Burpee: Excellent Whole-Part Training

The Seals trusted it. Weightlifters and Spartan Race competitors practiced it hundreds of times. Even the Hall of Fame player Jerry Rice would use it like chilli sauce in his trainings.

Burpee is a combination of fast movements, which first appeared in military fitness tests in the 1940s and has been praised by many non-scientists. Some say it's the best general movement an individual can do, building upper body strength, improving endurance, and losing fat. But does the research support this argument?

Steve Bingley, an exercise physiologist, says there are not many studies comparing Burpee with other high-intensity exercises. There have been experiments to study the average number of Burpee done by athletes, and how Burpee improve metabolic rate better than rope-skipping. In addition, there is no scientific basis for this so-called perfect exercise. Mr. Bingley said: "At the moment we are doing Burpee because it is very tiring and employs a lot of muscles."

Bingley said there is no standard Burpee, which makes it more difficult to study. Over the past 80 years, there have been countless variations of Burpee, including some that omit push-ups or add superman jumps to make Burpee more difficult. While this makes it more appealing to fitness enthusiasts, it results in all sorts of consequences. 

Still, Bingley is a supporter of Burpee. "If you keep doing Burpee, it can improve your mobility, flexibility, cardiovascular health, and upper and lower body strength," he says, "and merely needs the smallest amount of equipment, space, and guidance." But what makes Burpee so painful but effective? Bingley has been studying the problem for four years. In 2019, he carried out a study comparing the maximum oxygen uptake and muscle fatigue of two kinds of training carefully designed for the Australian Olympic boxing team. After a series of strength tests on 24 participants, the researchers concluded that Burpee were more strenuous than shuttle run, with upper body muscles nearly twice as tired.

This is not to say that Burpee is superhuman training. Corliss Fingers, strength-and-fitness coach at Bethune Cookman University, says, "For an ordinary person who wants to wear that college mini-skirt, it is true that Burpee may accelerate his heartbeat." With nearly 30 years of actual combat experience, she has trained athletes in more than 20 sports, but has yet to find a one-size-fits-all all-round training." If a college athlete wants to stay in shape after a muscle injury, I would instruct them into the pool because there's less impact. I don't want them to do 20 minutes of Burpee or two minutes of plank support, "says Fingers.