Burpees: How to Do Them, Muscles Worked and Benefits

The burpee is a full-body bodyweight exercise that takes you from standing, down to the floor, and back up into a jump in one flowing movement. It is one of the most efficient conditioning exercises there is, working nearly every major muscle group while driving your heart rate through the roof, and it needs no equipment and barely any space. That efficiency is why burpees turn up in bootcamps, home workouts, CrossFit and boxing conditioning everywhere, and also why so many people dread them. Here is how to do a burpee properly, the muscles it works, the benefits, and how to scale it to your level.

How to do a burpee

You need nothing but a small patch of floor. Learn the movement slowly before you chase speed.

1. Stand tall. Start standing with your feet about shoulder-width apart and your arms by your sides.
2. Squat and plant. Push your hips back, bend your knees and place both hands on the floor just in front of your feet, shoulder-width apart.
3. Jump back to a plank. Jump or step both feet back so your body forms a straight line from head to heels, as in the top of a press up. Keep your core braced so your hips do not sag.
4. Press up (optional). Lower your chest to the floor and push back up. Leave this out while you are learning, or keep it in for a tougher rep.
5. Jump the feet in. Jump or step both feet back up towards your hands, landing in a low squat with your chest up.
6. Jump up. Drive through your feet and jump straight up, reaching your arms overhead. Land softly with bent knees, absorb the impact, and go straight into the next rep.

Muscles worked

The burpee is a genuine full-body movement, which is what makes it so demanding.

• Quads, glutes and calves. The squat, the jump back, the jump in and the jump up all load your legs and hips, making burpees a serious lower-body effort as well as a cardio one.
• Chest, shoulders and triceps. The plank and the optional press up work your upper-body pushing muscles, especially if you keep the press up in every rep.
• Core. Your abs and lower back brace hard to hold the plank position and to keep your torso stable as you move explosively between positions.
• Heart and lungs. Above the muscles, the burpee is a cardiovascular exercise. It raises your heart rate fast and keeps it high, which trains your aerobic and anaerobic systems at once.

Because it hits so much at once, the burpee is a favourite for the strength side of conditioning circuits. Pair it with a skipping rope or an air bike for a brutal, low-cost home cardio session.

Benefits

• It builds cardio fitness fast. Whole-body high-intensity work like burpees improves your aerobic capacity efficiently. A study of functional HIIT, which included burpees, found it improved VO2max to a similar degree as running intervals despite lower cardiovascular strain (functional versus running low-volume HIIT).
• It trains strength and conditioning together. Few exercises work your legs, chest, shoulders and core while also spiking your heart rate, so burpees give you a lot of training in a little time.
• It burns plenty of energy. The full-body, high-intensity nature makes burpees energy-hungry, which supports fat loss alongside a sensible diet.
• It needs no kit and little space. A couple of square metres of floor is all you need, which makes burpees ideal for home training and travel.
• It supports heart health. Regular activity that gets you out of breath is good for your heart and circulation. The British Heart Foundation notes that staying active is vital for your heart health, and the NHS recommends adults do muscle-strengthening and regular aerobic activity each week as part of its physical activity guidelines.

Common mistakes

Sagging in the plank. Letting your hips drop when your feet shoot back puts strain on your lower back and wastes the core work. Brace your abs and keep a straight line from head to heels.

Landing heavy. Stamping down from the jump jars your knees, ankles and back. Land quietly on soft, bent knees and absorb the impact.

Rounding the back to reach the floor. Diving down with a rounded spine is hard on your back. Push your hips back and bend your knees to get your hands down, keeping your chest up.

Going too fast, too soon. Chasing speed before you own the movement is how form falls apart and niggles start. Build clean, controlled reps first, then add pace.

Collapsing wrists or shoulders. If your wrists or shoulders complain, place your hands on a low box or dumbbells to raise them, and keep your shoulders set rather than shrugged.

Make it easier or harder

Scale the burpee so it challenges you without wrecking your form.

• Easier: step-back burpee. Step your feet back and in one at a time instead of jumping, and leave out the press up and the final jump. This keeps the pattern with far less impact.
• Easier: elevated hands. Place your hands on a bench, sturdy chair or plyo box so you have less distance to travel and less load on your upper body.
• Harder: add the press up. Include a full press up on every rep for more upper-body work.
• Harder: burpee with a tuck or box jump. Finish with a higher jump, a tuck jump, or a jump onto a plyo box for extra power demand.
• Harder: burpee with a target. Add a pull up at the top, or hold a pair of light dumbbells for the press up portion, to raise the strength element.

Beginners should spend a couple of weeks on the step-back version before attempting full burpees. There is no shame in scaling, and clean reps progress you far faster than sloppy ones.

How many burpees to do

A simple approach that works for most people:

• Conditioning finisher: 3 to 5 sets of 8 to 15 burpees at the end of a workout, resting 45 to 60 seconds, two or three times a week.
• Intervals: 30 seconds of burpees followed by 30 seconds rest, for 6 to 10 rounds, as a short standalone session.
• Beginner start: 3 sets of 5 step-back burpees, building the numbers up slowly over a few weeks.

Progress by adding reps, adding the press up and jump, or shortening your rest, not by sacrificing form. When burpees feel easy, they are usually your most valuable minutes of cardio in the whole session.

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