kettlebells and see if you can walk across your gym or down the driveway with them. Multiple times. Keep it extreme, even as your lungs and forearms beg for mercy.