The Burpee: Why?
Ever do a burpee? Or tackle a circuit that requires, say, four rounds of 15 burpees? If so, you might want someone to blame for bringing this uniquely punishing movement into the world and to the attention of coaches, trainers, and fitness enthusiasts. So at whom can we shake our sweaty, exhausted fists? Royal H. Burpee. That’s who.
Way back in 1939—years before Jack LaLanne popularized jumping jacks, and decades before Arnold Schwarzenegger began pumping iron—Burpee was working double duty as the executive director of a YMCA in the Bronx, New York, and a Ph.D. candidate in applied physiology at Columbia University Teacher's College. And as part of his doctoral research, Burpee was dedicated to figuring out a simple, fundamental concept: How to determine a person's physical fitness.
So in 1939, he invented a four-count movement that would provide a quick and accurate way to evaluate fitness. Only later would it evolve into the six-count beast we know today. According to his granddaughter, Sheryl Burpee Dluginski, the movement he invented has been known as a squat thrust, a four-count burpee, a front-leaning rest, and a military burpee over time. The original exercise was simple:
Squat down and place both hands on the floor in front of you.
Jump your feet back into plank position.
Jump your feet forward.
Return to standing.
To administer the fitness test, Burpee Dluginksi says that her grandfather took five different heart rate measurements before and after four burpees were performed and came up with an equation that accurately assessed the heart’s efficiency at pumping blood—a good measure of overall fitness. With that, the burpee was born. And the United States Army couldn’t have been more pleased. As hundreds of thousands of men entered the Army to fight in WWII, military leaders realized they needed a way to figure out just how physically fit those men were. In late 1941 and 1942, Army experts settled on ten exercises, one of which was to see how many burpees a soldier could do in 20 seconds.
According to Burpee Dluginski, her grandfather didn’t like how burpees came to be used. He believed that high reps of the movement could be bad for knees or dangerous to the back, especially for anyone who lacked core strength. But (un)fortunately, it stuck! Not only is the burpee here to stay, it’s brought along even more challenging friends—variations like burpee box jumps, the dumbbell burpee, burpee pull-ups, and countless other varieties.
Nowadays, we know the burpee as a six-count bodyweight movement. That is, a single exercise that requires the athlete to move through six different positions as quickly as possible. Though movement standards vary from gym-to-gym and trainer-to-trainer, the burpee most of us know and love (to hate) is most commonly performed like this:
Bend over or squat down and place both hands on the floor in front of you, just outside of your feet.
Jump both feet back into plank position.
Drop to a push-up (your chest should touch the floor).
Push up to return to plank position.
Jump feet back in toward hands.
Explosively jump up into the air, reaching arms straight overhead.
According to an article in Men’s Journal, “Burpees shred fat, build endurance, and works your entire body so hard that exhausted athletes have been known to stop mid-burpee workout and, huffing and puffing, use what little breath they can muster to curse profusely. Like pushups and jumping jacks, the humble bodyweight exercise can be done virtually anywhere, in any interval, with absolutely no equipment necessary except a functioning cardiovascular system and a strong stomach.” Couldn’t have said it better myself!
What we don’t know, however, is who invented the “birthday burpee,” the cruel celebration in which the birthday person has to perform the number of burpees of the age they’re turning. Seriously…why? Unlike Royal H. Burpee, a man whose contributions to the art and science of human fitness should forever earn his name a place in the pantheon of American awesomeness, the guy who invented the “birthday burpee” is just insane! I mean, I’m turning 53! I can’t do 53 burpees!
Turns out I can. And the truth is, after I slowly (VERY slowly) knocked them out, I felt gratified. I felt strong. I felt 43! So the next time you’re burpee-ing, just keep in mind that even though you’re struggling, and going against Dr. Burpee’s orders, you’re not suffering alone!
If you want to train for your birthday burpees, click the button below. The Success Studio personal trainers would love to show you how to do a proper six-count burpee, build up endurance, and help you to achieve your personal best! And to anyone who knows how or why the birthday burpee came to be, let us know in the comments below!