Looking for a heart-pumping, sweat-inducing, full-body exercise that will tone you from the inside out? The notorious burpee is an all-in-one, time-effective exercise that boosts cardiorespiratory health, lowers blood pressure, and challenges the entire body. Because burpees are simple, versatile, and deviously effective, they're a fantastic addition to almost any workout regimen. If you're not doing them already, you'll definitely want to begin incorporating burpees into your workouts to begin reaping their bevy of health-promoting benefits.
What is a burpee?
The humble burpee is a revered staple in gym and fitness communities--- and, for good reason. You'd be hard-pressed to find a better overall, full-body exercise than the burpee. But, before exploring all it has to offer, what exactly is a burpee, anyway?
If you married a squat-jump with a push-up, the resulting, combined exercise would be a burpee. It's a calisthenics movement, which just means that the resistance for the exercise comes from your own bodyweight. In other words, burpees, like push-ups, require no special equipment. So, once you learn the proper form, they can be performed anywhere, anytime. Calisthenics exercises, like burpees, are great at helping to establish, and cement, the mind-body connection. The result is better body awareness. And, because calisthenics exercises are generally modifiable, they may be safely performed by anyone at any level of fitness. This all translates to a more mindful workout with a reduced risk of injury.
Burpee: the expedient, adaptable workhorse
Not everyone has half an hour to devote to the elliptical or Stairmaster. Burpees are a godsend for those who value concise, effective workouts. As a time-efficient, multi-faceted exercise, burpees deliver. A standalone HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) session consisting only of burpees will incinerate calories, turbocharge the lungs, and have you melting on the gym floor. And, while burpees are happy to headline the show, they can also be strategically used as a cardiovascular complement to your current weight-training program. Perform a round of burpees in between sets of lunges or pullups to keep your heart rate stoked, and your metabolism raging.
A full-body blast
It's easy to fawn over the burpee's ability to invigorate working heart and lung capacity, but the improvements to muscle strength and tone offered by the burpee must not be overlooked either. Burpees effectively target several major muscle groups: pecs, lats, abdominals, hip flexors, glutes, calves, delts--the economical burpee hits them all. And, because burpees are infinitely customizable (think box-jump burpees, weighted burpees, low-impact burpees, etc.) you can tailor them to your specific fitness goals to optimize your routine.
Conclusion
A great workout doesn't need to be complicated to achieve great results. The burpee is a premier example of an exercise which guarantees a fantastic return on your investment of time and energy spent in the gym. With its combined contributions to muscle composition and improved cardiovascular markers, the burpee, unquestionably, deserves a place in your next workout.
