Ah!! The 6 count Burpee.

I want to say that again. AHH! The 6 count Burpee. I feel more fit just saying it.

If you have already watched Fusion Fitness TV episode 4, you may have gotten an inkling that there are many ways to develop your own Burpee. Once again though. Why should you/would you want to ever include Burpees in your busy life?

1- You build strength, stamina, cardiovascular, flexibility/mobility, agility and coordination all in the same exercise.

2- Burpees are very economical within your busy schedule. You get a lot of bang for your buck in a short amount of time.

3- When you are doing the above body fat takes a holiday. A “shape”  comes back to you. A very good leaner-upper. That means smaller belts, smaller dresses and pants, readjusting your seat belt to the smaller size, getting curves back again—— AND NO BLASTED TREADMILL OR OTHER BORING MACHINE.

4- Once you have improved at an exercise like Burpees you’ll gain some confidence in yourself. You have done something difficult. Proud of your achievement. What’s can I do next? You ask your self.

Once you make them a part of your exercise routine you will probably think of more reasons. However, let’s remember. You don’t HAVE TO start with full blown 6 counts. As you saw in the episode there are steps to take and variations to do.

First you can use a support such as a sturdy box or even a chair. Put your hands on the support and go to town. You can leave the jump back out and walk back. You can leave your push up out and just walk or jump back. You can walk forward and leave that jump out too. You can jump one walk the other. You can simply stand up or jump up.

A quick word about jumping into the air. Its not usually the jump up that’s the problem. Its the landing. Make sure you land with soft feet. Listen to the sound of your feet. If they hit the ground loudly you have a crummy landing and are asking for problems. Once your feet the ground you have two choices. You can bend your knees and sit straight back into your squat. All in one motion OR you can land softly with bent knees, take a split second and then lower down into your squat for the next Burpee.

You can also do all these variations with your hands on the floor in the way you saw Jen doing them. Any way is fine. Start where you can handle it. NOT where you can’t handle it. How fast you do them has a bog impact on this. At first take them slower. Get the rhythm down. Then (and this is important) GO AS FAST AS YOU CAN. NOT AS FAST AS YOU CAN”T. Got it? Good.

Another variation is the deep knee bend version. This one also has it pros and cons. It can be harder on your knees since they bend much further, but it can make Burpees more doable for those that have lots of trouble with the flat foot version. You may feel this version more in the front of your thighs too so if you want to alternate these with the flat foot version then be my guest. To learn the deep knee bend watch episode 4. Experiment with where your feet and knees feel most comfortable. You may feel better with your feet angled out (but not too far) to the sides. OR better with your feet pointing straight ahead. Any way you choose to do it you MUST BE SURE to keep your knees in line with your toes. No exceptions. This protects your knees. Don’t argue. Just do it.

Practice deep knee bends for at least 2 weeks before you try incorporating it into your Burpee. As you lower towards the ground, lift your heels up so you are up on the balls of your feet. Put your arms out in front of you for balance. Keep your back straight and as vertical as possible. Think of lowering straight down not forward. Think of sitting back a bit. A big mistake is to fall into the deep knee bend with out any control. This puts a lot of stress on your knees. Instead….use your strength to PULL DOWN. Actually pull yourself down. Use the muscles in the front of your hips to help with this.

As you come back up use your hamstrings (muscles at the back of your thighs) and your glutes (your butt muscles) to squeeze back up. If you can’t get this to happen try putting your hands on the backs of your thighs, once you are at the bottom, and make your muscles harden as you come back up. Touching the muscles helps bring awareness to them. You will even be able to feel them harden as they work. When you reach the top return to the flat foot position. That is one rep. Work up to where you can do 50 of these. 100 is even better. Then incorporate it into your full Burpee. Just do your Burpee the same way except your do deep knee squat instead of the flat footed one. This version won’t make your hips as flexible, but it is still a very good way to do your Burpees.

The deep knee bend version you see in episode 4, done with a ball squeeze, is very good to help with weak knees and thighs. Use something soft that keeps your knees at about hip width and squeeze it with your thighs. Don’t let up at any time, and do those deep knee bends. Don’t worry…you will soon start feeling it! Lower only as deeply as you can manage, but the more you practice the deeper you will be able to go. If the fronts of your knees feel  stressed…then don’t go as deep! Its very simple to tweak the exercise at any stage of fitness.

If you peruse the web you will find many, many Burpee videos. Some are good, some are crap. You’ll see young studs doing tremendously difficult variations too. Don’t worry about all that stuff. Stay with the basics and learn it real good. Most people can do some version of a Burpee. Just get started.My advice would be to start with sets of 10. Recover for as long as you need between the sets. As you improve add sets. Add as many as 5 sets. When you have improved do sets of twenty but do only 2-3 sets. When that has improved work up to 5 sets again. When you are able to do that go back to 3-5 sets of ten but time your recoveries. Start w/ 30 seconds and work your way down to 10 seconds. By this time you should be noticing a very big difference in the way you look and feel. Good luck to everyone. I also want to thank some of my teachers especially Steve Maxwell. He knows this stuff better than anyone.

It’s been fun breaking this exercise down and now you have it. Practice the parts. Practice 2 of the parts strung together. Then practice the whole thing. You will be amazed at how quickly you will feel winded. That’s good! Your fitness will take a leap upwards and after a while you will look a bit trimmer and firmer. Seriously. I really mean it!

Best,

Robert